I get asked a lot how I am able to travel so much as a mom. I have a lot to say to answer this haha but I want to share some of my favorite tips to help other families let go of fear and create memories through traveling together.
Traveling has always been an important part of my life and a big part of who I am.
Before having children I decided that it was a lifestyle I wanted to continue to have with my kids. Not when they were “old enough to understand” or “mature enough to appreciate it” but right away so it became a way of life for them, as well!
I would love to say we have it all figured out and traveling is no longer hard with Beckham (our 2 year old) but that would be a laughable lie.
In fact, just 2 months ago I called my sister from Ecuador BAWLING about how tired and stressed I was, and how difficult Beckham was making the trip. Dan had just dropped me off at a restaurant so I could have a meltdown on my own while he took Beckham back to the hotel for a nap.
Most of our trips include a LOT of crying (from both me and Beckham hahah), disappointments, adjustment to schedules and plans, and stress. There are often broken items, impatience and frustration.
That said, our last trip to Panama was the first trip that I saw a LIGHT at the end of the tunnel as I started to practice some of the lessons I have learned along the way.
Traveling IS JUST DIFFERENT with children, but I want to share some of my most important lessons I have learned as we have traveled to 4 different countries (5 in August) and 18 different US states since Beckham was born two years ago!
1) Have Realistic Expectations
I have to laugh as I write these because I am literally self-coaching myself all of the time with these tips!
It is SO important to realize before a trip what your trip with kids probably WILL and WILL NOT look like. This is not being negative. It is called being a very smart person and setting yourself up for success haha.
There will be meltdowns. You will have to say no to some activities. There will be tantrums. There will be bad attitudes (even from the kids hahaha).
If you are bringing little children on a trip and you are looking forward to a romantic get-away with your partner, a fascinating historical lesson that everyone loves or an intense adventure straight from National Geographic, you may be disappointed.
If you recognize and accept your children’s interests, abilities and limitations before you go into your trip (knowing that things will look different), you are already a lot better off!
It has been helpful for me to learn to separate “girls trips” and “trips with Dan” from “family trips”.
On girls trips I lay out at the beach and eat at cute restaurants. On trips with Dan we stay out late and go rafting. On family trips things look different! Still good. Just different!
2) Be Flexible
This is really just a life tip, and for sure any-sort-of-travel tip, but it becomes magnified with kids!
Your schedule will NEVER go as planned. I still haven’t figured out how it mathematically works, but it takes about 9 hours to leave the house every day with Beckham. Without him it takes about 20 min.
Develop a flexible attitude! You cannot control what road bumps pop up in your trips, but you can control your attitude!
I have actually had some really good experiences laughing at things that didn’t work out instead of wasting the day throwing a fit.
Note: I like to take pictures of really stressful/terrible moments because we ALWAYS laugh about them later! Taking a picture helps me keep perspective and remember that at some point we will be laughing about something that was actually really disappointing or stressful in the moment! It helps me both in that moment, and later on when we go over pictures from our adventures!
3) Be Willing to Spend Extra Money in Some Areas
ROOOLLLL CALLL for all you tightwads out there (aka Dan, me and my dad haha)!
I am ALL ABOUT budget travel, but I have come to realize that you just can’t do 100% budget travel with kids.
Beckham cannot live off of a pack of crackers for breakfast. He cannot share a twin bed with me in a hostel dorm. He cannot go on an overnight bus for 10 hours (EDIT: We ended up taking Beckham on a 9 hour bus ride to Guatemala and he did great!). Well……kids CAN do these things, but this blog post is about making travel easier and those things are the exact things I am learning to NOT do if I want a less stressful experience haha.
When we first had Beckham Dan and I tried to “make it work” budget wise. We would use public transportation as much as possible, split meals like we used to, stay in cheap hotels and really just travel as cheap as uncomfortably as possible. We were used to doing that as a young couple and we just continued living that way.
AMATEURS!!!!!
