 Travel Before and After Kids If you traveled extensively before having kids and have continued to travel as a family, you know that traveling with kids - whether babies, young kids, pre-teens, or teens - presents its own challenges, but also leads to some of the biggest rewards. Read more about how travel changes before and after you have kids.LuggageBefore kids, we almost never checked luggage, and we often flew with only an under-the-seat personal item. Now, those days are long gone. When traveling with small babies, you need the diaper bag with diapering, clothing, and feeding essentials, a car seat, a stroller, personal items and/or carry-ons with toys and other distractions, and at least one checked bag for your own items. Let's face it: babies need lots of stuff. As those babies turn into little kids, you need pull-ups, matchbox cars (or other small toys), their favorite stuffy, a blankie, and extra changes of clothes because they will inevitably spill milk or something equally smelly on their clothes at some point during the trip. Kids' stuff, though small, takes up a lot of space. And that's okay. We budget for our luggage and take advantage of gate checking the stroller. PlanningBefore kids, it's fairly easy to take spontaneous weekend getaways and trips during the school year in off-peak seasons. After kids, planning a getaway generally takes more advance notice and working around school holidays and sport schedules, especially once they are in high school. Planning also involves more thought as to where you will go, how you get there, what to take, where you will stay, and what you will do while you are there. Planning involves taking into account some downtimes for nap time or just a quiet time to rest and recharge. It requires thought as to how to heat up your bagged breast milk or formula for your infant, how many fruit and yogurt pouches you can and need to take, what snacks are TSA-approved, and so much more. It means planning more time to get through airport security so that you can have that water you need for the formula or the milk you need for your kid to drink checked separately or for your stroller to be taken completely apart, sent through the x-ray machine, and reassembled afterward. On planning, Sarah of The Walkers Abroad has this fantastic advice: "For days out, I generally attempt a 60-40 approach when planning. 60% focused on something adult-centric that will probably be educational while still enjoyable. Think touring a castle, visiting a museum, or hiking. Then 40% on something you absolutely know they will enjoy like a park, an ice cream, or a petting zoo. I believe it teaches kids that there is value in doing things they might not choose initially, and that those things can be super fun as well. Part of traveling is expanding horizons and doing new things and learning! As parents, it also ensures you’re doing activities that you’ll also enjoy and find worthwhile too." It's so important to involve your older kids in the planning process. Allowing them to have a say in your travel destination and your hotel room or B&B, as well as their top one or two must-do activities or must-see sites will allow your trip to go more smoothly, as they will feel more invested in the vacation and will feel like their voices have been heard. FlexibilityThough it is important to plan, plan, plan when it comes to traveling with kids, it is equally important to be flexible and allow for schedule changes. Your toddler may refuse his nap and require an earlier bedtime. Jet lag may absolutely wipe out your infant. The activity you had planned for the morning may get rained out, so you will need to call an audible for a backup activity. The restaurant you had planned to eat at may have a one-hour wait. With or without kids, being flexible and having the ability to make other arrangements on the fly is part of travel, but when you travel with kids, the variables are exponentially increased. Take a breath, count to ten, then hop on Google.  Travel Before and After Kids DestinationsPlanning a kid-friendly vacation means researching a family-friendly destination your whole family will enjoy. Is the area safe? Is it clean? Are there kid-friendly activities? I have joined Facebook groups and read oodles of blog posts on Pinterest in order to find kid-friendly destinations that my son will enjoy. I also know a few places that I love and will eventually take him to, but not till he's older. We loved Yellowstone and can't wait to get back, but with so many potentially dangerous cliffs, animals, and hot springs, it's not somewhere we will take him during his toddler phase. I also plan to take him on some multi-day walks once he's old enough to keep up. Road TripsThough much changes when you have kids when it comes to air travel, road trips also require some changes. We have found that getting an early start so that the kiddo can go back to sleep for a bit as soon as we get on the road helps. It's also a good idea to take more frequent breaks to get out of the car, stretch, run around, have a snack, and either change diapers or use the potty. AccommodationsHostels and small, cheap hotel rooms are in the rear-view mirror now that we have a child. Our accommodations generally involve, at the very least, a mini fridge, though we love finding hotels and AirBnBs with