We lived in Europe from the time our kids were 1, 4, and 7, and traveled a ton with them for 4 years. It wasn't always easy, but it was totally worth it!

The key is to have really low expectations - you can't do more than one scheduled stop/museum/event per day, and you have to build in a lot of time to chill. We would always find a playground or park, try to stay in a hotel with an indoor pool, have lots of ice cream breaks, just so the trip would feel fun for them too.

Also - don't stress about packing; you can buy anything you need (this was a key thing for me to realize).

Kids are more resilient than you think. We were slaves to a schedule for our first, but realized that kids learn to sleep almost anywhere. Our baby learned to nap in his stroller and to this day (he's 7 now) can sleep anywhere.

The worst trips for us have always involved staying at someone else's house for a visit - inevitably my kids get sick/scream all night, and the stress involved with that is much worse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traveling with children is relocation, not vacation.

I the parent of three kids and have done multiple trips abroad to see DH’s family. Things got way easier when we only needed booster seats in the car instead of lugging car seats around. Also, we never brought a stroller…it was just too much…back carriers/front carriers snd shared duties on carrying. As for restaurants, you find something quick and inexpensive or grab something to go and eat in a park or back at the hotel—not glamorous but it takes the pressure off everyone (jet lagged parents and toddlers). As for naps, we just let children snooze in carriers for that week. Sure, we paid for it with some crankiness, but you make it work.

Again, it is relocation, not vacation.

If we hadn’t had a reason to go oversees, I would have stuck to day trips and been happy to do so and saved the big trips for when kids got older.

We also just brought carriers— no strollers— and let the kids nap on the go.

I think this is the hard part for those of us with good home sleepers. Its hard to trade a 2-3 hour nap in a crib for a 40 minute nap (which is all my kids would do on the go) in a carrier with an adult needing to hold you. Which is why we just stuck to rentals with seperate kid bedrooms until our kids got older. As a parent, it was much more relaxing to me to still get my long afternoon break and 7pm bedtime than to explore Europe at those ages. Its true we didn't take very exciting vacations for about 5 years there.

Anonymous wrote:We just spent two weeks in Europe with our 2.5 year old which went pretty well. Then we spent this past weekend at a rental house 2 hours away and it was a total disaster. Like bad enough where we said, will we ever travel again? So no advice other than to be prepared as much as you can for food and sleep and it may go ok or it might not! The disaster was especially disheartening bc Europe had gone so well.

One toddler is not three kids under 8.

Anonymous wrote:Traveling with children is relocation, not vacation.

I the parent of three kids and have done multiple trips abroad to see DH’s family. Things got way easier when we only needed booster seats in the car instead of lugging car seats around. Also, we never brought a stroller…it was just too much…back carriers/front carriers snd shared duties on carrying. As for restaurants, you find something quick and inexpensive or grab something to go and eat in a park or back at the hotel—not glamorous but it takes the pressure off everyone (jet lagged parents and toddlers). As for naps, we just let children snooze in carriers for that week. Sure, we paid for it with some crankiness, but you make it work.

Again, it is relocation, not vacation.

If we hadn’t had a reason to go oversees, I would have stuck to day trips and been happy to do so and saved the big trips for when kids got older.

We also just brought carriers— no strollers— and let the kids nap on the go.

Traveling with children is relocation, not vacation.

I the parent of three kids and have done multiple trips abroad to see DH’s family. Things got way easier when we only needed booster seats in the car instead of lugging car seats around. Also, we never brought a stroller…it was just too much…back carriers/front carriers snd shared duties on carrying. As for restaurants, you find something quick and inexpensive or grab something to go and eat in a park or back at the hotel—not glamorous but it takes the pressure off everyone (jet lagged parents and toddlers). As for naps, we just let children snooze in carriers for that week. Sure, we paid for it with some crankiness, but you make it work.

Again, it is relocation, not vacation.

If we hadn’t had a reason to go oversees, I would have stuck to day trips and been happy to do so and saved the big trips for when kids got older.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3 kids. We took a grandparent with us to Europe so she could stay behind with the three year old for naptimes. We started doing trips on our own when the youngest was five. We tend to do airbnb apartments so everyone can spread out and go to sleep at different times.

I actually found it easier to travel when they were young compared to now when my two oldest kids are teens and whiny, want to sleep in, less adaptable to time changes.

Well it’s really easy to travel when you treat your mother like the help.

LOL are you kidding me? She practically kicks us out the door wanting alone time with a grandkid! We loved making family memories through travel and of course she got time to herself as well. I can’t wait to do the same for my kids when I have grandchildren.

You just said your kids are whiny and you stopped including your mom once your youngest didn’t need a nap nanny anymore. Happy memories, I can tell.

Have you met teens? Ha. Yes, they can be a handful especially when they want to sleep in and you’d rather do a morning tour of the Colliseum. We do have to adjust our travel schedule now in a way that we didn’t when the kids were young and in our view more adaptable.