Travel has gotten SO MUCH better with Beckham as we have learned to pay a little extra for comfort with him. It doesn’t mean we fly first class or anything, but we make sure he is comfortable while we travel.
We stay in accommodations that are cleaner, have more space and can help keep him entertained (pool). We buy Beckham his own seat so we are not smashed and getting clawed to death by an energetic toddler. We make sure Beckham is ALWAYS fed, even if it means an emergency stop at an over-priced cafe for a sandwich because we ran out of snacks.
The little extra costs have FOR SURE been worth it. When your kids feel comfortable they are happier and everyone can enjoy the trip more!
4) Bring Wipes
There is not much worse than being sick on a trip.
Oh wait.
Your kid(s) being sick on a trip.
We use wipes for evvvvverything while traveling these days. We try to use hand sanitizer, too, but wipes seem to get every job done.
They keep hands, car seats, faces, bums, sippy cups, pacifiers, and anything else you can possibly think of clean.
Note: Wipe bags are heavy. They are great for road trips where you can leave the entire bag in the car, but if you are out and about you can also leave the pack at the hotel and just bring a plastic case with as many as you want for the day.
5) Have the Right Gear
Our lives are literally changed from investing in the right gear. This one used to be hard for me because I was one of those people that would rather have 20 shirts that I kinnnddd of liked than 5 that I LOVED.
It was hard for Dan to convince me to start investing in nice gear, but I’m glad he did before we had Beckham.
It REALLY helps to have the right gear for Beckham when we travel.
I have a whole separate blog post on travel gear but the name of the game is light, compact, simple, high quality, comfortable.
You want to bring as little as possible with you on trips. Less of a chance to lose something, and less to keep track of.
Note: The right gear includes medicine! We never travel without it. You never know when your kid is going to get sick and you won’t have access to those things you need.
6) Be Flexible With Regular Rules and Expectations for Your Kids
All of you that live by the book with parenting or have a degree in child psychology, you may want to skip this tip and jump to #7 haha.
When we travel we have found that we just have to chill a little bit with expectations for Beckham.
This doesn’t mean he is allowed to bite other people or run in front of cars or smoke cigars, but we have found that expectations on vacation are just a bit different because we are living a bit different!
I have learned that I cannot expect my two year old to live the same in another country running on three days of no naps and being in the hot sun as I can when he is in an air-conditioned apartment on a pretty predictable schedule.
We have found that travel time is not the time to force feed a child broccoli, have a bedtime that is down to the exact minute, or require ridiculous lengths of sitting still and being quiet.
There have been times on a trip where Beckham will have a roll and potato chips for dinner (cough every night for a week haha). And that’s okay with us. We used to think it would ruin him and he would never eat healthy again but we have found that Beckham goes back to his normal habits when we get back home and it’s all good.
One area specifically we have changed is screen time. Restaurants became such a problem that we decided that to us it is okay if Beckham watches a movie while we are at a restaurant. He rarely has screen time at home, and we spend our travel time hiking and exploring so we decided that allowing him to watch a movie at a restaurant was a good decision for everyone. We are able to eat, customers around us are not disturbed, and things do not get thrown and broken.
It does not have to be a free-for-all, but find some areas where you are able to loosen the grip a bit (besides safety, respect for others/property, etc.). It has helped us!
7) Schedule in "Down Time"
This might be something a lot of you already do in your vacations, but it is something I am really trying to work on.
I try to fit in as much in my trips as possible. I want to see everything a new city has to offer! I want to be out from sun up to sun down taking it all in.
Beckham does not. That sort of behavior is the sort of thing that makes him writhe in the middle of the street like he is being electrocuted or throw something in a museum and break it.
We have found that sacrificing a few hours for naps, playing at the park, or just relaxing in a hotel room can make Beckham have SUCH a better experience, which in turn makes all of us have a better experience. There is such a thing as “sleep debt” and you WILL pay for it eventually!
8) Add Experiences Your KIDS Enjoy
This brings me to my next point.
