Toddler Traveling Tips

anyone with young kids knows that leaving the house for any purpose, whether it be a trip to costco or grandmas house, can be challenging... the thought of going on a long vacation with toddlers may not even seem like an option for many. nanci and i always get asked for tips on traveling with kids, so i thought i would consolidate everything in a blog post and not have to repeat myself ten more times! we were lucky to have several friends that gave us great tips. if you are considering a vacation with your little one(s), here are a few things nanci and i have learned from friends, as well as from our own experiences. we have gone quite a few places (click HERE to see our posts about travel), and each one has been a learning experience for us. if you have any other tips, please add them to the comments section of this post so future readers can benefit from them as well!


FLIGHTS

people always ask me what time of day i usually book our flights when we have the kids. the answer is simple... i book whatever is the CHEAPEST! we have done morning flights, red eye flights, and mid day flights... and i cant say any time is better than the other. a number of factors are involved that makes this a very complex question. how long is the flight? how old is the child? will she be on your lap or in her own seat? and to make matters worse, even if you start to figure things out, children change as they age (esp when moving from being a lap infant to having her own seat). then when you have the second kid, everything goes to hell because between the older and the younger kid, who knows how each will tolerate the flight (excited to travel with your kids yet?) weve had great flights, and flights that were hell. i think its really a crap shoot, so we just book whatever is cheap and roll with it. when you go somewhere with a big time change, your sleeping patterns are gonna get jacked up regardless. i would definitely suggest easing yourself into travel... start with some shorter flights, then gradually move on to longer ones. with aiden, we flew to vegas, then san francisco, then seattle, then paris. comfort is key. our last flight was a redeye and we found that although a pillow is really big, it made aiden sleep the whole 11hr flight and was totally worth it. if your kid has a favorite blanket, etc, make sure to bring that. im not gonna lie, the flights can be TOUGH, but there are things that you can do prepare. read on...

1/4/15 UPDATE - Now that or kids are up most of the day with just 1 nap... daytime travel is definitely easiest. Night time travel is a bit risky... if they sleep the whole flight its awesome... but if they cant sleep its hell. But depending on where you are going... when you travel in the day you are wasting that day. When you travel at night you arent wasting any time because youre sleeping anyways. So there is tradeoff.


PACKING

obviously, you want to pack light as possible. for longer trips, you may want to do some laundry to minimize how much clothes you have to bring. make sure to research if your hotel(s) have laundry facilities. in fiji our hotel only had a laundry service for like $3 per item... we werent about to pay $3 for every onesie that ava peed/pood/threw up! if you wont have laundry facilities and there are no easily accessible laundromats, pack some of THESE. pack a good amount of diapers, but not too many because most places have diapers easily available... although this may differ based on location so do some homework. if youre planning on swimming, swimmer diapers are not always as available so pack a lot of those.

since we started traveling with kids, we invested in some hiking backpacks... small enough to carry on but large enough to fit a ton of clothes. when you have kids the backpacks are a HUGE help because you have both hands free to carry kids, strollers, etc. nanci and i used to carryon all of our luggage on the flights, even on our first trip to europe with aiden (10 days), just because we were so afraid of getting our luggage lost. but its been a huge pain to squeeze on the flight with so many bags AND kids. so what we do now is, we pack one backpack with 2 days worth of clothes for the whole family to carry on, and the rest of our luggage we check in. that way if our bags get lost, we are good for 2 days until our luggage is retrieved. on the way home, we check everything in (except a diaper bag of course). also remember that most airlines even allow lap infants to have their own carryon allowances.


ENTERTAINMENT

entertainment is definitely important. if the kid sleeps on the flight, great. but if shes awake, shes not gonna sit still for a 5hr flight without something to occupy her attention. we definitely try to limit our kids use of the iPad at home, but while traveling they are life savers! that much entertainment in such a small package is invaluable. be sure to bring headphones for them (fyi earbuds dont work well in small ears). some physical toys are also a good idea, but of course try to find small light toys (one flight nanci brought three BIG HEAVY books on the flight, i almost strangled her by the end of the trip for making us lug them the whole time). another important tip if you bring toys, bring NEW toys. if you bring the same old toys shes been playing with for months it wont hold their interest very long. we usually get these little sticker/crayon/coloring book packs in the dollar section at target.


