First Birthday Idea: How to Plan an Around the World Party for Kids

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Are you looking for a unique birthday party theme that celebrates the world? Keep scrolling to find how how to play an Around the World birthday party for kids!

This post about an around the world party theme was written by family travel expert Marcie Cheung and contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase something from one of my affiliate links, I may earn a small commission that goes back into maintaining this blog.

Wracking your brain for the perfect first birthday idea for your child? This travel-themed party might be something you’ll be interested in.

Before kids, I was an event planner. Events are big deals to me, and first birthdays are milestone events. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that I started planning my youngest child’s first birthday party while I was still pregnant.

I knew immediately that among all the other birthday party ideas out there, I wanted some sort of global theme to celebrate our love of travel. I mean, his newborn announcements had an aviation theme!

The idea of “Around the World in 80 Days” was my original first birthday idea, but I knew I’d get bogged down in the details. So, that idea morphed into “Happy Birthday from Around the World.”

I was so hyped with this first birthday theme that I immediately went into full planning mode. My first stop to make this birthday party idea a perfect one was Oriental Trading.

Around the World Party Decorations

The idea for this around-the-world first birthday party theme was to focus on our family’s love of traveling the world. It’s a celebration of people and places that we’ve experienced (or hope to experience soon!).

And with themed decor, it’s important to be strategic.

We had limited wall space, so we needed to make the most of it.

One of the coolest items from Oriental Trading is their Jumbo Kids Around the World Cutouts. This served as the focal point for our party.

The kids reminded me a lot of “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland, my youngest son’s favorite ride. And I loved the flags! I used the circular cutouts as table decor.

These items really anchored the “Happy Birthday Around the World” birthday inspiration.

Then, I opted for solid-colored party supplies. I picked a few colors for cups, plates, bowls, cutlery, napkins, and plastic table covers.

My oldest son decorated some Kids Around the World foam shapes to bring the theme together. I also chose Tissue Paper Pom-Pom Decorations to hang from the ceiling.

Finally, I placed these World Travel Posters on all the doors on our main level.

As one last touch of global inspiration, I wrote “Hau`oli La Hanau” which is the Hawaiian translation for “Happy Birthday.”

We were just in Hawaii visiting family and we featured Hawaiian food during the party.

We could have easily written “Happy Birthday” in several languages if we had the wall space. That would have been awesome for our Around the World theme party.

1st Birthday Idea for Food

Feeding your guests is super important! Because so many of our guests had little children, we scheduled our party between nap time, which means it was right at lunch time.

Since we had a large number of guests, we provided substantial food options. We chose Hawaiian food as a nod to our “Happy Birthday from Around the World” theme.

We featured kalbi beef, mochiko chicken, kalua pork, and island fried saimin catered by our favorite local Hawaiian restaurant.

And one of the most important food items at a birthday party is the dessert!

After considering ordering cupcakes, making a cake, or picking up a huge sheet cake, I decided against cake of any sort.

In the past, we’ve had tons of leftover cake that ended up getting thrown away.

So, for this first birthday idea, we opted to feature cookies from around the world instead!

We had French fruit tartlets, Biscoff cookies, Madeleines, and Stroopwafles. Many of them were prepackaged.

Several of our guests grabbed cookies to go and we were able to keep extra cookies to use in lunches and special treats.

Around the World Birthday Theme Goody Bags

I get kind of obsessed about take-home items or party favors. Oriental Trading had a huge assortment of items that would be amazing in a “Happy Birthday from Around the World” goody bag.

We had a ton of kids ages 5 and under at this party, so I decided to do 2 different goody bags for this first birthday idea.

The one for kids ages 3 and up included: “My Passport” Sticker Books, Passport Stampers, Around the World Rubber Duckies, and snacks.

We put all the items in this Kids Around the World Favor Box, which coordinated with the wall cutouts!

Kids loved the boxes, and my 3-year-old has already started toting other toys in his.

We only had a few really young kids, so I modified the one for kids under 3 years old to include: Around the World Rubber Duckies and extra snacks.

My son and I put in Up & Away Cellophane Bags. We had a few of our littlest guests gleefully clutch them on their way out the door.

We had extra “My Passport” Sticker Books, so I added them to the Goody Bag table display so parents could look through them.

At the party, my husband and I encouraged the kids to take extras home with them. We saved some to use on future airplane flights with our kids.

First Birthday Idea for Your Birthday Baby

If this first birthday idea party theme doesn’t suit you, Oriental Trading actually has a whole section of their site dedicated to 1st Birthday Party Ideas. You can go for a dinosaur first birthday party, mermaid birthday party, and other creative birthday party themes.

No matter which of these first birthday party ideas you choose, surviving your first year with a baby is worth celebrating!

Plus, there are tons of Around the World party ideas to suit any occasion! Travel-themed party ideas are always fun!

Oriental Trading provided me with some of my decorations. All opinions are my own.

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