Five Tips for Enjoying Travel with Kids

Does anyone really enjoy traveling with their kids? I think you know our answer. YES! Or why would we keep doing it? (You can learn more about our family's love of travel here and here). We've pulled together five quick tips for how to enjoy travel with your kids more: 

1. Do your homework. Research and plan. If you aren't prepared, it is chaos and it's not fun. We recently spent a weekend in Dallas at the Texas State Fair. The fair was amazing but also very crowded and busy. Luckily, we had spent some time ahead of our visit to decide our highest priority activities and map them out so we avoided a lot of craziness.

2. Incorporate things you want to do and what your kids want to do so everyone has fun. This summer when we were in Paris I had a list of museums and sights I wanted to visit as a family. But, not everything we had planned seemed exciting to our kids. To compromise, most days we spent a few hours at a park or doing a kid-friendly activity and then we spent a few hours shopping or visiting a museum that I wanted to go to. It didn't always work out perfectly, but we managed to have a lot more fun than we would've if we had just dragged our kids around.

July 2016 in Paris, France

3. Try something hard or new so you can bond even more as a family. One of our all time favorite activities this summer in Haarlem was renting a bakfiets (Dutch cargo bike) to ride around town. I tried to drive my girls on the bike, but I ended up tipping it over. Luckily, my husband came to the rescue and drove the girls around while I followed on anotherbike. We were able to experience life like a traditional Dutch family and we all had a wonderful time.

July 2016 in Haarlem, Netherlands

4. Stop for treats. A lot. This is pretty self-explanatory. We always stop for treats. In Europe we probably had 2-3 treats per day because it was so hot and the kids had to walk so much. There is something about a treat that improves everyone's mood.

July 2016 in Copenhagen

5. Appreciate the little things. A lot can go wrong, but you can focus on the good. Every once in a while on a plane all of my kids are happy and entertained for 5-10 minutes and it is pure bliss. When that happens I try to soak it all in and remember that feeling of peace amidst the chaos. When we choose to focus on the positive instead of the negative it can change our whole day.

And, when all else fails, anticipate the memories. It's not always easy to travel with kids, but it doesn't have to impossible or scary. And, a lot depends on your attitude.

Jet Lag + Kids

Jet lag + kids is not fun. It can take days or weeks to adjust to different time zones and each child adjusts differently. But, if you are prepared it can definitely be easier. This past summer we were in three different time zones in one week and it got a little bit crazy. But, here are a few things to think about if you are worried about jet lag.

1. Take an overnight flight and then immerse yourself in your new schedule right away. Set a routine, follow local mealtimes, and try to stay awake. If your kids need a nap, let them, but keep it short. We dragged our kids ALL over Amsterdam after we arrived. It was the middle of the night and it was hard to keep them going. But, our efforts definitely paid off later.

2. Hydrate. Lots of water. On the plane and in your new destination. This one is pretty self-explanatory. And, our kids were begging for water. So I think they felt the dehydration.

Wandering Amsterdam and trying to stay awake.

3. Get outside. Get sunlight. Get to a park. Move around. If you stop, you will want to sleep. We stopped and sat on a bench in the park and I literally thought I was gonna fall asleep right there. I really wanted to just go to sleep for days. But, it did help to stay outside and force ourselves to wander around.

4. Take it slow. Build in time to recover from travel and adjust to your new time zone. Don't expect to hit the ground running like you do when you travel without kids. We gave ourselves three days to adjust to our new time zone. We took it easy and didn't really plan a lot. We mostly just explored our new city and played at the park.

5. Plan for early mornings/late nights and nighttime disruptions. Have some quiet activities your kids can do if they wake up and some light snacks to eat. We made sure the kids had a few books nearby to look at when they woke up and we grabbed a quick non-sugar snack (my favorite thing was cheese or bread). Everything we read said that kids often wake up because they are hungry. We didn't interact with them much though and we mostly just encouraged them to get back to sleep. After a few nights they were on a pretty normal schedule.

Even when I'm prepared for jet lag, it still makes me a little anxious, especially because I know I'll be tired too. But, I try to remember I WILL sleep again, and so will my kids. We also tried to take advantage of our slightly disturbed schedule and stayed out later and explored Amsterdam after dark. We wandered the city, got treats, and stayed out past 10pm. So, even though our bodies were confused about the time we didn't let it stop us from enjoying our visit.

I'd love to hear your jet lag tips and good/bad experiences.

Introduction

So, I decided to start a website/blog to accompany our @3KidsTravel Instagram account. It's an idea I've been mulling around for almost a year and I finally just decided to take the plunge...

July 2016 in Amsterdam

My background is in developmental editing and I've always been horribly critical of my own writing (I find it much easier to work with other people's content) and sitting down to put my ideas into coherent sentences has been quite a process for me. But, as you know, I love to travel with my kids. I feel passionately that we don't have to stop doing the things we love when we have kids, and my husband and I loved to travel.

July 2009. Baby's first airplane ride!

When our first baby was born almost eight years ago she went on her first plane ride at four weeks old. In her first few months of life she went to Washington, D.C., Yosemite, Mexico, the Caribbean, and New York City. It wasn't easy to travel with a newborn and there were a lot of days where we were walking zombies. But, we made adjustments, changed our expectations, and kept doing what we loved.

October 2009 in Mexico

Fast forward to today, we have three girls (ages 2, 5, 7) and they have all been traveling since they were each four weeks old. They've traveled to Europe (Paris, London, Copenhagen, Malmo, and Amsterdam) , throughout the USA, the Caribbean, and Mexico and we have plans to keep on going.

July 2016 in Paris

The purpose of our website/blog is to hopefully provide some motivation to those of you who love to travel and want to keep traveling with your kids. We view travel as a way to introduce our girls to the world around them, help them learn and appreciate other cultures, and develop a sense of adventure and wonder. If you haven't done much travel with your kids yet that's okay, we'll help you feel ready to take some baby steps and give it at try.

We hope you'll join us on our travel journey and comment or email us and let us know what you'd love to hear more about in our regular blog posts.

Elise