Traveling with small children

Relaxing, experiencing other cultures, or returning to places that have left a mark since childhood are some of the reasons that make traveling a wonderful experience. However, preparation and organization of the trip are essential to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Planning becomes even more important when going on family vacations

because, as a general rule, traveling with children and babies is a challenge. Children tend to have a lot of energy and can be quite impatient, but they also tire quickly.

Therefore, it is essential that families adapt their trips to the pace of the little ones to ensure maximum enjoyment and avoid stress once they arrive at their destination.

With that in mind, we bring you some tips to make traveling with small children or babies as manageable as possible.

1. Family trips: Choose the right destination

Choosing the destination is one of the first things to decide when traveling and is also one of the most important.

First of all, when brainstorming for research, it is always important to take into account the needs and preferences of the children.

The most important thing is to choose “childproof” destinations. To do this, it is essential to ensure that the destination you want to go to is prepared for family tourism. This can include the availability of hotels that meet children's needs, from accommodations to entertainment, or the offer of suitable and safe excursions for children.

Finally, it is always good to include the child in the decision-making process, as this way they will feel part of the trip. For this, you can let them choose from a few destinations pre-selected by the adults to ensure that, whatever their decision, it will be a feasible destination for the upcoming vacation.

2. Choose direct flights or connections with longer layover times when traveling with children

To increase comfort and avoid stress, nothing beats choosing direct flights, and if possible, of short duration, to prevent the children from getting irritated and impatient.

Nevertheless, it is possible that the destination you want to travel to does not have a direct connection. Getting from one boarding gate to another is much slower when you have kids. Therefore, in these cases, the ideal is to choose longer connections, meaning connections that allow you plenty of time between the first flight and the second.

In addition, this could be a good time to sit down, grab a bite to eat, and go to the bathroom.

3. Create a countdown

Once you have chosen the destination and everything is prepared, it's time to get your children excited about the trip. The more eager they are to go, the easier the final preparations and the trip itself will be.

Therefore, we recommend preparing a countdown. It can be as simple as printing a calendar and sticking it on the wall to cross off the days as they pass, or even encouraging your child to do it themselves.

Additionally, this countdown will help you better visualize how much time is left until the trip and know if everything is prepared on time.

4. Don’t take too much luggage

Carrying too much luggage can be very stressful and complicate the trip, especially in airports, security areas, immigration, taxis, and even hotels.

Ideally, travel with cabin suitcases if the trip is short, as this way there won’t be any wait for baggage claim, and it also avoids issues in case the luggage gets lost.

However, it is natural that when traveling with children, the necessary luggage can be relatively high, so we recommend taking only what you really need and supplementing the checked luggage with a small cabin suitcase to keep the essentials for the journey in case something happens with the checked luggage.

5. Prepare snacks

A hungry child is an irritable child. Due to the uncertainty that comes with traveling (flights, trains, and other means of transport are prone to changes and delays), it is important to bring some food, like snacks or small bites in case the children get very hungry.

Preparing snacks and bites is also useful during the vacations themselves. It’s likely that the place you’ve traveled to has food very different from what your children like, so bringing some food on day excursions can make mealtime much easier.

6. Hire a babysitter

To make the trip itself easier when the duration is very long or the itinerary is complicated, one option is to hire a babysitter to accompany you on the journey.

On the other hand, you may have been wanting to do some excursions that are not suitable for children. Hiring a local babysitter can be a very good option.

If you want to hire a local babysitter for a few hours, we recommend finding the perfect candidate and contacting them before arriving at the destination. This way, you can get to know each other better and ensure that they are the perfect babysitter for your children.

Whatever the reason or destination of your trip, we hope these tips help you enjoy it to the fullest. Encouraging children to travel and get to know new places is important as it will not only enrich their culture but also give them unique experiences they will never forget.

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