Our family has done a fair amount of international travel over the past five years. First, my husband and son (13 at the time) served together on a mission trip to Ecuador in 2011. Our family of six moved there and lived for two years from 2012 to 2014. Our son (18 at the time) served for a week on a mission trip to Guatemala in April 2015. The girls (11, 8, and 6 at the time) and I visited Ecuador again for the month of July 2015. My husband returned on a 10-day trip in February 2016. I spent a week in Guatemala in April 2016. And most recently, our son (19) served at an orphanage in Ecuador from March to May 2016.
At this moment, we are preparing to visit Ecuador again. In fact, we’ll be in Ecuador in about 24 hours from right now. Having traveled (and moved) internationally with kids a few times, I thought I’d share a few practical tips on how to make traveling with kids a little easier.
Obviously, if you’re traveling internationally you’re going to book flights and your whole family will need passports. Those aren’t the kind of tips I’m giving today. I’m talking about keeping your little travelers content as much as possible while traveling. So here goes…
Adjust your expectations. First of all, don’t expect your kids to be super-travelers the first time you make a trip. Don’t expect everything to go perfectly. Be prepared to take a deep breath and roll with it (whatever ‘it’ may be). I think we parents sometimes UNDERestimate the impact our own attitudes have on our little people. Breathe in. Breathe out. SMILE! You can do this!
Prepare your little people. I cannot stress enough how beneficial it is to talk about what to expect during your travel. Talk to them about how to carry their backpack or roll their carry-on. Talk to them about waiting patiently in line to go through security and what sort of things you can do while you wait to board your flight. Talk about safety issues–staying close to a parent or what to do in case you’re separated.
Learn about the country or countries you’ll be visiting. The kids will be much more comfortable traveling to a new place if it seems familiar to them. A great way to familiarize them is by checking out books from the library, showing them pictures on the internet, or watching YouTube videos. If English is not the main language of the country you’ll be visiting, let them at least hear and begin to practice a few common phrases–Hello and Goodbye, at the very least.
Familiarize the kids with your itinerary as much as possible. This ties in a bit with #2, but this one is meant to be more specific. Give them as much information about your daily plans in-country as is appropriate for their age/maturity level. Talk about specifics–when you may be boarding a flight or boarding a bus, exactly which places you’ll be visiting on which days, which days you may be seeing friends or family.
Dress them comfortably. In fact, this is a handy suggestion for the whole family. For us, this means leggings or athletic pants, comfy t-shirts, and sneakers. No big bows, no frilly or ruffly outfits (my littles are girls), nothing too tight or too loose. Shoes that can be slipped off and on through security make Mom’s life easier as well.
Eat well/Sleep well. Sugar lowers our immune function, plain and simple. Not to mention how sugar and artificial ingredients can adversely affect kids’ behavior. Yikes! Traveling usually means consuming more sugar than usual (for our family anyway), because those are the convenient things to grab while traveling, but I encourage you to plan ahead and do your best to pack some healthy snacks for travel–protein or granola bars, mixed nuts, and trail mix are all better choices than a candy bar. And water is ALWAYS the best choice for hydration. For sleeping well, try to make sure everyone gets a good night sleep or at least a good, long nap (depending on the time of day you’ll be traveling) before your actual trip begins. No one wants to stand in line to board a plane with a sleep-deprived 2-year old. Encourage your kiddos to nap as much as possible during your actual travel.
Plan fun ways to pass all the waiting time. While traveling is about getting somewhere, there’s also usually plenty of time spent waiting–waiting in line to board planes or trains or buses, layovers, and the waiting time while on a bus or train or even in a car. To ease the pain of waiting, each of our kids gets to pack a backpack. In it, they put some personal things like a hairbrush or snacks, but they also include a book to read, drawing pencils or writing utensils, paper, a deck of cards or a small game. I suppose you could include electronics like i-pod or kindle, but we’re “old school” and believe our kids are better for it. (Don’t misunderstand. We use electronics. We just limit the amount of screen time consumed and find travel a great time to disconnect from electronics and CONNECT with the people around you.)
Talk about safety in crowds and new places. Prepare your kids for whatever behavior will make it easier for you to keep them safe. No reason to scare your kids, but remind them that it is much easier for you to keep them safe if they stay within a certain boundary (that you set), that they hold your hand (or backpack strap) while moving through lines, etc. At the same time, prepare them for how they should handle a situation in which they may get separated from you. Practice the scenario. Another idea is to write your name and number on your child’s wrist with permanent marker. You can seal it with a quick swipe of clear nail polish if you’re concerned it may rub off.
So there you have it… My thoughts as we’re preparing to travel again on how to make it a little easier to do with kids. What about you? Do you have suggestions, tips, or tricks of the trade to share with other parents that might make traveling internationally with kids easier? Share it below in the comments.