Extended Travel With Kids: 12 Things We’ve Learned to Keep Our Sanity

Extended travel with kids is not for the meek of heart! Here are 12 things we've learned that help us stay sane when traveling with our young children.

This article may contain references to some of our advertising partners. Should you click on these links, we may be compensated. For more about our advertising policies, read our full disclosure statement here.

In June, we took our kids to Europe for the first time. Although they have traveled to the Caribbean multiple times, this was by far the longest plane ride they’d ever taken. It was also the first time they’d been on a trip where sightseeing was the top priority, not the beach. To top it off, the trip lasted a total of 18 days, making it the longest trip any of us had experienced.

Do you think we’re crazy yet? Hardly.

A trip like this could have turned disastrous had we not been prepared. Ages 8 and (almost) 6 at the time, we tried to anticipate their needs ahead of our journey. Even during the planning stages, we tried to think about what they might need, feel, and want. And while we did a pretty darn good job of planning ahead, we definitely learned a lot during the experience – especially from our mistakes.

We’re already planning their second trip to Europe this fall, so I thought it made sense to jot down some of the things we learned. If you plan to travel with kids, whether it’s to London or Los Angeles, I hope these tips help your trip run smoothly.

12 Tips for Extended Traveling with Children

#1) Fly Overnight

If your extended travel plans include a really long flight, consider flying overnight. This is especially important if you’re flying to Europe or Asia. Our kids love getting drinks and food on the plane, so we called lights out after the dinner service. This helped everybody get 4 or 5 hours of sleep during “normal” sleeping hours, keeping us on a relatively decent sleep schedule. By the time we woke up, it was morning in Europe.

#2) Get Up and Go

Even though you may be a bit groggy, resist the temptation to take a nap when you arrive at your destination, especially if you’re jumping several time zones. You’ll end up sleeping the day away and lose an entire day of your trip. Furthermore, your sleep schedule will be completely mixed up if you sleep through the daylight hours. Instead, get moving as soon as you land. Put in a full day of activity, but go to bed early on night one. This helps you make the most of Day 1 and get back to a normal sleeping pattern quickly.

#3) Create a Home Base

Extended travel with kids is not for the meek of heart! Here are 12 things we've learned that help us stay sane when traveling with our young children.

When you’re traveling for a few weeks, chances are good that you’ll be moving between cities. If so, it’s a smart idea to create a few “home bases” where you’ll spend the majority of your time. You can then schedule side trips from there. For instance, during our 18-days in Europe, we spent 4 days in Florence and 5 in Rome. Having a home base was more comfortable for the entire family, plus it helped the kids feel like they had some sort of structure/routine.

Hotels vs. Apartments – Before you book a hotel, be sure you know how many guests are allowed to stay in each room. This is especially important in Europe. Throughout much of the continent, hotels allow only 2 people to a room… and they are very strict about enforcing this rule. When traveling with kids, it’s often easier to book an apartment or condo. Tripping.com is a great site to compare vacation rentals from VRBO, Booking.com, HomeAway, and more.

#4) Stick to a Routine Whenever Possible

If your kids are anything like mine, they want to know what’s happening and routine is important. After landing at your home base, try creating a daily routine and sticking to it whenever you can. For instance, while in Italy, we woke up every day, grabbed a coffee, and had either fruit or pastries for breakfast. At night, we came back to the apartment and had the kids take a bath, just like at home. These simple routines helped the kids feel relaxed and more comfortable.

#5) Take the Train

One of my biggest takeaways from our trip to Europe was this: Train travel is AWESOME – especially with kids! Traveling by train is fast, efficient, and far more comfortable than by plane. There is room to move around, and if you reserve your train tickets ahead of time, you may even get a table where you can all sit. I loved it, the kids loved it, and I wish we had more train travel options back here at home.

#6) Don’t Forget the Power Packs

Having your kids bring their devices (Kindles, iPads, etc.) is a no-brainer, right? Just be sure you don’t forget your extra power banks. While most planes and trains should have outlets, they don’t always work. In fact, on our return flight, neither the TVs or the outlets worked – meaning we could have easily had nothing to do for 10 hours! Thank goodness we had our power banks ready so we could use our cell phones to play games. Seriously, they were a life saver.

#7) Tips for Tours

Some sightseeing tours can be long and uncomfortable, even for adults. Here are a couple of quick tips to help younger kids handle them with ease:

  • Keep guided tours to a maximum of 2 hours. Younger kids tend to lose their patience around the 2 hour mark.
  • Day long excursions are fine, provided your kids don’t have to listen to a tour guide for more than 2 hours at a time.
  • When it comes to guided tours, book guided tours for historical sites but skip guided tours of art museums. Most kids (and many adults) can’t listen to a guide explain sculptures and paintings for hours. Grab a skip the line ticket/sightseeing pass and an audioguide instead.
  • If you think tours are too much for the kids, you can still save money and skip lines using a city pass. Use this list of sightseeing passes to find one for your destination.