As for the grandparents, we transitioned as the kids got older to a shared beach house so we vacation with both sides of the family through beach week. This has been easier for them as they have aged too, and longer flights are harder for them (back issues in particular). By the time my youngest was five and we started solo trips, both my parents and my husband’s had been helping us on vacations with our three kids for over a decade.

It really is possible to have a happy dynamic of loving and involved grandparents helping out on vacations, and it’s also possible to enjoy travel while acknowledging that some phases of childhood are easier for it.

I only have one (only child by choice) and it's not that stressful to travel with her, even at a horrible travel age (just under 3). She is a great, low-maintenance sleeper, responds well to melatonin for jet lag, and not a picky eater. All of those things help. She is used to flying and knows how to behave on a plane, as long as we set her up for success -- as rested and fed as possible, electronics (tablet/movie), new toys/coloring book. We travel light and don't bring a whole caravan of kid gear.

I would love to bring a nanny or grandparent(s) but one set of grandparents is too old, the other set are homebodies who'd rather watch her for a weekend at our home than travel with us, and we haven't tried the nanny/sitter thing yet but plan to do so. When we travel, we have gotten local sitters/nannies through hotel services. It can be costly but it's been fine care. We do take kid-free trips and it is AMAZING -- even the least stressful travel with a kid is still not the same quality as without.

My friend has always traveled with her kids, everywhere from young ages (she has 3.) When I ask her she states that they all sleep like crap anyway, they all end up in her bed or her/DH in one of their beds anyway, so it really doesn’t matter if they do that at home or in a hotel somewhere awesome. So they go.

I on the other hand had awesome sleepers but only at home, so I had a lot more to lose. If you are used to a 7pm-7am daily break from parenting, it’s not a very fun vacation to give that up.

Some kids are just way easier. Sometimes it's the timing. Sometimes I think the parents just have sheer determination that they are going to travel no matter what so they get used to it and make it work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3 kids. We took a grandparent with us to Europe so she could stay behind with the three year old for naptimes. We started doing trips on our own when the youngest was five. We tend to do airbnb apartments so everyone can spread out and go to sleep at different times.

I actually found it easier to travel when they were young compared to now when my two oldest kids are teens and whiny, want to sleep in, less adaptable to time changes.

Well it’s really easy to travel when you treat your mother like the help.

LOL are you kidding me? She practically kicks us out the door wanting alone time with a grandkid! We loved making family memories through travel and of course she got time to herself as well. I can’t wait to do the same for my kids when I have grandchildren.

You just said your kids are whiny and you stopped including your mom once your youngest didn’t need a nap nanny anymore. Happy memories, I can tell.

Op, what are you considering amazing travel?

Beach trips? City trips? International?

Anonymous wrote:I mean, I can sort of understand having a nanny because you need or want to work and need help with the childcare. But when you can’t even go on vacation and take care of your own kids without bringing your nanny it just makes me wonder why you even bothered having them. It’s just so odd.

We are talking about “amazing travel” not your typical beach house vacation. It’s a short phase in your life when you can use a helping hand, whether family or hired help, to accomplish that. Most people aren’t bringing a nanny when vacationing with 3 tweens!

Most of my friends who did big trips, when they described them to me, they sound absolutely horrible. We had only one kid. We were happier to take a few years off "real" vacations (that would be miserable) and just stick closer to home for a while, family beach house, boring trips to visit family etc. And our kid is actually super flexible and easy going. When i see parents at the airport with their supersized stroller, a huge backpack, a big diaper tote bag, and each parent with big wheelie bags, i think ugh why bother. That was never my happy place. Even when we did travel with DS by plane as an infant or toddler, i would check my bag, have a very small carry-on, and had an uppababy umbrella stroller that weighed nothing, folded down to almost nothing, but held DS until he was almost 3 (if i recall it had the highest weight limit of any umbrella stroller).

It really depends on the kids, I think. My best friend has two very chill girls who are content to sit around playing with dolls or coloring, and sleep 12 hours straight no matter where they are.

I have two very active kids who are obedient enough but they never sit, and their sleep schedule goes to s**t when their routine is interrupted so a vacation with them is never actually relaxing. We do “kid” vacations (the beach) and just prepare to be exhausted afterwards.

We only did one big trip ( cruise) when our child was 2 years old. She did fine, but I had tons of toddler stuff ( car seats, baby food, diapers) and it was a lot to deal with. Now our daughter is almost 7 years old and it is getting much better/easier. We have only took plane once when our daughter was 2 years old. We will be planning bigger vacations maybe next year. Honestly, like many people said previously in the comments, you travel with young kids only if you have help ( nanny, in-laws, family etc.); otherwise, yes, it can be hell. We figured, long trips were not worth it and plus our young child would have no memory of them either. But again, we are only middle class, and cannot afford to travel internationally every year anyway.