As we head into the holidays, I wanted to reshare this 2023 post about family travel; and if you’d like more, Toby also shared his own tips for surviving family trips and here’s my personal trick for enjoying big family gatherings. Good luck out there! Xoxo
After 13 years of family travel, I finally figured out the key to having fun (or at least how to put it into words): Expect some rough times.
The point of travel is that the highs can be high. But, especially with family travel, the lows can also be hilariously low, right? A few things will always go wrong: your flight will be delayed. Or you’ll get a bad headache. Or the weather will be rainy. Or your kids will wake up at 2 a.m. Or you’ll find a hair in your salad. And, honestly, that’s to be expected, right? Travel is still regular life, and tricky stuff isn’t a disaster, it’s just normal.

Case in point: This past weekend, the boys and I drove up to Connecticut to visit old friends. We ate chicken sandwiches and played ping pong. We floated on our backs in the pool. We watched Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We drank cold white wine from those small Italian glasses. A dozen different times, I thought to myself, “This is what life is all about.”
But, at the same time, not everything was idyllic: the boys argued during the three-hour drive. I got misophonic and told them to be quiet or I would turn-this-car-around-so-help-me-god. Our Airbnb had big spiders in the bathroom. We lost our basketball in some thorny bushes. The route home had lots of traffic.
Bottom line: Parts of the trip were annoying, parts were epic. Both things can be true!
Here are a few travel snapshots through the years…


Yawning through the glorious Laguna Gloria in Austin.

Getting a “Plus Four” card during an Uno game in San Diego.

Not feeling the beach in San Francisco.

Tired of walking in Italy.

Hangry in England.

Too hot in Florida.

Heading onto a 10-hour flight.
The other day, my friend Andy recapped a family trip with a sentence that could describe all family travel: “It was bad and then it was great.”
Plus, two legendary posts that always make me laugh:
* Vacation or Trip? A Helpful Guide for Parents
* Mom Spends Beach Vacation Assuming All Household Duties In Closer Proximity To Ocean
What about you? What hilariously bummery things have happened on trips? Have you ever had a trip that just all-out sucked? That can happen, too! We’re aiming for wholeness, after all.
P.S. An ode to bad family vacations, and the weirdest best part of trips.

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Hey Joanna, just checking to see if you’re doing alright as there was no (holiday) post since this one. I hope (almost) everything is fine. Sending holiday wishes, xx.
PS: The trick to enjoying family travel is to have what really matters- no health conditions, somewhere to go to- where you’re wanted/ loved as you are, enough money to actually go and stay there, the physical/ mental/ emotional abilities to pull it off, and someone who’d share/ help out with the bad parts it with mindfulness and efficacy.
Haha ‘It was bad and then it was great’. The jet lag with kids waking up at all hours and being grumpy from lack of sleep for the first few days, when we travel internationally is always rough…and then we settle in and its great.
On the flip side, had an epic trip visiting friends and family in England and on the return, our 10 year old out of nowhere became motion sick on the plane decent, and as it turns out our plane did not have puke bags in the seat pockets. Dear lord.
My favorite gift I got this year was a pair of loop ear plugs. My husband gave them to me this morning before we started a six hour trip with our 2, 4 and 5 year olds who were loud while being both happy and while fighting. I popped those babies in when I was getting overstimulated with the noise level and was such a happy camper. I’m grateful he has a higher tolerance for the chaos in the car. Love this post, thank you!
I’m pretty sure the key to vacation is to leave your kids with a willing friend or relative (that’s their vacation and they will love it!), and then actually go on vacation with your partner, or alone if you’re a single parent. VACATIONS are crucial to self-care for parents.
Taking kids on trips so that you can experience the world together is an entirely different thing, and equally great – for the kids. But they are different. Not wise to try to make them the same event.
Not everyone has the resources, time off, able-bodied family members who can (or want to!) step in for two different vacation styles. Sometimes you just gotta make it work
jerry seinfeld just did a bit (shared on his insta) about how everything that is great, sucks. and everything that sucks, is great. fits this to a tee! check it out! happy holidays!
We are home for the holidays, but anyone else at home with their kids being just awful on Christmas Eve? Our toddler seems to be having terrible 3s/almost 4s. He also made thanksgiving pretty miserable too. Must be the change in our normal routine? Phew, hopefully new gifts tomorrow will keep him occupied!!
Too Hot in Florida, is my vibe every day. lol
I lost my mom over 22 years ago in a very tragic way. Subconsciously, I think I had blocked out so many of memories about her as a protective mechanism. When I think about her, I don’t remember the everyday stuff with her but I can remember details from the very few trips we took or from our vacations at my grandparent’s place. I love travelling and I make a lot of effort in planning and organizing trips for our small family of 3. My son who is now 15, doesnt enjoy travelling and can be very grumpy during the trips. But my hope is that we would have fond memories of these trips when he looks back at his childhood.
We had our third baby in February and were really excited to take our first road trip as a family of five. Our car was packed to the max, and as we get on the highway our oldest child says “I feel bumps in my mouth…” It turns out he had hand, foot, and mouth. Two days later, the two year old got it, then two days after that the baby got it. Luckily this wasn’t our first rodeo, so we had packed tons of ibuprofen and tylenol, expected no sleep, and made the best of it. We went on lots of hikes, threw rocks in the river, and mooed at cows outside our secluded farmhouse. Sure, we were tired and it stunk to see the kids not feeling good, but all in all, the trip was STILL a success. So much so that our two oldest kids talk about it fondly, AND my husband and I now feel we can conquer anything. To wholeness!!
When my son was 2 1/2 we went to France (mostly Paris) and England for a few months. The funniest thing is when I flick through the photos there are a few that stand out as gorgeous amazing pictures – like my sweet child /monster running beside a row of lavender with a castle to the side, of perched on my husband’s shoulders marvelling at the countryside… but the backdrop to each of these photos was a day of absolute F%$$&*&^& terror. The one where my son is on my husband’s shoulders – an hour earlier my husband had stormed off in tears after being fully screamed at by our son because there’s no way to float crackers in the air so you don’t get sand on them… We have our own personalities, and we take them with us where ever we go. How you remember your holiday totally depends on the colour lens through which you view the world, not the reality of the trip at all.
