Top tips for getting away sanity-intact!
Included here are Amazon Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This is at no cost to you. It just helps us keep doing what we’re doing!
If I had to pick the single most important tip for preserving your sanity when traveling with kids, it would be to have the smallest amount of stuff possible to lug through an airport. No one wants to Sherpa eight bags and wrangle roaming kids all at once.
Hands free is the way to be. If you have littles who need a hand to hold, you need that hand free to do it. We love luggage with backpack straps and child carriers that allow this. Kids who can’t walk get strapped on in a well fitting and comfy carrier and, if you don’t need that back space for holding a kid, put your luggage on it. A small roller bag or two is fine, but when you need a spare hand, free it up.
https://amzn.to/48xiLT3
One Bag Travel is LIFE. There is so much freedom in traveling minimally.This is a whole topic in itself, which I have outlined more extensively here. In short, light, efficient packing means less stuff to tote around, and less stuff = less chaos. I think we can all agree that’s a good thing.
Use kids’ bags. Everyone carries what they can, but the right bag is important. Smaller, age-appropriate bags for the kids allow them to manage their snacks and travel entertainment. The bag stays with them under their seat, limiting how much stuff they can bring and helping them learn to be judicious in their packing, as what they bring, they carry. There are lots of space-sparing travel entertainment options that I will share in a later post.
Get there as fast as you can. Hard stop. Avoid layovers and eliminate anything that will delay your travel—trust me, it’s worth a little extra. A delayed or missed connection is painful for an adult trip but could spell disaster for a family with kids. Organizing last-minute accommodations and alternate travel arrangements for five is much harder than two.
Drive if that’s the easiest. I hate driving because I have the attention span of a squirrel, but we’ve found that sometimes it just makes the most sense. If you need to bring a lot of extra things or it’s just not that far, load up! Don’t forget that your two hour flight turns into four or five hours each way when you consider total time in the airport. We do a cost/benefit analysis for every trip in which we consider ticket prices, time of travel, transportation needs at our destination, and, most importantly, our sanity. A flight is often fastest, but you’ll have to factor the cost of things like rental cars in addition to the cost of tickets. For us, with a trip that only lasts a couple days the answer is always flight.
If we have more time and the total drive is <14 hours, we’ve enjoyed a drive with a midway stop or two. You can take mini-vacation stops at new places along the way to keep your sanity. This usually means a stop every three-ish hours for us, and we end up seeing more cities and eating better than fast food.This way, the commute becomes part of the total experience instead of painful, wasted time.
But kids come with some much stuff!
Hide a lot of bulky stuff in car seat bags, gate-checked stroller or carrier bags. You can always check these things for free. We always stored them in a bag like this and then loaded the rest of it with all the other assorted crap that needs to go: think life vests/puddle jumpers, diapers, rain coats, you get the idea. Anything soft and light that you can cram in goes in.
Smaller booster seats that inflate save space if you’re booster age. These can be shoved inside here or put in each kids personal backpack.
And when in doubt, just buy it when you get there! Diapers, any food that isn’t used on the plane, sunscreen larger than carry-on size can all be obtained there. Don’t sweat it!
There’s tons of choices to be made in airline carriers and how to lodge but we feel pretty strongly about a few options.
AIRBNBs/ VRBOs and equivalent short term rentals
Priorty one: MORE SPACE! And its often for the same or less than the price of a hotel. This way everyone can have the space they need to get some good sleep. Toddlers that aren’t used to sleeping in the same bed as their sibling or in one room with their entire family have a harder time sleeping. A house helps replicate what they’re used to and there is the added bonus of not getting calls from hotel security at 5am because the morning cartoons are too loud. Don’t think this is all for the kids though, I like sleeping in a room not shared by my kids too. It eliminates the snoring, grunting, and kicking…from the kids at least, husbands are a different story! (Side note: you may not need as many bedrooms as you think, we’ve set up a pack-and-play in more than one walk-in closet, it’s dark and often close at hand.)
Washers and dryers are essential for traveling light with a family. My kids are filthy animals. We can’t get thru a day without a spill or stain. Having a washing option in the space means we can eat and play with reckless abandon. Hey, were on vacay right? This also means we can pack LESS! Fewer items that can be washed as needed helps accommodate a light load when traveling.
Don’t forget the amenities parents can use after hours! It can be pretty boring to put the kids down at 9pm. Spending time with your spouse trapped in a tiny hotel bathroom drinking wine because that’s the only quiet space that won’t wake up the kids is not that magical. Hey! It’s your vacay too! Short term rentals means you have space to put kids away in rooms with closed doors and still have areas to use to enjoy your nap times and evenings sans kids. We always brought nest cams when the kids were young. They are easy to pack and set up on a home’s Wi-Fi, and it gave us peace of mind while getting us out to the back patio.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest has been our go-to for domestic family flights. There are lots of options for nonstops to Florida, the Mecca of family travel, as well as other common vacation destinations. They’re often the most economical choice, too. We used a Southwest credit card for most of our purchases when we had a younger family and were always able to get an annual companion pass; this meant one less ticket to purchase. Between lap kids <2 flying for free and my husband on the companion pass, flights were much cheaper. The biggest benefit, though, is the family boarding. You can get the cheapest fare and still be seated after the A group. For families with kids <7 (any kid that qualifies counts) you can board before B group. This ensures we’re together and usually somewhere near the middle of the plane.