SNACKS

bring some of their favorite snacks along for takeoff. when the pressure gets their ears plugged, the chewing and swallowing will help. also, you normally cant bring large amounts of liquids through security, but if you have a child you can actually bring water bottles, milk, etc through they just have to test them in security. the snacks and drinks will help when the kids get hungry/thirsty on the flight, kids dont usually have the patience to wait for the flight crew to get something for you


BENADRYL?

weve heard many parents give their kids benadryl for long flights. we pack some, but have never used it. i have heard that if you are planning on using some, to test it on the child beforehand to see how they react to it.


PASSPORTS

keep in mind that a child of any age (even if under 2 and flying free) needs a passport to leave the country. we traveled with ava at 4 months old, and had to jump through hoops to get her passport since she didnt have a birth certificate of social security number yet.


STROLLER

make sure to bring a comfortable stroller, one that the kid can easily sleep in. this allows you to still do all of your sightseeing, even when the kid is knocked out from jetlag. most people suggest small, light umbrella strollers. we didnt do this because our umbrella stroller doesnt recline and only good for short uses, def not comfortable enough to sleep in for long periods. with aiden we sucked it up and brought our big BOB stroller. it is big and heavy, but was totally worth it because since it is our everyday stroller, we knew aiden could sleep easily in it. an added bonus was since the bob is an offroad stroller, it was able to get around all of the crazy european cobblestone streets with EASE. mclaren makes some nice, lightweight strollers that recline, but they are pricey and we didnt want to buy a new stroller JUST for travel. we have enough strollers!

4/14/15 Update - we just got back from 2 weeks in japan. going in, we knew kyoto/tokyo was NOT stroller friendly. you definitely need a small, light weight umbrella stroller. everything in japan is TINY and CROWDED (trains, buses, restaurants, etc etc). we actually bought a stroller just for this trip... the uppababy g-lite and i absolutely loved it. we knew a double stroller would be tough, so we opted for two separate umbrella strollers. we got the uppababy for aiden because it was big enough to fit him, and ava just used our $20 toysrus umbrella stroller. most of the locals in japan didnt use strollers at all. most kids we saw that could walk... walked. and smaller kids were all in a baby carrier (ergo baby, etc). but we knew aiden needed a stroller, if he had to walk the whole trip it would have cut our ability to do stuff in half. we also didnt want to have ava strapped to us for 2 weeks... plus although she loved the ergo when she was smaller, she despises it now. so 2 umbrellas worked out great.


TRANSPORTATION ABROAD

with our first few travels, we always went to big cities with good mass transit systems. if you plan to use mass transit, the hardest part will be when you first arrive and leave, since you will have ALL of your luggage with you. subways are usually pretty roomy (as long as its not rush hour), but buses can definitely be a challenge with all that stuff, they are small and get crowded fast, and there are only 2 ways in/out! consider paying a little extra for shuttle service when you have all of your bags with you. now that we have 2 kids, i dont think i would take a bus with all our luggage, shuttle is our only option. but for daily activities mass transit is great, and has prevented the need for us to bring a carseat on many trips. a carseat can be a huge pain, my friend was close to ditching his carseat mid vacation because he was tired of lugging it around. if you are going somewhere where you are planning to rent a car and mainly drive to get around, you should probably bring your own carseat. rental carseats can be gross (how many kids have peed/pood on them?), and potentially unsafe (expired or abused?). but in big cities with mass transit, you probably dont need it. keep in mind that although not necessarily safe, most taxi cabs (even in europe, probably even in the us) will allow you to take your child in their cab without a carseat. again, not safe and should be avoided, but when we got stuck at the eiffel tower late at night and the trains had stopped running, it was our only option (my mom is probably reading this, sorry mom!)


HOTELS

i hate spending a lot of money on nice hotels, especially since we are out all day and only use it for sleep. but since adding kids to our trips, we definitely had to start spending a little extra for nicer, cleaner hotels.