This resonates as I’m on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, at the start of a 3-week trip with my partner and our 2 and 5 year olds. We live abroad and have traveled extensively as a family. My biggest tip is to plan a trip that works for the ages and interests of your kids. For us, that means no city trips or sleeping in more than 2-3 locations. There’s SO much to do in Sri Lanka, yet we’ve opted to stay in two different sleepy beach towns so our kids can frolic in the ocean and play in the sand and we can eat delicious food and take long walks and short tuk tuk rides. I used to be more of a “box checker” when traveling but since having kids, I’ve removed all pressure to do the things or see the sights. One day, our family can do more but not today and that’s okay. Happy holidays xx
Omgosh, I would love a vacation in a Sri Lankan beach house, lol! This sounds both wildly exotic to an American and also super relaxing!
100% agree! We started booking AirBnBs next to playgrounds, and prioritizing afternoon naps.
Daily playground time felt like a waste of travel time at first, but then we realized that we were seeing a slice of daily life that we would have missed otherwise.
Your beach trip sounds amazing! (I’m sure there will be rough parts, but there always are, and those memories seem to fade with time.)
I’m very grateful for all the (good and bad) travel experiences I’ve gotten to have with my kids, now ages 3.5 and 1.5. Everything in this post and many of the comments are such a good reminder about reasonable expectations! However one thing I’m coming to terms with is that for me, if I wont get to sleep, it’s kind of not worth going. My kids were SUCH difficult babies. They wouldn’t really nap on the go, or sleep well in new places, and they cried pretty much all the time. We kept on traveling because we were foolish and also missed the people we were visiting. But I think I am a liiiiittle traumatized. We are newly expecting our third, and if all goes well, I fully intend not to travel at all for almost a year. I think we will focus on making memories at home and wait until we have a little margin to work with in the sleep department.
We need another Toby travel interview, stat!
yes!
Do the kids fighting make you particularly misphonic? My mom and both my brothers are, and I thought I’d escaped it, but after hours of shrieking I find myself delivering the hasrshest “shhhhhhhhhh!!!!” possible, or hiding in my room.
Most of my trips with kids have been comically awful. Whey my son was a year old he got stomach sick in Jamaica and was miserable. Boy did he want to tell me but he wasn’t talking much at that point. One day, while keeping eye contact, he picked up his plate and smashed it on the floor.
Over the years, I’ve learned my kids are happiest when we travel to visit family. Cousins are a great buffer for travel stress. Grandparents, aunts and uncles are often happy to cuddle and distract a cranky toddler when mom and dad have had it. Having a home to stay in makes them feel so much safer.
It’s still a trip and not a vacation, but it makes for such lovely memories.
traveling with kids is a TRIP. When you go with your friends or partner….. its a VACATION. Language matters as does being a really kind human when you can …. traveling with an emergency snickers bar helps too!
I like to say to myself, whenever my family prepares to travel: “it is not a holiday, it is just parenting in a new location.”
That helps.
Yes, exactly but also without all of my usual tools
TRUTH! Where’s the upvote button? I need to mash it about a million times.
Or “parenting with a view” as my colleague puts on her ‘out of office’ 😆
If you start early and adventurous, that’s the norm. We have traveled with our kid all over the world, including to some developing countries and on very intense and remote outdoor experiences. We’ve hit rough patches, of course, but they pass quickly. I’ve learned to pack a couple of twix bars, some gummies or nerds, not tell him, then use as reward for when we hit rough spots.
He’s anxious and a bit on the spectrum. He’s done great with it all.
I think intense outdoor experiences are amazing training for anxious kids. it shows them what they are capable of, nature and exercise are soothing by default.
Travel is life’s greatest teacher and to me (very Sagitarrian) it’s greatest joy. Be not afraid!
so life’s greatest teacher is broadly unavailable to most of the world? travel is kind of a luxury.
The photos are pure gold, Mama!! ✨💛✨
In reading the comments it stuck out to me particularly how many people question traveling with young kids. While of course we travel to expose our children to the world and for them to have special memories and learn… but remember we do it for our own memories too. My daughter may not remember when I hiked a steep mountain with her strapped to my back, but I do. I have pictures to show her our strength and what we did together. My son may not remember my sleepless night in a hotel room with him sandwiched between us, but I remember watching my two guys cuddle all night and the joy on his face when he went to a theme park the next day. There’s so much joy in discovering the world together, and surviving the hard things along the way! Haha
Madi, I think about this a lot too, especially when traveling with kids. It’s my life, too! We took our twins to Japan for three weeks when they were two and so many people thought it was crazy because they wouldn’t remember it, but my husband and I do! It was incredible. If it’s financially possible (international trips, road trips, staycations, whatever works), don’t hesitate thinking that it won’t have a lasting impact on your kids. It almost surely will.
I saw something recently that read, “Their childhood is your motherhood.” In that spirit we shouldn’t wait to do something just so our kids can remember it. It’s our life too, and it’s happening right now.
Seriously, anything that brings a family together. I always get a kick out of my parents recalling memories of things we did together that I can’t remember; the point is, I was there, I was part of their joy (or not, depending on what I did!) and mostly, I mattered to them. They could have left me home, but they didn’t, they chose to bring me and share these wonderful adventures with me. This makes me feel very special and loved, and I want to do the same for my children – look what we did! Look where we went! YOU did this! Maybe someday we can go back and show you again. I also don’t understand this attitude of not bringing kids along. Children are a gift, limited time only, so make the most of them.
My kids are 5 and 2, and I’m pregnant and honestly, I’ve pretty much waved the white flag on family travel for now. It just completely wipes me out. I’d so much rather bop around our own town (we live in a touristy place anyway) than haul all the gear and manage the chaos that comes with going somewhere else. Travel feels like a full production- a week to prepare, the trip itself, and another week to recover and feel normal again. Sometimes I feel like such a grinch compared to my friends who love traveling with their families. This article gives me a better perspective (I need it!), but it still doesn’t make me want to book a trip anytime soon. I come from a family who loved family vacations so it feels strange to be at this point and I’m hoping it’s just a phase!
sounds like a really good decision, Molly. Stay the course.