I’ll never forget the trip that I decided to take Beckham around and solely stop at all of the places that I thought HE would like.
We went to a lot of playgrounds. He loved it. I was able to spend a lot of time sitting and watching him chase ducks and slide down slides instead of dragging him to the next activity that I wanted to do.
There’s something special about watching your children find their own place in the world.
I’m still all about Beckham trying new things and going places that I am really excited about as well. It helps him learn and grow and find new passions!
But I am convinced Beckham will learn to love traveling with us more when we make sure to set apart time for something HE enjoys, whether it’s playing at a park, going to a fun restaurant, getting ice cream, or watching a movie in the hotel room.
And it’s pretty awesome to watch your kid genuinely have fun. I’m starting to see it more as a win-win for everyone.
9) Let Them Help Set the Pace
Beckham does not 100% set the pace. That would mean we would stop driving after 1 min (he hates his car seat) and we would play at every playground we passed and never leave.
What I’m saying is try to let go of the schedule a little bit.
If you are at the zoo and your child is LOVING watching the giraffes, maybe linger there a little longer, even if it means you never make it to the penguins. Spend more time letting him/her love the giraffes!
10) Take Advantage of Their Sleep Schedule
This is a tricky one to figure out and it looks different for every family (and I am a firm believer that things should look different for every family!), but we try to schedule activities during time when Beckham will be happiest and most awake and transition time when he will be tired.
If we have a long drive, I try to do it when he will probably be napping or asleep for the night so he can sleep through as much as possible. Kids can be trained to sleep on the go!
If your child usually takes a nap at 1 PM, opt for a 10 AM boat ride rather than a 2 PM boat ride.
11) Have Some Sort of Home Base
A lot of our travel requires us to be on the go moving from one place to the next.
We have found it to be a life-saving to have a home base.
This means we either stay in the same accommodations for multiple nights, or we have a rental car (rather than completely relying on public transportation).
It is SO NICE to not have to pack and unpack everything every day. It is also less of a chance of losing things during the transition!
12) Find Kid-Friendly Places to Eat/Sleep
Did you know that some hotels are more kid friendly than others? Did you know that there are some restaurants you should not bring children to??
We are learning that the hard way, but we CAN LEARN haha.
Life before kids I tell you! When we go to hotels now I check out how big the shower is because that is where we put Beckham’s pack n play. I check how dark the curtains are because he already wakes up at 5 AM and we don’t need any earlier! I look to see what type of neighborhood it’s in.
I look for restaurants that have outdoor seating with a gate so Beckham can’t escape and places that serve large and cheap portions so we can try giving Beckham some of our food and not worry if he doesn’t eat it.
At the end of the day, it’s still about being flexible, but if you can find the right places, there really are some that are a better set up for success than others!
13) Be Aware of All Rules About Kids
This one is really important, especially with flying.
Before you go on a trip (or while on your trip) find out what rules, regulations and exceptions there are for your children.
What type of documentation is required?
How many bags can they bring?
What is the age/height/weight requirement?
Are they free? Can they get a discount?
Can they even come?
You don’t want to show up somewhere and find out your child is too young, does not have the appropriate documentation, or you could have been better prepared!
Note: When it comes to documentation, we bring paper copies of everything as well as screenshots. You can never be too prepared when it comes to documentation!!
14) Start Where You're At
Maybe you aren’t getting ready to plan a month vacation to Africa. Maybe you are nervous about just taking your kids on a 3 hour road trip to see their grandparents.
That’s okay!
I am convinced that these tips are things I will be working on with Beckham and hopefully our future children for our whole lives. As our family gets older and grows, the tips will change and we will have to continue to adapt.
The best way to learn something is hands-on. Just get out there and do it! You’ll find your own tips along the way because everyone’s kids are different, which means there is no one-size-fits-all with parenting.
Some day you’ll look back and see that you’ve come up with your own tips and while you’ve gone through some stressful experiences, you’ve made some incredible memories and it was all worth it!