My Best Tips for Traveling with Young Kids
This past year has been a busy travel year for us. We’ve traveled to a few faraway places with young kids (between 2-4 years old) and learned a lot of things along the way. Today’s blog post contains a few of my best tips for maintaining sanity and enjoying travel with young kids!
As a young adult, I had the opportunity to travel internationally with my grandparents, and especially recently, I’ve been itching to expose my kids to travel, too.
But traveling with young kids is not all rainbows and sunshine. It takes quite a bit of work, patience, flexibility, and stress management. Spending a lot of time traveling, whether in a car, bus, plane, or train, paired with limited familiar food options, a new environment, little sleep, and a departure from routines can really throw young children off (and adults, too). Managing all of those things on top of everyday management, like what to wear and eat and breaking up sibling arguments, is a lot, simply put.
But in my year of traveling, I’ve learned that it was incredibly, undoubtedly worth it. The night we all didn’t go to sleep until almost four in the morning — it was worth it to see the beauty of the Cotswolds the next day. The constant complaining and tantrums about not getting a toy from the Maui aquarium — it was worth it to get to experience the island before the fires in Lahaina this year and to see the places where my husband’s family grew up.
If you have the ability or opportunity to travel with your kids, I say do it. Don’t wait until they’re older. These experiences are learning experiences for them, too. Both of you grow in the process and get to see the beauty and diversity of the world we live in.
Tips for traveling with young kids:
Allow unlimited screen time during travel. We’re pretty intentional about limiting screen time at home, but the minute we get on an airplane, our kids get unlimited screen time. We take the time to download games and shows that we approve of, but other than that, they’re welcome to play games and watch movies and shows until we land. When we traveled internationally, they did have a few hours to sleep on the plane, but other than that, they had headphones on and a show queued up. We do a similar thing with long car trips but try to put off the screen time as long as we can by playing eye spy or listening to music and reading books. We generally don’t allow screen time for the rest of the trip (not at restaurants or in the hotel room), so they get to look forward to a fun few hours on the plane.
Hold plans loosely. Sometimes, you have a reservation to be somewhere at a specific time, otherwise, I think it’s best to be willing to change plans at a moment’s notice. Maybe the kids are starting to get hangry, so stopping for a snack or meal should be the next move. Or maybe they’ve been in the car all day, so googling the nearest park or beach will help them expend their energy. Or maybe they only got five hours of sleep the night before, and taking the scenic drive will help them get a much needed nap. Be ready to adapt to your kids’ needs.
Bring screen-free activities to enjoy at restaurants. Books, coloring pages, pop-its, and table games help keep kids busy when they need to wait. Pack whatever it is that keeps them busy in your carry-on and lug it around to outings where you might have a long car ride or a wait at a restaurant. If they’re not enjoying what you’ve packed, find a local Target and have them pick out a few things to keep them busy. I speak from experience here, haha.
Buy tickets to places where kids get in free. Many tours and museums offer tickets free to children under two or three years of age (sometimes even up to five years old!). Take advantage of the free ticket if it’s a place your kids might enjoy coming along with you to. Our kids got into Windsor Castle and the Tower of London for free and were so excited to see where a queen used to live.
Buy familiar snacks if possible, or pack enough in your carry-on to last the length of the trip. For picky kids or kids averse to trying different foods, it’s so important to keep familiar foods on hand. We’ve flown with fruit pouches, crackers, oatmeal packets, and protein bars with no problem both within the US and internationally. Either pack up a big assortment to carry with you during the duration of your trip (we packed an entire backpack full when we flew internationally) or be ready to do a grocery store run soon after landing.
Save money by purchasing breakfast or lunch items at grocery stores. Travel often means eating out for every meal, but if you have a refrigerator or kitchenette in your room, buying easy breakfast and lunch items from the grocery store can help save a ton of money! This is also key for picky eaters, as noted above. Grab yogurt and granola or lunch meat/cheese or peanut butter and jelly to make sandwiches. Or even grab a frozen dinner to heat up if your room has a microwave. It’s not glamorous, but sometimes it’s necessary!
Try to maintain some parts of your home routines. Even though routines are completely thrown off during travel, I think having some kind of invisible landmark to a child’s day is helpful in maintaining a sense of safety and comfort in a new environment. We like to pack the kids’ vitamins and serve them with their breakfast just like at home and bring along our Jesus Storybook Bible so that their nighttime routine follows a familiar cadence as well. Bringing along a familiar toy can be a big comfort for kids, too.
Pay a little bit extra to book a flight at a normal time of day. We really learned our lesson with this one when we flew from Cyprus to England. There were a lot of valid reasons that went into why we picked the flight time we did (it landed at 10:30 pm London time, but 12:30 am Cyprus time and left us WRECKED), but now, after experiencing it, we’d go back and pay the extra money in a heartbeat to land at our destination earlier in the day. Very early or very late flights can throw off children’s sleep routines and make it harder to go to sleep at night or harder to stay awake during the day if they are up too early. Even though very early or very late flights are cheaper, purchasing tickets for a flight that takes off or lands during a child’s normal waking hours will save both you and the children the mental and emotional exhaustion of losing precious sleep.
Create memories. Most of all, have fun. See the wonder of a new place through your child’s eyes. Take pictures. Laugh at the hard things so that you don’t cry. Do the fun things and the picture-worthy things or just the small things that mean the most to your children.
Resources for traveling with young kids:
We’ve found a few foolproof travel items that have been key for our family in this season of travel. Try these things out next time you’re traveling with your children to make the trip a little less stressful:
Travel car seats - these travel car seats from Wayb are pricey but worth their weight in gold. They come with a backpack to carry them in and they’re super lightweight. Rolling your kids’ suitcases, your suitcase, and their car seat(s), plus all the carry-on items, is A LOT. So save yourself the hassle and buy or borrow one of these!
Crayola color wonder sheets - my kids went to town on these at restaurants during our Maui trip. They were not at all entertained by any of the cute things I packed — the princess/Paw Patrol brightly colored paper is what kept them busy. At least I tried haha.
This carry-on bag and packing organizers - this style of suitcase paired with the packing organizers makes my organizational heart so happy and keeps the kids’ clothes well organized during travel. A carry-on fits both my girl’s essentials perfectly!
Yoto Player Mini - we love this compact audiobook player for nighttime stories or for car & plane travel.
If you’re off to travel with your kids, I wish you the best! I hope you’ll enjoy the good times and let the rough times roll off your back. You’re gonna do great, mama!