full kitchens. We always make sure we have a king-sized bed, because Emmett inevitably ends up in bed with us at some point each night. And we try to have a room with a separate living area so that we can put his cot there and we can still watch TV in our bed without disturbing him. Kid-friendly amenities, like a pool, a tub in the room, and free snacks (like popcorn!) are icing on the cake when booking our accommodations. Sarah of The Walkers Abroad had this to say about accommodations: "I’m the crazy person who has always enjoyed searching AirBnB for fun or crazy accommodations for traveling. As a couple, we've stayed in fun places like in a third floor flat in Amsterdam, climbing up one of the most narrow stairways I’ve ever been on, a shepherding hut in the middle of a cow field in Northumberland, and a one room place on Maui that had an outdoor shower with a nosey lizard that enjoyed drinking shower water. 'But traveling with kids is totally different than traveling as a couple. I’ve learned that you need to bring appropriate gear, like lovies, favourite blankets and pillows, and sleep masks (but only if your child is old enough). When I book an AirBnB, I look for places that have separate bedrooms, unless my kids are used to sharing a room. Bathtubs are a must, as is a dishwasher, and if possible, a gated garden/backyard. Think of what you must have at home and either bring it or make sure it’s there! 'Hotels are hard when you have more than a couple of kids, so staying in a suite is preferable. It is possible to make it work though, if you’re not opposed to putting a child in the bathroom; we put a pack-n-play in a bathroom before for the baby and it worked very well. White noise in hotels especially is necessary; it blocks out not just normal parental noise, but any noise from neighbours too." Entertainment and Comfort ItemsBefore we had kids, we were usually able to travel with headphones (for both of us) and a book (for me). Now our in-flight or in-car entertainment needs have greatly increased, and we travel with kids' books, many matchbox cars, loveys, a blankie, stickers (if we are doing a road trip), and all. the. snacks. Older kids will have different entertainment and comfort needs, but will certainly need something to keep them engaged. PacingAvoiding overstimulation and fatigue is one of our keys to enjoying our vacations. We plan around normal nap times and bed times, and we make accommodations for jet lag for an overseas trip. If we are traveling for an extended period (7 days or more), we plan a day of rest in the middle, where all we do is relax at our accommodations. On this day, if we are able to, we plan to cook at least breakfast and dinner in the room, venturing only a short distance from our hotel for lunch and maybe a walk in the park or a visit to a playground. Upon completing our travel day home, we plan a day of rest before returning the toddler to daycare. Sarah Walker adds "Pacing when traveling is hard and so subjective, because every child has different things they enjoy and they all have different limits of what they can tolerate before a meltdown! Only you know your child best and what they can take. 'Account for meals, try to factor those in before the 'hangry' stage hits, and eat early when possible to avoid the rush and keep everyone happy. 'There is a happy medium of course, and I’m also a fan of taking rest days, especially if traveling across different time-zones. And there are going to be absolute duds of locations, in which case, know when to call it a day and leave and do something fun, like ice cream! Traveling with kids means being flexible, adjusting a schedule, and always, always carrying snacks!" The speed at which Marvin and I travel has also changed since we had a child. Before kids, we might spend 1-3 nights in one city and then move on to the next, in order to see the highlights of as many places as we can. Now we do more slow travel, spending more time in one place, getting to know one city well, rather than spasmodically running through each city as quickly as possible. Before having Emmett, we tended to never visit the same restaurant more than once in order to dine at as many different establishments as possible. Now, if we find a particularly kid-friendly restaurant, we may return there several times. This allows him to get to know the servers and have a familiar setting in the midst of all the new environments he encounters.  Travel Before and After Kids PerspectiveThe best part of traveling with kids is seeing things from their perspective. I love taking pictures of Emmett watching something he finds interesting - pointing at fish in a tank or a bird in the sky, or bending down to examine a sea shell, a bug, or even a particularly interesting rock. His excitement and enthusiasm makes my heart happy and brings out the kid in me. Kids can help us find beauty in the ordinary and charm in the everyday. They also help us slow down and really see things we might otherwise have missed. Travel changes after we have kids. It takes more care and more thought, more time and more patience. But it also offers more enchantment and more magic, more love and more appreciation. The quality time we spend as a family makes the hard work pay off. You May Also Like:
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