Should we travel with kids?

• Sara
• April 21, 2020
• Family, Happiness, Inspiration, Life Lessons, Travel
• 2

When it’s ok to leave the house, obviously.

Where do you want to go on your next family trip or vacation? Right now, that’s a big, huge, almost more than we can handle question. To the park, to get ice cream, to soccer practice, to work!

At this point in 2020, maybe you thought you would be planning your summer trip, or a quick spring excursion. I am right there with you. I’ve already cancelled a few hotel reservations and a couple flights myself. We already had DC, camping, and Montana on our calendar for the summer. Now, those plans are on hold and I’m posting a travel photo every day from 15 years of travel on social media, and my husband has been discretely reading travel guidebooks when he thinks no one is looking. I would guess this resonates with a few of you out there, too.  

While we cannot travel yet (and for when it’s ok to travel, look to federal and international government guidelines), do we have to give up wishing, hoping, and occasionally paging through our travel books? Absolutely not! And that is why I wanted to start writing about travel again, because we will travel again in the not so distant future. Eventually, we will load up the car with camping gear, or scramble aboard a plane for exotic locales (or Florida). Thus, this will start a few posts on traveling with kids, because it’s what I know; it’s what I love.

Today I want to discuss and answer some questions on traveling with kids in general. Should we travel internationally with kids? How early is too early? Is it hard? Will I see anything? I get asked these questions from new parents, or just parents who are finally ready to think about traveling again.

Before we go too far down this travel path, some bona fides. I know when I’m searching the interwebs for help, I seek out parents who travel similarly as us, with similar numbers and ages of children. I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about traveling with kids. I’ve been doing it for six years. In those six years, my husband and I have taken our one kid, then two, all over. Or at least all over Europe. Ok, a few places in Europe. And Mexico. In those six years, I have learned quite a bit, and done quite a few things wrong. Now, I’d like to offer up some of what I’ve learned.

My daughter is 6; she has been to Europe seven times (6 different countries, Italy 3 times) and Mexico six times. My daughter was 8 months old when she flew to Europe (Italy to be exact) for the first time. My 3-year-old son has been to Europe four times and Mexico three times. The way we travel internationally (see post on traveling vs. vacation) means staying in apartments, making our own food some of the time, renting cars, getting into the tempo of a place. This is our activity as a family – the kids aren’t massively into activities or sports yet, so we have time to travel in the summer or during holidays.

First, should you travel with your young children (obviously when it is safe)? YES! If you traveled before (and even if you didn’t) and enjoy it, do it now. What is stopping you? Well, that is the question isn’t it. Is it the age of your children? I am often asked how young is too young. This will probably get me in some trouble, but I like my babies to have at least a few rounds of vaccines before I plop them on an international bound plane. A year ago, there was a serious measles outbreak in Europe. My two-year-old hadn’t had his second round of measles shots, of course, but the CDC recommended that anyone traveling to Europe last summer should get the booster and younger kids could get the second booster early. We went back and forth with our pediatrician’s office, sharing the CDC recommendation, and they agreed to give it to him. Was it absolutely necessary? Probably not, but it gave this momma piece of mind. So, a good immunity to preventable diseases is essential for us.

Vaccines are not my only concern. Another is that babies can sleep for a good chunk of the night; this just flat out makes the trip more enjoyable for everyone. Still another is that they can sit up in restaurants and enjoy the scene. The first night in our gorgeous villa in Vagliagli (tiny village just outside Siena), the owners made a 3-course dinner for us. My 8 month old daughter was able to sit up in her travel highchair and eat mushroom pate and loved the artichokes. Later on in that trip, she could be found gnawing on a pork bone in a cute country restaurant, after she polished off some tartufo pasta and cacio e’ pepe. Sure, we had to take turns walking her around a dark piazza in Rome because she was done sitting, but we ended up making friends with a rowdy family eating dinner outside.

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Another positive for taking smaller babies is they can be carried in an Ergo or similar carrier. I also know this isn’t for everyone, but I breastfed my babies for a ridiculously long time, so we didn’t have to worry about packing formula or getting warm water, etc. Finally, babies under two years old fly for FREE! This, in and of itself, should encourage you to get going.

I think we have covered the “too young” worry, but if you have more questions on that, post them below. The statement I get the next most often is “they won’t remember it. Why would you take them?” Honestly, this is usually from passive aggressive family members and not from people who want to travel. While I could say “oh, that’s not true. My child is a genius – she will totally remember,” I usually say, “that’s not really the point.” And it’s not. The point is that children who learn to travel early, travel better later on. It becomes part of their lives. They grow up not knowing any different. It expands their little brains, makes them more flexible, with routines, food, sleeping, language. They are lovers of learning and differences. Oh and parents want to get out – that’s important! We also want to travel with our kids; we don’t want to leave them behind.

Also, it’s just plain cute when an 18-month-old learns to say “Obrigada!” to every waiter in Portugal. This has about a 90% success rate in waiters wanting to carry your baby around the restaurant. Will your babies remember this? Nope, and that doesn’t matter. I can say without hesitation they love hearing the stories and seeing the photos. They sprinkle foreign words into their daily lives, without knowing any better. They don’t think one culture is superior to another. They WANT to travel. 

The next two concerns go together. Parents worry this will just be too darn hard and they won’t see anything on their trips. Is it hard? Absolutely it is. Kids get sick or hurt and you stay up all night worrying about them. But, they are incredibly tough and resilient, too – just give them a chance to show you. Is it difficult, though, to fly for hours with toddlers? Yup, but not as bad as you think; honestly the parent apprehension is usually worse than the trip itself.

Do you have to change the way you travel now that you have kids? Sure, and that is just fine. Odds are you won’t be spending 3 hours over a delicious multi-course dinner in Paris anytime soon. That’s ok. There is time for that later. Will you have amazing meals, which you now share with kids? Yes. Will you be going snorkeling together on Grand Cayman anytime soon? No, but now you get to build sand castles and teach your kids to snorkel. Will you be sipping wine on a rooftop in Florence? Probably not but crack open an amazing bottle on your villa patio and watch the kids blow bubbles and do sidewalk chalk as the sun sets. Trust me, it’s actually better. Has your way of traveling changed? You bet it has, and so have you.

The second half of this concern is one I’ve felt myself – you won’t see anything because…babies. We have adjusted our expectations exponentially since having kids. Granted when babies are under a year old, you can still do most of the tourist sites, as they sleep in the carrier much of the time. When they get older, this gets trickier. Naps are critical, as is eating, and not overloading their little brains or legs. Our goal now is two sites per day; one in the morning and one in the afternoon, or two in the morning, with a long afternoon nap followed by a fun walk in the evening before dinner. We usually throw in some ice cream or gelato after dinner if everyone stayed meltdown free (or almost, come on, I want gelato too) that day. We also have found we seek out different things, maybe not the most Instagrammed or popular tourist site, but a quiet neighborhood fountain or park. These are things we would have never taken the time to see without kids, and they turn out to be our favorites.

Before kids, we had been known to travel for weeks at a time, seeing whole countries or regions, hitting 2-3 sites per day, hiking up and down mountains, or through ancient temples for hours. Was this great? Heck yes and we saw 37 countries together. But, things are different now; we are different. I’d even argue better. We are parents and we are trying to be adequate ones at that. We like to travel with our kids; we think it is important.

I hope I alleviated a couple of your apprehensions about traveling with young kids. Over the next few posts, I plan on addressing where and when to go, how to survive the plane ride, and how to travel with kids in general (what to pack, etc). I then want to get into some completely biased location guides. If there is something you’d like to see, drop me a message below.