Molly I live in the Middle East and am from the US and I feel you completely. A lot of my peers travel all around the region and I don’t have it in me right now. I find it so disrupting even to take a long weekend sometimes although I do manage
We go to other home for the summer and that’s it – I can imagine this changing when kids are older (and if our budget allows – again with home travel a must extra travel is a luxury).
Yes! I declared a total-travel-moritorium after a disaster family trip wtih my then 4 and 1 year olds. We stuck to it for two full years. Then, we did a pilot trip – a weekend getaway to a resort just 90 minutes from our house – to make we were in the clear. When it was a go, we booked a family vacation to Iceland and it felt like a victory tour. Since then, we’ve traveled extensively as a family and I’ve never regretted the decision to just wait it out. You know what works for your family. If you don’t need to grit-through-it…don’t!
OMG the plus 4 in Uno is legit devastating! My 7 year old might still throw a bit of tantrum if it came at the right (wrong?) moment even today. I feel you Anton, I feel you.
After 25 years as a military spouse and traveling the world with little ones in tow, my mantra has always been that it’s not truly a family vacation or holiday unless someone ends up in the emergency room. And that includes the family dog! A few memorable ones – a late night visit to a London ER for pink eye when our son was a toddler, navigating the language barrier at midnight in a Prague ER, a Christmas Day visit to the emergency vet after the dog ate a tennis ball, a Thanksgiving day trip to the ER in 2019 for a viral illness after my son had just returned from China. This was a few months before COVID. Patient Zero???
I have to remind myself that sometimes you just have to laugh and roll with it. 🙂
We try to consider the crappy parts an adventure, so for instance instead of telling ourselves,”We’re losing an entire precious day traipsing around trying to get an antibiotic for this stupid freaking infected scrape on my leg and this is therefore the worst day ever,” our story was: “Surprise! Today we learn about the Icelandic medical system! Where are the chances for connection and fun in this weird adventure?!”
And you know, it was kind of fun! They were appalled and apologized about having to charge me $100 for the time with a doctor and the meds. We learned that healthcare is neighborhood-local; the folks who helped us access care looked up the clinic local to the place we were staying.
Also, we travel with freaking topical antibiotic now!
Yes!! One of our most talked about memories from a trip to Italy many years ago is navigating the healthcare system when my mom had a terrible rash. Got to see the inside of a beautiful old hospital !
Seconding what Julia says below, if at all possible, travel when your kids are little littles. Be prepared, it will be awful (and amazing!) And every trip from then on will be a little bit easier, and challenging in different ways. We took our littles to the Philippines for 3 weeks when they were 13 months and 3.5 years. Overnight flights (with connections) from the pacific northwest. Meds for fevers, tummies, first aid kits, strollers, diapers, changed plans and destinations cities, all the things. It was complete chaos and I absolutely didn’t love every minute of it (not even close). AND. We’re grateful we did it, have the photos, the family stories to talk about and offered a chance for the kids to show their resilience (and ours!) .. and we said no more big trips for at least two years.
Fast forward two years, and we just took our 3 and 5.5 year olds to Mexico City for a couple of weeks, and it was amazing. Of course, a few ups and downs, but it was so. much. easier. than that first trip. We repeatedly commented to each other that this trip felt downright blissful in comparison to that first one, which made us all the more grateful that we did it in the first place.
So, if it’s at all possible, take the trip. It will be awful, and wonderful, and worth it all the same.
“ So, if it’s at all possible, take the trip. It will be awful, and wonderful, and worth it all the same.”
I love that!! Our youngest is not a great traveler ( OCD and ADHD) and some moments of our trips are inevitably horrendous and everyone is crying BUT it’s still worth it!! The highs outweigh the lows!
We travel every holiday to see family members. It’s starting to wear on me, though. Right now, I am sitting in my bathrobe with a bad cold and feeling burnt out on going from place to place. My parents are getting older and it shows (my father has said how difficult it has been to order from bookshop.org TWELVE times since we arrived less than 24 hours ago). My sister’s kids are entitled and spoiled (read: throwing gifts they don’t like across the room and saying “I haaate this,” only eating macaroni and cheese from Panera, licking people’s faces, so on and so forth). I am grateful to have family but man, I would love to be home right now.
Hang in there, everyone.
That sounds awful and also so relatable. It’s hard to be the one always doing the traveling and then to show up for folks who are being their all-too-human, not-on-their-best-behavior, aging selves. (Lack of manners and entitled kids is a different story altogether.) I hope you have some enjoyable self-care activities to look forward to when you get home, and that you find some moments to connect with family (or even just yourself) while you’re there.
The saying the same thing over and over is so exhausting when you’re already dealing with everyone else, especially kids being jerks. I hope you can make up many urgent errands and walks—maybe today you decide you’re “training for a 5k” and have to disappear for a while??
this sounds awful, and the worst part is the mac n cheese from panera. sending you strength!
Solidarity Bea! This sounds really hard especially if you’re sick and burnt out. My holiday strategy is to try to get away by myself for any reason. I hope it turns around and you make some good memories!
Trips to visit, family are just that- a trip. NOT A VACATION. After the most terrible and absolutely emotionally draining week visiting both mine and my husband’s families in Atlanta over Thanksgiving, we said ” never again” and have already booked a Caribbean trip for Thanksgiving instead. I’m sure the year after next we will miss family and end up subjecting ourselves to the chaos again but I think we all deserve a break sometimes!
Thank you for the support, everyone. As I start to feel better it’ll be easier to get out and do things on my own. I try to wake up early and work out or grab a cup of coffee. And since I forgot a bunch of presents at my parents’ house over an hour away, I’ll have to go shopping. By myself. 🙂
In no way would I ever consider visiting family a vacation. That’s laughable.
Our first BIG (flying) family trip was last year from east to west coast and we finally got to our hotel in Utah, got our 3 year old son to sleep, and the FIRE ALARM in the hotel went off and we all had to evacuate. We finally got him back to sleep, and of course time change meant he was up at 4am. But he doesn’t remember any of that! He keeps asking to go back to visit my aunt in Idaho and to go to Yellowstone.
My mother’s mantra whenever something didn’t go as planned was, “We’re making memories!” I see now the effort it takes to be the silver linings person. It’s utterly exhausting, but I find myself in that role now too.
