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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm American and wouldn't bring a stroller for a 5 year old, though I would for a 4 year old, so it might depend on whether your child is just-turned 5 or almost 6.

It is important to remember, before people get condescending and rude, that OP is asking about a stroller for vacation, not every day use. I live in a city and walk everywhere and so does my kid. But we have normal lives going to work and school and eating at home most nights, with typical bedtimes for a young child, etc.

On vacation, especially to a walkable foreign city, we can spend all day on our feet, sight seeing, exploring museums, etc. We may want to extend the day a bit and go for a walk after dinner, or just spend more time out and about enjoying our surroundings, and not hurry back to our hotel or rental at 6pm for dinner in and normal bedtime. For a young child, that is a lot and they get tired, and having a stroller handy can offer them needed breaks and make it easier on the margins -- walking home after dinner, walking back to the hotel after a few hours at a garden or museum, etc.

Having said that, my almost-6 year old doesn't need a stroller anymore -- we can just take breaks as needed and she doesn't complain too much even when on her feet for long periods of time. But when we were in Montreal when she was just shy of 5, we brought our travel stroller and used it on the two longest days of sightseeing and were glad we had it.

No need to get smug about forcing a very young child to walk all day long instead of giving them a perfectly appropriate break in a stroller now and then.[/quote]The point is that you don't force them to walk all day long.  You build in breaks.  We don't take the exact same vacations that we did pre-kid.  They are still awesome, but they are different.[/quote]

I don't know if you read my post or just have poor reading comprehension, but I have a kid and have traveled extensively with her. We walk a lot on this kind of trip -- the whole point of visiting a foreign city is to walk around, see the sights, experience the culture. I'm not taking my kid to Paris and spending half the time in the hotel. Once she was no longer napping, we started traveling more and she does great. But yes, until age 5 we brought a small travel stroller as a just in case, and it was very useful.

I do not understand why people are so weird about strollers. It's a useful parenting item! If you don't want to use it, that's fine, but people get so weird on this website about "well my child has not used a stroller since 2.5, we believe in walking!" Like, how do you think we are pushing the stroller, on a moped? We used a stroller extensively when our child was younger specifically because we walk so much and sometimes our kid needed a break.[/quote]

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