1/5/2015 UPDATE - LOCATION CHANGES

Location changes... minimize them!!! In Fiji we stayed 2 weeks, and moved to a different island one time, halfway through. Anytime you gotta pack up all your crap and move it all, its a nightmare. So try to minimize the number of different hotel stays as much as possible.


COMFORT

if i havent stressed it enough, comfort is key! from the pillow on the flight, to the stroller, if your kid is isnt comfortable, she will be miserable. and guess what that means? you will be miserable too! so do whatever it takes to make the kid happy! if youre going somewhere tropical, dont skimp on sunblock. i dont even want to think about being on vacation with a kid with sunburn!


SAFETY

since having kids, we have definitely stuck to more developed countries and avoid all of the 3rd world places... for several reasons. with kids, we didnt ever want to have to worry about the water they are drinking, or the food they are eating containing bacteria that could potentially get them sick. we have been lucky so far, but one of my worst fears is having a sick kid on vacation and wasting any of our precious (end expensive) vacation days. my friend brought his son to egypt, and the whole family ended up getting sick from food, ironically, from one of the nicest restaurants they went to. after that they decided to hold off on 3rd world countries until the kids are older. we did do fiji, which is a 3rd world country, but not without tons of research on sanitation and safety. its really just all well off australian and new zealanders that go there, fiji to them is like hawaii to us. of course less developed countries can also be more dangerous in terms of crime too. when they have so little and they know you have so much, things can happen. but keep in mind that anywhere you are, mexico, europe, new york, even here in downtown los angeles, you have to be mindful of where you are and avoid unsafe places.


ITINERARIES

be realistic with your itineraries. kids definitely slow you down. they get hungry and need to eat. they crap themselves and need diaper changes. they throw tantrums. you cant really reason with a 2 year old. so stay flexible. we did europe twice with aiden, and when ava came along we KNEW europe would be way too hectic and we wouldnt get anything done. thats why we chose fiji for our last trip. all we really did was go to the beach or pool every day. if we took an extra hour getting our of the hotel, not a huge deal.


TRAVELING WITH OTHER FAMILIES

sounds like a lot of fun, and it is. but keep in mind everyone travels differently, so make sure everyone is on the same page. if you are not, plan to spend time together and also time apart. when you add multiple families, with multiple kids... the feeding, diaper changing, and tantrum stops between all of them may make it difficult to get anything done. we been lucky that the kids aiden has traveled with (olivia and nikhil) are seasoned pros! but i have heard many stories about less successful trips.


this madness was in fiji, transferring from denarau island to plantation island. double stroller is also a double backpack holder!

nanci and i thought that we needed to get all of our traveling done before kids. but after seeing our friends travel to awesome places with their kids, it gave us the courage to try it ourselves. we did work our way up, starting with small warmup trips and eventually working on to bigger ones, and eventually adding another kid to our travels. each trip has been a learning experience. i would encourage other people to give it a try, just be prepared and do your research. its not easy, and its not for everyone. expect breakdowns and tantrums! regardless, nanci and i have found travel with our kids very rewarding and really gives us a sense of togetherness and accomplishment. these adventures have really made us stronger as a family... after going across the world with a 2yr old and a 4mo old, i feel like we can do anything as long as we stick together and work as a team. as you can tell from this blog, i document our travels in detail so they have something to look back on, i want them to know exactly what each place was like when they are older. you should do the same! (its time consuming though)

lastly, i will say that everyone has different views on parenting and what is right or wrong. expect people to criticize and pass judgement. both nanci and i werent raised in families that had the means to travel much, and like most parents we want to give our kids the things that we were not able to have. the world has a lot to offer, so we want our kids to experience it. but again, its not for everyone. do what you feel is right for your family.

again, if you have any tips of your own, please add them to the comments section below so others can benefit from them, thanks for reading and safe travels!

ps for the more adventurous travelers, be sure to check out my friend aaron's blog, who has currently been traveling around the world for a year. it is packed with great info!