My dad’s was “Are we having fun yet!?”
I absolutely hated it as a kid, when tensions were high or we were bored out of our minds on a long car ride. But now of course I use it. And it makes me giggle to no end.
Because in the end, sometimes it’s the unfun parts that become the funniest and best memories!
So many great/not so great stories here! I took my 18 month old on an overnight flight as a lap infant to avoid paying for an extra seat. She did NOT want to be on my lap the whole time so it was an absolute nightmare but I kept telling myself “the plane will land eventually. The plane has to land eventually.” A very particular version of “this too shall pass” I guess
It ain’t a vacation until your 1 year old is having the worst tantrum of her life in the most quiet of commuter subways in Tokyo.
We took our quiet and chill (by American standards) children to Japan at 2 & 4 and I remember being on the train and thinking we were so loud! I was stressed the entire time.
I shuddered at this. We took our family of 6 to Tokyo last year and I kept desperately inventing word games for my 11 year old and 7 year old so they wouldn’t be too loud on the train or even just walking down the street. That is the quietest city I have EVER been in. It was amazing and so foreign to my loud family.
We’ve only done two big trips with our kids, and they were somehow horrific but also so amazing I’d do it over again.
Hawaii with a 3yr old and a 3month old: The baby cried horribly the entire trip, day and night. I got vomited on while flying without an extra shirt to change into, just had to sit in it since nudity isn’t allowed. Our toddler was terrified of the coqui frogs and fell asleep crying every night with her hands over her ears. I got back to back migraines.
But, I sat up with the baby during the night and just stared in amazement at the ocean before me. Our toddler played, naked, in the warm, warm rain every day which we can’t do in the PNW where we live- it’s a core childhood memory for me growing up in the south so I loved seeing her golden curls soaked in the rain while she laughed up at the sky. We drove across island to a botanical garden, and although the baby cried the whole time, I saw orchids growing wild for the first time and could not believe my eyes over the lush green, bright flowers, and crashing ocean. We have a blurry picture of my husband holding our daughter up in the air, in the swimming pool at night, the city and ocean sparkling in the background, their heads thrown back in laughter. We stayed in a huge air bnb with all of my husband’s family, and did not have one cross word between us which I tucked into my heart as I thought of growing up with my own bickering and tense family.
Winter road trip to ND to visit family with a 2yr old and a 5yr old:
Both kids started vomiting from a stomach virus on the way there and we had to pull over and “shower” in icy cold wind with water bottles, our kids screaming and miserable. Everyone driving past saw my pink panties while I changed because it couldn’t be helped. I yelled “sorry” to the cars, while crying with the kids, because being polite is very important.
5yr old ended up with diarrhea one day, as we drove along a back highway with not one bathroom. There were many stops along the road, in the icy wind, as my husband helped our kiddo do her business in the shrubbery. She was a champ about it, and we now have a (discreet) picture of Dada helping her on the roadside hanging on our fridge. Our car broke down on the way home (thankfully easy to fix and not much time or money wasted).
But, the little cousins held hands as they walked around the house, and we heard “I love you” so many times. We sat up late at night shrieking in laughter over the absurdity of the whole trip and over our childhood memories. We saw the Badlands for the first time which was incredible. We watched my single brother parent his two wild boys in his 80’s parent way which had me admiringly thinking about some parenting changes I could make while also clutching my pearls.
Traveling for us has been a pendulum between “wtf” and “I can’t believe this is the life I get to live”. I don’t have advice for anyone, but cheers if you are traveling with kids, ever.
We are a Dutch-American family so are pros when it comes to international travel, because of our yearly trips back and forth between the US and the Netherlands. That being said, letting go of carefully made plans and romantic idealism is my number
one tip. Set the bar low…remember that air travel is public transportation and not vacation, and embrace all of the interruptions, mishaps, and small emergencies that come with the trip despite best laid plans. The hiccups are what you remember, laugh at, and what reveals growth and character. Drink it as deeply in as you will the sweet and joyful moments. Tip 2 would be always make time for what rituals or routines hold your family together. Learn to say no, or we need x and y right now as a family. Your friends and relatives might understand or they might not; either way, you’re not responsible for their feelings about the way you’re making a safe space for your family. 🤍
My secret to enjoying family travel is: Go camping with your kids when they are toddlers.
It will be sooooo exhausting. The littlest one will wake up with the birds every day and you will wonder if you have lost your mind. Everyone will get so dirty! But all other travel experiences will be less crazy in comparison.
“I got misophonic and told them to be quiet or I would turn-this-car-around-so-help-me-god” – I feel this way EVERY CAR TRIP. I threaten to turn the car around every other car trip.
Last night I was asking my memory keeper (husband) if we had been to random Oregon town. “Yeah, that trip where Katy threw up the whole time….” “wait, I think it was that trip we got the flat tire??” “Oh yeah! On the camper?” “No no, that was in N CA, this was on the station wagon? No wait, we got one on the mini van that one time…”
“Are you sure it wasn’t the time we got in a fight and didn’t speak for 12 hrs on the way home?”
Yeah. I love/ hate family trips!!! So many adorable memories on the beach…. and that time Katy was terrified of tsunamis or that time a wave came up and took out 2 yo Bella and me and we were both freezing the rest of the day.
And somebody always picks up something and is sick the next week. I’m a little bit grateful to have the excuse of dogs who can’t be left so I have to stay home!
We traveled internationally when my children were 3 and 18 months, and I remember thinking “it will only get easier from here, the next trip will be easier” as I lay awake comforting my jet lagged daughter in the middle of the night. She stayed up all night the night before our departure for unknown reasons, fell asleep in the morning and for the earliest part of the flight, and somehow woke up at home perfectly on her normal sleep schedule. The rest of us were bleary eyed for about a week!
The one secret to having fun on family vacations? Accept the unexpected. Everything from delays to detours is a part of the experience. Recall that what matters most are the experiences that are shared along the journey, not the final goal. Happy journeys.
