Mission London: A Scavenger Hunt Adventure (Travel Guide For Kids)

We just used this on a trip to London. Mostly for my 6 year old, but 4 year old got in on the action, too. Helped with kids getting burned out on tours that they had their own special missions and things to look for. Would recommend for anyone traveling with that age or older. I enjoyed it, myself!

This is a delightful children’s adventure book that the whole family can enjoy when in London. It will keep your child (or children) engaged with a thrilling challenge to see if they have what it takes to become a spy. But adults will likely have just as much fun playing along.The individual missions in the book are clearly marked and laid out with gorgeous photographs and artwork, befitting the legendary landmarks you will likely explore while on vacation. Kids tasked with completing their missions will find themselves unwittingly learning as much as you about London’s history, culture, art, politics, geography… there’s quite a broad spectrum of education crammed within these pages, and none of it comes off as such. It all comes off as wicked fun. If schools back home were set up this way, I imagine kids would learn a lot more. It’s like teaching engineering and design by having a class build a hang glider then going out and flying one. This sexy appeal to learning makes the kids’ taking in everything about their new world with wide eyed wonder a foregone conclusion. And by interlacing the Mission London playbook with your travels you might find the added bonus that the kids will remember the trip well into adulthood; something they might not otherwise do without the anchor points provided in the text.Highly recommended for kids and parents alike. Don’t forget to load up your cell phone or tablet with this ebook before boarding the plane!

Our 5 and 10 year old loved following the clues in sites that might otherwise bore little ones. My 5 year old was more into than the 10 year old, but they both participated. In some of the larger sites, like the British Museum, I wish there were room numbers listed or items were in location order because it was hard to find items at times, but that’s a minor challenge to be aware of. Buy this book, it’s a true gift on a trip to London!

Recently traveled to London with twin 9-year-olds and an 11-year-old. They loved this book— shared it and worked collaboratively to earn points. I ended up inventing ”bonus points” for side trips that weren’t included, but all major sites are in here. Highly recommend for younger travelers.

We had fun with this book in London. My 8-year-old son enjoyed reading over it before our trip, and I think it helped him to have a good amount of background knowledge and expectations for what we would be seeing. It was also great to keep him busy while we were stuck waiting in lines, telling him to read up about the place before we got inside. My husband might have enjoyed checking things off inside the book even more than my son did. In the end, we didn't always follow through on looking for everything mentioned in the book or going to all of those places, but it was the perfect kid-friendly way to prepare for our trip and a good thing to have to pull out when we had a slow moment. Also, it is light-weight enough to carry around in a day pack without any trouble.

We ended up not going into many of the attractions featured in this book because of the quick nature of our trip. I did give this book to my 12 and 15 year olds in the National Gallery, and they enjoyed searching for the items there, so I think if we had had time to explore the other major attractions, they would have completed all of the "missions." The book is really aimed at ages 8-12, though. It's a great way to keep pre-teens and teens interested in the historical sites.

Our whole family enjoys the Mission books when we travel. It teaches us all new things, gives us things to really look for instead of just passing over some items and places, and we make it a contest to see who can get the most points!

I bought two for each of my kids. My 12-year old daughter was somewhat interested and tried to follow it. My 10 year old didn't like the book at all.

Not even a book I didn't like it at all

A great book, we used this on a family vacation. It ended up being our #1 guide to London. It had lots of great info and the kids were really motivated and excited to explore and learn more about the city. Great size, it's not too big, it fits in a bag and is light enough to carry around. My only piece of feedback would be to include a map in future editions. We've used these books for other cities too and will definitely use it again if we go somewhere new.

This is the second book in the series I have read by Catherine Aragon. The first was Mission Washington which was just as engaging. Having been born and brought up in London, I was curious to read the latest excellent guidebook with a spy twist for children to use and accomplish missions when exploring London. It is brilliantly illustrated and helps to bring both the sights and history of London alive. As a child I’d have loved this! The premise is built around sets of missions and scavenger hunts for your children to carry out, with an engaging way of combining London’s tourist attractions with a thrilling challenge. The book sets tasks throughout and if they complete enough of them they can then become a Secret International Agency (SIA) Special Agent. I particularly loved the James Bond connection. I downloaded Mission London to Kindle on my iPad, the graphics are excellent and having shown the book to the younger members of my family they are now demanding a trip to London!

We bought the Florence and Amsterdam versions of this excellent series before as a surprise for our daughter when making trips abroad. These were unexpected successes and worked really well; it made her visits to the Uffizi and the Rijksmuseum, otherwise torturous to young children, a much more exciting and memorable experience and at the same time it didn’t totally emerge her i.e. it left lots of room for interaction. Also in those cases it helped us as parents to plan and schedule our trip.We live in London so we’ll have plenty of opportunity to complete the different parts of the book. The puzzles and setting is generally entertaining and challenging while there is a material educational element as well.Highly recommended to families with young children aged 7 to 11. Although her younger 5-year old brother liked to help out with most of the challenges as well, like finding statues and details in paintings.

My 9 year old son enjoyed it. We got both the mission London and Mission Paris books. Both books got my kids engaged in the activity. We went to many museums and the book made it more fun for them.