#8) Get the Kids Involved

One of the best things we did on this trip was have our kids take notes during our tours. This helped keep them involved, interested, and made each tour a great learning experience. At the end of the tour, we gave them a “quiz.” If they passed, they earned a special treat – usually gelato. (Of course, we made sure they passed each test with flying colors!) The notes also made a great keepsake that we’ll save forever. As they get older, I expect we’ll ask them to keep a travel journal as well.

#9) Keep the Snacks Coming

Extended travel with kids is not for the meek of heart! Here are 12 things we've learned that help us stay sane when traveling with our young children.

If your kids are like mine, they want a snack – like all. the. time. Use that to your advantage. In our house, there’s not much that a special drink and a dessert can’t fix. Whenever we needed a little extra motivation for good attitudes, all we had to do was dangle the possibility of gelato in front of them. This kept them in good spirits, and we made sure to follow through with our promise. We also carried snacks with us during the day, helping to keep the kids happy and full. And since they did such a great job eating things they don’t normally eat at home, I even caved and bought them McDonald’s once during the trip.

#10) Build In Kid-Friendly Activities

Even when you’re doing some extended traveling, time is still limited. With that said, it’s smart to build in some kid-friendly activities. Just a little break from sightseeing can keep your kids happy. An afternoon at the pool or beach, a stop by a children’s museum, or even a ride on a carousel can help keep everybody’s spirits high. It can even be a fun break for adults!

#11) Schedule Free (and Nothing) Days

Look, I can’t hide from the fact that we are über planners. With that said, one of the best things we did was plan for free days. That way, if we saw something during the trip that the whole family would enjoy, we had time to do it during one of our free days. For instance, while driving our hotel we passed a beautiful lake in Switzerland. We decided to go back and spend one of our free days at the public beach, and it was one of the best days we had during our entire trip! If you have a babysitter with you (which I recommend when possible) it’s also smart to leave a few days where the kids don’t have anything scheduled. Holly and I took a few tours on our own, allowing the kids a much-needed break to just hang out at the apartment.

#12) Let Your Kids Have a Voice

Extended travel with kids is not for the meek of heart! Here are 12 things we've learned that help us stay sane when traveling with our young children.Sure, you don’t want your kids to run the show, but it’s a good idea to let them have a voice while you’re traveling. If they see something they really want to do, let them express it. Then, if it makes sense, be flexible enough to fit it into your plans. This will help keep them happy, and some of their favorite memories are often created when you let them have a choice in what the family does that day.

Tips for Traveling With Kids: Wrapping Up

Overall, I feel like our trip was very successful. I’m actually very impressed with how well our girls handled it. Luckily, we’ve learned a lot about what they can handle, and we even learned some things about our own travel style that we can use in the future.

If your future plans include travel with kids, I hope this list has been helpful. As always, please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below. Don’t forget to follow our family’s next adventure by finding us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thanks again for reading, and – until next time – happy traveling!

Similar Posts

Disclaimer: Comments, responses, and other user-generated content is not provided or commissioned by this site or our advertisers. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by this website or our advertisers. It is not the responsibility of our advertisers or this website to ensure that all comments and/or questions are answered. Club Thrifty has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Club Thrifty and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

8 Comments

  1. Thanks for the tips! What is the earliest age you think is visible to travel with a kid and actually enjoy the trip? Also, what is the earliest age you think it is safe to travel with the baby? I hear they can’t self regulate their your pressure so it’s kind of like torture flying.

    1. Hi Sam! I hope you’re doing well.

      We never flew with babies so I can’t answer that! I do know that it was not fun (for us) to travel with kids until they were 3+. Out of diapers and eating regular food really helps. Otherwise, you’re just busy changing butts and making special food all the time. Traveling with kids started to be fun for us when ours were ages 3 and 5. I do know that other people travel with babies and enjoy it! We’re just not those people. I barely want to carry around my luggage, let alone a diaper bag! =)

  2. Just goes to show how a long trip can work with kids … great post!

  3. N°1 is great advice for both kids and adults! Each time I’ve flown up until now, I only had to sit on a plane for a short while (1-2 hours tops). I never even thought about what I’d do if flying took so long.

  4. Great post, Holly! Traveling with kids can really be an adventure. Most of the time they are the ones that wake me up first! It’s amazing how they can keep going and going.

  5. Me and my brother used to travel a lot. He got kids, I don’t. I still travel but everytime he tries to travel with the kids, he says it’s just better to stay home haha

  6. Kelly Davis-Orr says:

    Download kid-friendly podcasts for long car or plane rides. There’s a brand new one called “Highlights Hangouts” for young kids. It’s fantastic! And there are lots of options out there for older kids.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.