The quote I repeat the first day of travel to my kids and spouse which seems to make things feel a little better is that the first day of travel is always hard. Sometimes the second day too, if it’s a long trip or far trip and requires settling in. Jet lag, the Airbnb isn’t as clean as we’d hoped (so we spend the first day cleaning it),the beds aren’t as comfortable as we’d like, we have to share a room with a snoring/slobby/unorganized family member, acclimating to the temperature, location, finding food sources, getting used to modes of transportation, dealing with air travel hassles, etc. Add those all together at the same time and it’s HARD! But if we sacrifice the first day to getting there and settled, the rest of the trip can be more of a relaxed adventure. But yeah, the first day of travel SUCKS.
This year was our last before the kids started school, so we spent it traveling around Europe in our van. I believe that our children will remember this as the happiest moments of their childhood. It’s really worth going for it, although there will be many challenges along the way, but as a family, each of them has brought us together. I am also sending an article on the topic from the site where we get our photos printed: https://www.squared.one/magazine/traveling-with-children
I wish all families wonderful travel experiences!
Absolutely! The secret to unforgettable travels with the family is to embrace the highs and lows of travel. Everything is a part of the trip!
I’m in Banff, Canada a spectacular place. This post came to mind today. Here’s what happened, we’ve been having a wonderful time, but all of sudden it Saturday and the number if people in town seemed to triple in the afternoon, the streets are more crowded parking is difficult compounded by the stress that of a rental car. We decided the restaurants would be too crazy so we would picnic by Two Jack Lake outside of town. As we are leaving everyone is cranky and we have to make a left turn which takes ages and my husband says “I think maybe I hate Banff.” Then fifteen minutes later we score a table by the lake, it’s incredibly beautiful and peaceful, we eat cheese and bread and grapes and the kids play in the water. Then to top it off on the drive back we see an entire herd of elk. We went from feeling like it was the worst evening to a spectacular one. In this case nature was really showing off , but I couldn’t help but think of this post. I’d also like to add an addendum that its mot just traveling with kids, I think its any travel, there will always be some frustration or disappointment, and there will also be joy and magic.
I’m a firm believer that one remembers that day when everything went right. When things go wrong, I try to frame it as “Well, we’re making a memory…!” All of my favorite memories of vacations growing up revolve around at least one thing going off-kilter, and I hope that I remember this when I’m on vacation with my own little family someday!
I’m now 60yrs old, in my 40th birthday year we took a family trip of nine months travelling around discovering new places in our extraordinary home country of Australia, in a borrowed 4 berth Winnebago. We took a mortgage holiday, we were in advance on our payments from paying a bit more from the get-go. Our three boys aged 7, 14. & 16 did home school lessons, well…sometimes, and our18yr old daughter took a year off from her uni course. The trip was the best thing we ever did for our family. I don’t think it was easy for the kids, away from their friends and usual routines, but they morphed into better people and became closer to their siblings and more tolerant of each others differences and quirks. One memorable thing, and there were many simply magic gentle moments, was when our (undiagnosed) autistic son had an emotional meltdown one evening and his older brother and sister both encircled him in their arms and just hugged
and held him and spoke kind and loving words to him which eased his anxiety, whilst my husband and I looked on with such surprise and joy that these three had reinforced their familial bonds they’d had as youngsters.
Another funny episode was when a dust storm followed by a thunderstorm and rain, struck during the night. Our two teenage boys had a small tent they shared. They didn’t try to come inside but hit up several times during the storms and replaced the tent pegs and tightened the ropes together. The youngest held an umbrella over his older brother whilst he hammered the tent pegs back in firmer, all the while innocently holding the brolly in such a position that the cold rain ran in a fine torrent straight down his big brother’s bumcrack. How Kyle managed to hold his notoriously short temper and not to bop his younger sibling remains a mystery. Not only did he take it on the chin he suggested they both grab their towels and some dry clothes and hit the showers. They ended up snoozing the remainder of that awful night on the benches in the warm, centrally heated shower block, cozy and dry under a solid roof. Sometimes your kids impress you with their resilience and maturity when things aren’t going well.
This is so pure and amazing. Thank you for sharing. What a great experience for your family!
This sounds so wonderful! Reminds me of the dream trip we want to take in 10+ years with my now-toddlers and in utero baby: the great loop! You boat down the Mississippi River, around Florida, up the east coast, and through the Great Lakes. We’ve talked about whether to do it after the kids grow up or with them, and your comment is selling me on doing it with them. 🙂
I love this Lee!
“The first day isn’t holiday” is our new mantra. The first day is loaded with excitement and anticipation but IT IS NOT THE HOLIDAY. It’s about getting there, and it’s going to suck. After nearly turning around and going home again after airport stress, delayed flights, car hire cancellations, crap Airbnbs, all restaurants being closed by the time we arrived, kids being cranky, husband being annoying, me being resentful because of all the work involved to get us all there and this was all what it was for?! …we worked out that the first day is a necessary evil and if we resign ourselves to it sucking, we won’t write off the entire holiday before it’s even started…
We got back yesterday from a road trip from Virginia to the Hudson Valley, Montreal, and Brooklyn. Montreal was having a heat wave, the AirBnB didn’t have air conditioning, and everyone got very cranky. One morning we went to the beautiful botanic garden and then set off in search of a Japanese restaurant that seemed like it should be close but turned out to be so hard to get too because they were setting up for an event in the park and we kept finding our path blocked. So we (me, husband, and 14 and 11 year old daughters) trudged the long way through the heat to discover google didn’t show the right location for the restaurant. We finally found it deep inside a huge building that was built to house Olympic athletes for the Montreal games, which felt like a ghost town. Just empty corridors everywhere (which is when I discovered my older one knows what a liminal space is!). The restaurant was very small and it was staffed by THE nicest Japanese man working all alone. We talked about both that horrible walk (it became the new standard–hey, it’s hot, but it’s not as bad as that walk to lunch the other day!) and that kind man for the rest of the trip.
A little late to the commenting party because we were on vacation. 🙂 But, just had to say that one night last week we reminisced with our adult children about all the bad times we had and laughed about it. We all had such different memories about the same experiences. My “Remember when your brother cried for an hour because we wouldn’t let him bring the really big stick in the car, then refused to get out of the car the rest of the day because he was so mad?” was met with “Nope, not at all.” I was also surprised by different perspectives – my (very) high anxiety recollection of getting lost while hiking was their “We liked when we had to figure it out. Mom didn’t like it and freaked out. But it’s funny now.” It turned out the sometimes the worst times were the most memorable, which honestly, is what makes new experiences worth every minute – the good, bad and ugly. I will also say, vacation hard. They grow up so fast. I don’t regret a single minute or dollar we spent – even staycationing from home having ice cream sundae bar for dinner. Memories don’t need to be fancy – they just need to be out of the norm enough to make them shine.
