What do kids wear in Europe?

You'll be pegged as tourists no matter what you wear. The "ugly American" part will only get tacked on if you behave particularly badly. May as well let the kids dress as they please.

Well, here is what one major Spanish dept. store has in their children's department:

http://www.elcorteingles.es/tiendas/portal/site/ECI/menuitem.bc8eec0dc79934add52ef32515a58a0c/?_atreb_=_otsenre_&ecichannel=El&ecic=1&ecis=225&ecip=2017&ecitt=MTDV

(If you don't read Spanish, google translate should be sufficient to translate the categories of clothes)

It looks much like the American kid's clothes I've seen! But you probably will be pretty clearly tourists of one sort or another no matter what you wear.

Tom is right. You'll never "blend in". Please don't add to your kids' stress of being in a strange place by making them wear strange clothes. Let them wear what they wear at home (I've traveled several times with my child) and - please believe me - no one in Europe cares.

The only place where kids in shorts is going to be a problem is if you want to get into the major duomos/churches in Italy, esp. Rome or Venice, where they apply the no shorts rule to kids. That would be the day to have an option other than shorts.

What Tom said is good, comfort is important. Ugly is as ugly does,, not about clothes.

Kent however pointed out one important exception,, Italy does have the strictest "dress codes" for visiting churchs( Vatican in Rome etc) ,, no bare shoulders ( no tank tops for instance) and no shorts showing knees( capris are fine) .

Agreed. Kids in Europe wear pretty much the same stuff that kids in the states wear.

Thanks everyone! Will be our first trip to Europe and I knew the folks who used this site would have good advice. Happy travels to all!

Just as an aside, I thought it was funny that my son packed his St. Pat's day shirt and his "Trust me, I'm Irish" shirt when we went to Ireland. I explained to him that he's nowhere near as Irish as the kids over there, but he wanted to wear them, anyway.

And from what we've found, most stores over there, if the kids' shirts have writing on them, it's in English. We've tried to find shirts with something written on them in French/German/any other language to take home and can't find any.

Ok Maureen, that IS funny

Message I am getting from everyone is that it doesn't matter what you wear, you'll still be pegged as a tourist. But the important thing is to take a little time to learn the customs of the country you'll be visiting, so that you'll have a better idea of what you should and shouldn't do to be considered rude. So don't be loud, don't be pushy, and don't expect things to be the way they are in your home country. Stores in the States don't have change for Euros, for example, so why would you expect stores in Germany to have change for a US dollar? And if it takes a while to get your meal and check at a restaurant in Paris, don't start complaining about poor service since the meals are leisurely there, not rushed like in the States. Part of the experience is learning new cultures, so relax, slow down, enjoy the differences instead of complaining about them!

For our kids, we shopped the way we shopped for ourselves. Start with clothes we were comfortable wearing - then add the requirement that they're flexible, mix/match and travel well.

Traveling well means fabric that hand washes/hang dries quickly, doesn't show wrinkles (or is okay to wear with wrinkles).

Mix/match means all the tops and bottoms go together so you can create a lot of potential outfits from relatively few clothes.

Flexible means our carry-on includes some choices that can be dressed up (enough for church or a nice restaurant) and also casual choices. Don't bring all dressy or all casual. A polo shirt is an example - wear it with nice pants and you look reasonably well dressed, wear it with shorts and you look very casual.

Kids wear jeans (and adults), but they put their outfits together to look "dressed" rather than look like they tumbled out of bed as many youngsters in the US tend to do.

Seriously, we have never been taken for tourists even when the kids wore their white sneakers and shorts!

Styles change all the time although the kids always look the same wherever you go.

In 2006, the big fashion for teenagers/young adults in Zurich and Venice were Yankee hats and Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. My grandson would have been the hippest kid around

Our college age son went with us last summer to Italy and Switzerland. He just took what he usually wears, including shirts from his university. He kept running into people who either went there at one time, knew someone who went there, or were now students there. He was obviously a tourist, but it was fun.

Cara I think you will have a wonderful time ,, no matter what your family wears. Attitude is 90% of any experience , and I think you have a great one.

PS In Paris you will often have to ask for your bill (l'addition si vous plat) because they think that if they just present to you that they are being rude and trying to rush you out,, whereas here we all tend to think it means they are ignoring us. There are so many small differences, but most can be overcome with a laugh or smile. Have a great trip.

We let the kids wear what they wear here. My friends did laugh when my kids both had on their bright orange and blue Florida Gator sweatshirts in our Istanbul pictures last year! In all our travels, no matter what the kids wear, people in Europe have been extremely friendly...they actually love talking to the kids! As the other posters have said, be polite and respectful and that is how people will judge you, not by what you wear.

When I was in Europe, the kids were on school break. They dressed the same or even worse then we Americans dress. The Europeans know who the Americans are. We are so used to be Americans we know when an immigrant is in our country, same with them. Whn we were in Italy, the waiter automatically gave us englishy menus, They know!