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[quote=Anonymous]Our kids are 5y and 18 months. We have been on 1-3 week trips to Spain, Ireland, Germany, Chicago, North Carolina, and Florida.

We mostly travel for free and the kids do great. Here's the secret to our success (and I totally realize it won't be for everyone).

-We do home exchanges. We always find a family with similarly aged kiddos so they have a stroller, high chair, monitor, crib, toys, and everything we could imagine. Toddler gets a fever at 2am? There's a medicine cabinet. Beach day? There's a wagon, sun shade, and sand toys. Going on a hike? They have a toddler carrier. Also, it's free.

-Staying in homes, we can do laundry. I pack 3-4 days worth of clothes for each person and do laundry as needed. This lets us travel with carryons only and avoid waiting forever for luggage to come out or losing our bags.

-We keep our toddler on her nap schedule. We usually do a morning outing and an afternoon/evening outing. During nap time, toddler sleeps and 5yo is ENTHRALLED with playing with a whole house of different toys.

-We have full kitchens with the ability to cook. We usually visit local markets/farmers markets and cook 2 meals per day and go out for 1. I think going to restaurants multiple times per day is unrealistic for most little kids.

-We have swapped cars several times so usually the family has the car seats we need, we can go wherever, and don't pay for a rental. The times we haven't swapped cars, we been walkable to great public transportation (in Barcelona and Chicago).

-My DH travels for work so we get miles which is why our flights are mostly free. We typically use miles for international travel and drive for domestic travel. We leave at bedtime and drive through the night with DH and I switching drivers half way through.

-We have go to spots that are kid friendly to break up the day as needed. We ALWAYS check out the public library wherever we are. We've attended story times in many different languages. Every library we've been in is free, has toys, clean bathrooms, and has AC. If you are sightseeing around a downtown area there's almost always one walkable for a break. In Germany and Ireland, we chit chatted with the libraries and each let my children choose a book to take home as a souvenir. I wrote the date and location and a little note about our trip in them and they're great free keepsakes.

-Most cities have coffee shops with kids books and toys. We do a quick google search and will usually pop into one to break up sightseeing as needed. Barcelona has FANTASTIC ones. Really, really cool.

-We often travel with our best friends who have kids the same age. For a week trip, each couple gets 2 date nights out and the moms go out one night and the dads one night. Our rule is you can leave after the kids are asleep. It's worked great and really given us some moments where we feel like we are traveling kid free. DH and I can enjoy some exciting date nights and know our kids are with our best friends. We have also taken both of our moms on trips and then we do something similar- grandma will give us a date night, my mom and I will get a night out together, etc.

-For longer trips, I try to find local kid activities to join. We were in Spain for 3 weeks and the park district put on a water day. I signed my kids up. It was 2 Euros each for 3 hours. It was this big shady field with hoses, buckets, slip n slides, a blob, kiddie pools with little slides, sprinklers. They had a BLAST (parents stayed too). Then a few days later there was a block party in the neighborhood we were staying and the neighbor invited us to join. There was a neighborhood wide water fight. They gave our kids squirt guns and water balloons and little war paint on their faces. Our oldest was 4yo and IN HEAVEN. It was a great memory for all of us.

-We have met some amazing families through home exchanging. Such genuine, fun and travel loving, kind hearted people. In NC, the wife left us a warm loaf of sourdough she just made with local butter. In Germany, the home owners mom stopped by to grab the mail and brought my kids little German cookies she baked. In Ireland, the person living next door owned a pub and invited us in and gave DH and I a round of Guiness on the house. Just people you can sit and shoot the sh*t with and make genuine, heart warming connections.

I know most of DCUM won't travel like us but it has been such a wonderful experience. We are a solidly MC family and we've gotten travel opportunities I couldn't have dreamed of. None of my parents or grandparents had ever left the US and I feel so fortunate to give my kids a different experience.[/quote]

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