Love that– “Memories don’t need to be fancy–they just need to be out of the norm enough to make them shine.”
Love your post Nicole, and the statement to vacation hard! Yes do as much travel and even home town vacations where you act like a tourist and go and discover new things together, even the tough and annoying experiences when shared honestly and with love, will help you all grow and be stronger and better family members.
Oh, it is family travel (*not* a vacation!). Since I live on a different continent than my parents, I’ve done a lot of this, and also encountered the joys of canceled or significantly delayed transatlantic flights.
One tip from last summer’s trip to London, during which my husband was working and I took on the town with my newly 5-year-old daughter: choose 1 activity a day which is on your “must do” list and make sure it is early in the day, when moods & energy are still high. When she was tired out after the museum or the play, I could offer her the option of another sight/activity or to just go back to the hotel, and then felt totally fine when she opted for the hotel. This was also key when we needed to reserve a spot and pay in advance. Need to book tickets for a late morning show or one in the afternoon? Obviously the morning one!
Oh, and don’t underestimate the power of stopping randomly at a cafe or eatery for a snack (and coffee for us grown-ups). You get to try someplace new, perhaps there’s a novel food item not available where you live, there’s most likely a bathroom (big win!), and you’ll all probably emerge in a better state than before this break.
Older mom here — my kids are now 21 and 23; we have done a lot of traveling with them over the years. Almost every trip has had some sort of drama of varying degrees in it. And even though those moments can be really tough at the time, we do laugh about them later on. When we recount the holiday stories, sprinkled in throughout the great times are the moments of bad. And really, isn’t that just how life is? Just because we are on holidays doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect. And that, is a perfect reflection of life in general.
Someone else may have said this but one of my best friends Phil shared wise words years ago, “Vacation with children is about making memories (the good & bad) not about rest & relaxation!” As someone who’s been vacationing with my kids close to 16 years, these words have served me well. A great reminder to be present and go with the flow!
We’re in Portugal having epic days of sweeping beauty and then my ten year old daughter plays Roblox at our Airbnb for four hours during a call with a friend.
Looking out at the ocean, I fantasize about whipping her iPad down a cliff. I don’t know what it all means but it’s yin and it’s yang.
I travel with my kid since he was 42 days old. We are both Brazilian and American citizens and we visit family and friends in Brazil every year ( minus pandemic). My kid is always the best to travel with. He’s a teenager now and today is his birthday.He is also a lucky traveler. He found empty seating rows in airplanes that he just laid down the entirely flight. Once, he had motion sickness and got sick in every flight and car ride from US to Brazil. Once I ended up having ( to combine!!) my regular Citalopram and I decided to have melatonin with it in a flight from Chicago to São Paulo. I got a really bad trip! I arrived at the airport of Guarulhos in São Paulo in wheelchair follow by my concerned kid. We survived!
I recently got back from a trip to Italy with my husband, 8yo and 4yo, and yes – it’s all about the expectations. There were tantrums on train platforms, jet lag sickness and angry plane seatmates. But it was beautiful and satisfying to see my kids become curious about a different culture and customs! I have a lot of friends tell me they think it’s a waste of money to travel with young children when they don’t fully appreciate the experience, and cry when walking yet another step on the streets of Florence – but our life isn’t guaranteed, so I’d rather go now, complaining and tantrums and all.
Our life isn’t guaranteed is such a great way to look at it, I am going to try remember this.
I had a major mom-meltdown during a beach trip with our 3 young kids. Our 6yo looked dumbfounded, but patted me on the back and said, “I understand, mom. Sometimes it can be difficult having an upstairs kitchen.” (Apparently she thought the format of the rental house was what triggered me!)
I’m sure this was so hard at the time, but what a sweet and funny memory! Thank you for sharing – your thoughtful kiddo made me giggle
Absolutely! I think I read this here on the recent post about travel tips, and it was genius: you wouldn’t expect to go a whole day at home without a kid whining about something, so it’s totally normal while traveling. I was about to take a two week trip with my son, and it really helped my perspective.
Just unpacking (still, three days later) from a week-long trip to Minnesota to visit family and attend my husband’s college reunion, with our three kids, 5, 3, and 6 months. The kids were great; the kids were fun; the kids were exhausting; the kids were terrible! At the reunion, I overheard a mom telling her young child, “WILL YOU STOP FIGHTING ME ON EVERY LITTLE THING?!?!” and suddenly felt lighter. Somehow that made me feel seen and happy. Blonde Mom, wherever you are, whoever you are, thanks, ha!
A friend once told me that family vacation was an oxymoron.
Yes! I always feel like I need a vacation vacation after a family vacation ha!
The one exception was an all-inclusive week in Jamaica. I really felt myself let go and enjoy it.
My dad calls it “away game parenting” – you’re doing all the same parenting, just in an unfamiliar place, without your routines, and possibly a different time zone. Of COURSE you’re bound to lose sometimes! But when you win, it’s even sweeter!
I feel this to my core. I was so confident that having kids wouldn’t interfere with our travels. We’ve traveled a lot within the US with our kids but only once internationally- to Ireland with a two year old. It was honestly such a disaster. Our flight out was delayed for several hours and eventually canceled. When we got another flight, my daughter was wired and wouldn’t go to sleep on the red eye and the people in front of us were really rude about it. She finally fell asleep, only to wake up an hour later puking everywhere. She continued to throw up every 10-20 minutes for like 6 hours. Total nightmare. The next day she was much better, but my husband got it. We were in a rural town on a Sunday and couldn’t get any medicine for it. We had a stick shift rental which only he could drive. He drove us to the cliffs of moher on those winding narrow roads (on the “wrong” side) with a horrible bug. Later he started feeling okay and we tried to enjoy ourselves but it was rainier and colder than usual, our 2 year old couldn’t handle most of the things we wanted to do, and then I got the stomach bug 6 days later at the end of the trip! The only thing she liked to watch was Frozen, so we let her watch it on our phones at every restaurant and long drive and tour we did. We also spent a ton of time at playgrounds. This was 6 years ago and I’m only beginning to want to try to go abroad again, maybe next summer when our youngest is 3. Not sure I’ll be able to convince my husband for several more years, though! The last few years, beach trips and nature trips with picnics has been where it’s at.
i want you to know that i read every word of this and felt every awful 20 minutes of what must have been the trip from hell. what a story. but hey, if nothing goes wrong on a trip then it’s just boring, right? right?
