Travel Tips for Your Family Trip
Are you all packed up and ready to go on a March Break vacation? It’s not really a vacation if the kids are along – it’s a trip. A probably worthwhile, hopefully restful, possibly educational trip. A trip with the kids involves lots of pre-planning and pre-packing. Even I, procrastinator extraordinaire, will obsess and work on the tiniest details before boarding a plane.
My husband, being the anal-but-lovable guy that he is, has very strict requirements for when the five of us travel: only two suitcases and the kids have to be able to handle their own carry-ons. His logic (and he’s not wrong) is that since he has to carry everything, it has to be manageable for one person. I have gotten the packing down to a bare minimum but it takes many days of weeding and culling until I can cram it all into the two suitcases. A point of pride: when we went away skiing, my family of five had less luggage then my mother and step-dad.
But I can see that I have two things that are going to foil my packing plans in the future: my sons' clothes are getting very large and are taking up a lot of valuable suitcase real estate and then there are the shoes. Shoes are big and if I had my way I would always travel with three pairs that need their extra carry-on.
The most intricately-planned part of packing is not the suitcases, it is the the carry-ons. The kids must manage their own carry-ons, whether they are backpacks or those little wheelie cases. (My daughter has seriously the ugliest Barbie suitcase ever made – it’s an airport embarrassment). The problem is that the stuff in their carry-ons must be able to occupy them for the duration of the voyage and also during the not-so busy times during the trip.
So here are my tips for maximum carry-on enjoyment:
· Bring the electronic babysitter. DS, IPODs, DVD machines – beg, borrow or steal some kind of screen. The plane, car and standing around waiting periods are the time to erase screen time limits and allow the kids to play, watch or listen until their heads explode. Don’t forget the chargers!
· Let kids choose small toys to bring. Then, take away half of what they pulled out. Or give them a large, resealable plastic bag to fill but tell them they cannot take any more than that.
· Two picture books each. No matter what you do you will get sick of the two picture books that your child choses to bring but they won’t, so suck it up.
· Sticker books, colouring, markers, craft stuff etc. : Must haves. Wikki Stiks were the fave on our last trip. Bring extra craft supplies in your carry-on.
· Games: Even sworn enemies (ie. siblings) have to play together on a trip and it’s better if it is structured and rule-based. We love all card games, especially Uno and Apples to Apples (dump the box), and Savvymom.ca has some other suggestions.
· Resealable plastic bags are your friends: All snacks, toys with small parts, markers, everything goes in its own plastic bag. There will be a point in the trip when you will dump out the toys from a bag and use that bag for a soiled clothing item.
· Extra Resealable bags: carry a few extra in your carry-on.
· Snacks: During our flight from Kelowna to Toronto there was not one kid-friendly snack available at any price. Good thing I had brought: small bags of chips leftover from Halloween, granola, bagels and cream cheese, protein bars (for the hubby – if he is cranky the rest of us are in trouble), life savers and chocolate bars. Halloween-sized candy is a great travel item, and never goes stale.
· Surprises: I always make sure that I go and get a few small surprise items that I put in their carry-ons before we go. I usually get some small craft items, travel games and definitely some treats.
· Extra shirt: If you are travelling with little ones (under the age of 21) you may want to pack an extra shirt for yourself and child. Put them in one of those handy plastic bags and seal them up so that if and when I need a dry shirt I can put the wet one into the bag and throw it back into my carry-on.
· Extra underwear/diapers: Airplane bathrooms can be noisy, stinky and kind of frightening to a small child. Do not be surprised if an accident happens. Take extra underwear for your kid.
Travelling with baby/toddlers: I always took way more diapers and food then I needed. The stories about passengers being stuck on the tarmac for hours without being allowed off always informed my decisions of how much to take. Sometimes I would take a wipe box as a mini-toy box because babies love to open and close lids. I found toddlers the most difficult age to travel with, mostly because I am extremely lazy and I loathe walking up and down aisle a hundred times bumping into the other passengers and the drink cart.
The good news is that kids almost always rise to the occasion. I love watching my three kids walking through the airport or train station confidently carrying their bags excited about the next step in the voyage. Unfortunately, this year I will be more likely to be arranging playdates, trying out these suggestions and generally trying to ignore my kids.
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