Why on earth would you take children so young on international travel? It’s not like they get anything out of it to begin with. Why not leave them with their grandparents or something?
I did a lot of traveling with my parents as a kid, but not before I was like 6 and we left my little brother behind until he was like 5. Anything younger than 4 is a disaster waiting to happen.
Wow Sarah, I’m so sorry that your comment was met with such a rude, judgmental, AWFUL response. I’m sorry you had such a hard trip! And for the record, absolutely anyone can pick up a stomach bug; this was not Sarah’s “fault.”
To this day people feel the need to comment on the trip where I took my then-2-yr-old to Paris (“But he won’t even remember it” etc etc). News flash: I remember it, and I matter too! It was a challenging and absolutely extraordinary trip, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I hope your next trip makes up for the last! xo
Dia – that is such a rude comment on so many levels. How about you don’t judge a family you don’t know anything about?
My daughter was an amazing trailer until she was like 2 yrs old. We went to Australia, NZ, Europe, and around the US. Even though she doesn’t remember, we have all the photos from those trips and she’s like LOOOK! I went there!!!! So no judgement, it depends on the kid
Another thing, some, like us, don’t have grandparents or relatives to help out so if we want to go anywhere, the kid(s) have to come
DIA, Sometimes people have relatives in other countries they would like to visit. And children travel internationally all the time.
Additionally, my first memories are when I was two. There is nothing saying they will not remember. And whats more, memories are not the only thing to be gotten from a trip. Happy feelings and bonding with family are lasting beyond memory.
I wonder what this world would be like if, when we are inclined to write “Why on earth…?” we stop and realize that we really have no idea why, and be truly curious and compassionate about another family’s circumstances. So much harm happens when we thing we know better. I read that story and empathized with it so hard, and the hesitation to try again after a trip from hell.
Sarah, I hope you will try again when you’re ready. Hugs.
Dia, not everyone (myself included) have an option to leave a kid under 5 with someone else while I go traveling. So I’d rather go travel and have the normal ups and downs of raising a kid in a new place, then not go anywhere at all!
OH NO this is such a terrible experience.
Dia- I traveled with my family starting at 6 months. Most of my family lives in a different country. I feel lucky to have traveled early and often as I feel it makes me a more confident traveler. Plus, knowing that I experienced my family’s country from early on makes me feel more connected to my family and culture. I played at playgrounds all over Europe and got to eat different food and we have loads of cute pictures and funny stories from all of those experiences. I remember some of the travels from when I was 3-4. I think it’s worth it to bring kids along!
I’m reading this two years later after my own kinda crappy international trip (to visit family) with my 5 and 2 year old! Sarah, thank you for making me feel normal and not a terrible parent and less alone! It honestly made me let go of a lot of disappointment I’ve been carrying around.
And I’ve been thinking about this whole “they won’t remember it anyway” thing. It’s true, but I sort of feel like every experience even at that age builds who you are, so even if you don’t remember it, it shapes you?? So I dunno, I’m glad we had the chance to do it.
Dia, my younger son celebrated his third birthday in London. Wonderful trip.
My family is in India and would never travel to the US to come see us. We are in the West Coast of US, so any trip to India is at a minimum 24 hour door to door trip. I have been travelling with my son since he was 9 months old on international India trips and several trips have been on my own. Navigating with a baby on a baby carrier, hand luggage, immigration etc etc. Was the flight all fun? No. But, I had no choice. The travels were even more nightmarish when he started walking as he would be all over the airport and I had to chase after him. Thankfully, my brain somehow forgets most unpleasant things and I have no memories of some of the awful flights/trips
Aww, the Anton crying at Uno pic…this caused me to flash to so many memories of my kids having meltdowns during games, including the time my then-4yo threw down his cards and yelled, “Damnit!” then burst into tears. Still makes me laugh-cry.
Our best trip ever was spring break in Florida where we each got one dream day: my youngest got Harry Potter World, my oldest got Cape Canaveral, I got Key West, my husband got the Everglades. I think there was only once where I had to say, “Nope, it’s dad’s day!” Of course we got ice cream every day and did little things everyone liked, but the person whose day it was got to set the agenda. We do the same-ish thing for all trips, where each person gets to pick their priorities, but that trip had such clearly delineated days, it was fantastic.
A general comment that I have found ages 7-11 to be the sweet spot for big trips especially international travel, old enough to listen/understand/remember where we take them and young enough to appreciate/enjoy/and not act like jaded teens!
Agree.
… every time we travel with our now 15 y/o twin boys!!
I think Julie Bowen (as Claire) said it best on Modern Family when the entire family departed for Hawaii: “I’m a mom of three. This isn’t a vacation – it’s a business trip!” I think of that line
EMDR therapy almost fully resolved my misophonia! Obviously everybody’s body and brain stuff is unique, but I wish I knew earlier that it’s a treatable thing, not a “grit my teeth til I can bolt out of the room” lifelong recurrence.
Yes, great suggestion! I’ve done EMDR therapy for both sound triggers and anxiety around driving after a car accident and both experience were great. Highly recommend!
We are in the process of saying yes to trying for a baby (I know that sounds weird, but for us it’s been a sunrise not a light switch decision), and I think this is exactly how my husband is framing the idea of being a parent generally! He’s been working with his therapist on the idea that discomfort is a human experience. That avoiding discomfort is not the most reliable North Star, because plenty of valuable and worthwhile things come with a healthy scoop of discomfort.
I love this, Rue. It is honestly the most eyes-open perspective I’ve heard on choosing parenting. We have a 4 year old and an 8 month old and there is… A LOT OF DISCOMFORT. But then I think about other big things that people accomplish… climbing actual mountains, earning medical degrees, building companies from the ground up… a lot of the good things in life are very very hard. For me, raising children has been enormously difficult and uncomfortable, but also beautiful and profound. I’m grateful (but not always happy) every day that this is part of my life.
I just love that clearly, you are a long-time CoJ reader (sunrise vs. light switch). I always wanted to be a mother, always. But, damn it, it is hard, and sometimes (many many times) I just want to scream and run away. Being a parent is really wonderful, but also so fu**** hard, boring, and uncomfortable 🙂
Strangely enough, when I read this post I thought the phrase “Expect some rough times” could be applied to parenting in general. I have a VERY exuberant almost two -year-old and and my husband and I have come to realise there is hard moments and extremely joyful moments, often happening within the space of a few minutes. Our first overseas trip to Italy last year was a case in point: our kid was that one who SCREAMED on the entire plane journey and wouldn’t allow us to sit for a meal for more than 30 minutes, but he also gave us the joy of watching the locals swoon over him, and seeing the contented look on his face as he pottered around the town square and explored his latest hotel room. The rewards must outweigh the trials because I’m currently pregnant our second.
Anonymous, I love that vivid picture of your family!! It kind of reminds me of the intense interview I had for my dream job, which I’ve now been at for 7 years. But in the theme of “take the bad that comes with the wonderful,” I remember getting to my hotel room the night before the interview, having spent nine years in school for this specific job, and the only way I could calm myself enough to get to sleep was to say, “well, it’s nice of them to invite me and all, but maybe I can just sneak back to the airport first thing in the morning and not have to go through this grueling interview.”
Ahh, discomfort! It’s quite the ride.
As we drove out of our driveway on the way to the airport or wherever we were going on vacation, my dad would always say, “Our vacation starts now. Whatever happens between now and when we return home, we are on vacation!” Now I say the same thing to my own kids.
I would be INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL for some inputs on carseats and flights! My son is 16 months old and we are taking a short trip – 2 hour flight. We are not renting a car at our destination, but will take a couple of Uber rides.
Are Uber drivers usually okay with you bringing your own seat (and base, of course)?
And would you send the carseat as luggage (bubble wrapped?) or bring it on the flight? It will be just me, the toddler, and a bag, but ideally would prefer not to bring the seat 🙂
THANK YOU!!
Hi Anna! For you to noodle on:
– Yes, you can bring a car seat in an uber (look up some youtube tutorials on your model, there is a way to strap in with a seatbelt, so you don’t have to bring the base). I believe this is equally safe as w/ the base for your child– the base just makes it easier to put the seat in the car every day rather than using the seatbelt!
– We check our car seat– sometimes at the luggage counter, sometimes gate check (free either way); we don’t bubble wrap (they’re made to withstand a car crash!), but we do use a backpack carrier to make it easier to carry around
Good luck! Hope you have a great time 🙂
Sarah; THANK you so much!!! You are so kind to make the time to reply, I really appreciate it!
No base will make everything easier, and that makes sense re: the bubble wrap (haha)
Thanks, Sarah, you are so kind <3
Even though 2 hours isn’t very long, I found having the car seat on the plane (if you’re buying a seat or if the plane has available seats) to be super helpful at containing a wiggly little person. I also got a roller wheel thing to attach the car seat to and it made taking it through the airport much easier (plus I could strap the kid in).
Ditto what Sarah said already about no base, check it at the gate. I recently used a Cosco travel car seat instead of my regular one for my 15 month old on transatlantic flights. it’s so light, easy to get in and out of taxis. highly recommend!
When my kids were 16mo, I’d bring the carseat on board and strap them into the carseat. I did that until they were 2 or so. Much more reliable to get a toddler to stay into a carseat that they’re used to than straight on the seat where they can wiggle right out. And more comfortable for them to fall asleep (fingers crossed!). My kids were used to and liked their carseats though; not sure what I would do if they hated it.
Thank you everyone for your kind and helpful replies!!
I have found a Cosco seat with amazing reviews.
Thank you, thank you; I knew I would get the best replies here at CoJ 🙂
Anna, bring the car seat if you have no way of easily getting another if it’s lost! My baby daughter’s was lost on the way to a family funeral and luckily my MIL was ahead of us and bought one at target to bring to the car service, when we went to Ireland we brought it because we had no way to get another, but flying into Nice we check it because worst case we can take the train home. That said, my kids hang out and rest in their car seats, whereas having a lap baby (22 months, they refused to give her her own seat as it was a full flight) was an actual nightmare to me (she’s so large and strong now I can’t physically contain her)
Went camping last weekend with my husband and our two year old and of course he woke up at 5am both mornings, and the second morning couldn’t settle – didn’t want to go outside and walk around, didn’t want to play with his toys in the camp, hit me in the face multiple times while I tried to sleep (we each took a day getting up early with him). Woof. Finally broke out the phone and Bluey. Not what we wanted to be doing while camping, but realized that sometimes you do what you have to do, and that maybe camping trips are when we go to bed early too!
But thinking back at the trip and looking at photos, I remember how he wanted to carry the firewood himself and how he fell asleep in the hiking pack and pointed out all the chipmunks and ultimately the frustrating mornings fade away.
No shame in screentime while camping! There is no way a two year old is going to appreciate a lovely morning in nature while you rest or break down camp! You’re in it for the long game, and right now screens are a great way to ease into it.
These photos are everything. I have so many like these on my camera roll. I have a collection of photos where my husband and I are both smiling and the kids are looking straight into the camera like serial killers.
Just listening to a Mike Babiglia podcast in which he said comedy = tragedy + time….. I think that is what you got in those pictures….. genius-
I love all these snapshots ❤️ For me, it has usually been my son being SO unreasonable about where we would eat on trips that it stressed me out pretty well. He’s still often inflexible at nearly 16! But now I try and focus on the pleasant moments like when we joke around in a more adult way or that bear hug he gives me unexpectedly. Life is a balance.
After a year of leaky breasts and stretchy pants, I’m finally starting to feel like myself again…
Including personal essays on divorce, grief, and starting over.
Ravioli, sunflowers, and older women in bikinis.
With strong coffee in the morning, be still my heart!
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