12 Tips for Traveling with Kids
If you’re new here, I’ve got four kids and we love to travel. Our 4th had been on 20+ flights before he turned one (his first flight was when he was just 2 weeks old) so at this point, we’ve got our packing and travel days SET. Prepping for travel is probably one of my least favorite things to do in all of life but at this point, I’ve definitely got it down - what works best for our family to keep us efficient, organized and as stress-free as possible leading up to our flights.
12 Tips for Traveling with Kids
1. Packing Cubes
Oh those magical packing cubes. I’m not sure how they do it but they somehow allow me to pack far more than I would without them. And of course, organization! I’ll go a bit into how I organize each cube as you continue reading but if you haven’t tried them before, do it. I promise you’ll never go back.
2. Organize By Item/Child
Each of the kids have one large packing cube for their main outfits for the duration of the trip. And all of the other packing cubes are organized by type of item - all of the kids swimsuits are in one cube, all of their sandals are in one cube and so on…
3. Backpacks > Purses
I’m slowly fading out of backpacks now that the kids are older and carry their own backpacks but when you’ve got young kids and you’re carrying it all, backpacks are superior. Your muscles will thank me for this one.
4. Baby Wearing
We wear our kids are long as we possible can and even for our 4-year-old, we have a carrier on hand for late flights in case anyone falls asleep. Imagine your kid falls asleep and you still have luggage to carry - you need those hands!! And carriers free up both hands. And not only that, you can baby wear through TSA - no need to take your baby out! That’s one less head to keep track of while walking through a busy airport and one less mini human to try and keep near you.
5. TSA Pre-Check
We didn’t sign up for TSA Pre-Check for years because it just sounded so daunting but man, it was so darn easy and makes a world of a difference on travel days. No one needs to take off their shoes, no one needs to take tables out, sweaters can stay on AND the lines are far shorter. Easy peasy and so so worth that 10 minute appointment to get it.
6. Pick Out Every Outfit
I used to pack like this - “Oh these are 5 cute shirts and these are 5 cute pants” and at the end of the trips I’d end up with days of outfits that didn’t work together. So now I put every outfit into ziplock bags (we re-use these bags for every trip!). Choose an outfit per day, roll them up into a ziplock (that helps keeps the wrinkles out too) and all of the outfits go into one single packing cube for that child. If there’s a special occasion to attend, all of the “special occasion outfits” are in one cube together, as mentioned above with the categories. And this way, each child can dress themselves which makes the actual vacation smoother as well - they choose a bag and put the outfit on and we’re good to go!
And lastly, choosing each outfit keeps your packing to a minimum. There are no extras as the end of the trip and you can throw it all right into the washing machine when you get back which means a quick and easy “unpacking” sesh.
7. Minimal Carry-Ons
We are probably not the norm on this one but we don’t bring all the activities for the kids to do on the plane - a tablet for each of them and that is that! And they only get tablet for travel so it’s super exciting for them!
Before each trip, we let each of them choose which shows and movies they’d like to watch on the flights. We download them to their ipads so no wifi is needed - also makes our lives easier and no wifi purchases are needed.
Sometimes Ava will want to bring a book and we usually throw in a drawing pad since Mac still isn’t into TV yet (our kids never really want to watch movies until around age 3 or so) but the drawing pad typically never gets used.
I’ve found that the more I pack, the more entertainment the kids expect. They now know that they can chat with each other or watch a movie and that’s that and they’ve become such easy little travelers because of it. In my opinion, less is more and less to carry is easier for everyone.
Besides the tablet, we bring empty water bottles (fill them up at a restaurant beforehand), they each get to bring a small stuffed animal (only carry on because those are irreplaceable) and that’s that! Typically Ava and Franky carry a backpack each with the kids items but the other two have been wanting to join in the backpack fun as well so sometimes we will let them carry one too. This just depends on the drip and how many items we have to carry.
8. One Large Suitcase (and that’s all)
At least that’s what I attempt to do. For every trip, we try to get me + 4 kids into one large suitcase (checked) and then Frank brings a carry-on. If we need more space (typically for winter vacations) then we grab an extra duffel bag or carry on for the leftover stuff.
9. Leave Diapers At Home
I repeat, leave the diapers at home! Of course, bring what you need for the travel day but diaper take up so much extra space so we either ship them ahead of time if we’re staying at a family member’s home, stop by the store if we’ve got a rental car or DoorDash them to our hotel room if we don’t have a car!
10. Rolling Car Seat Bags
These rolling car seat bags are a GAME CHANGER. And I tried so many different models before deciding on these because they’re huge and can hold multiple car seats in there at once. And they LAST! Definitely a littler pricier which made me almost not order them but man I am so glad we did. Within one use it was worth it! The kids can easily push them too if our hands are full and sometimes we throw a few extra items in there if our bags are too heavy (airlines won’t cover any extras in there if they get lost but ya gotta do what ya gotta do sometimes).
I’ll tell you below which car seats and how many you can stack in there below.
11. Travel Car Seats
We have a separate set of travel car seats for a few reasons -
Regular car seats are heavy and un-stackable inside a travel bag and when you have 4 kids in car seats, that’s A LOT. And second, it’s a lot of work getting car seats in and out of a car aka when you get to the airport, you don’t want to have to uninstall them all but more importantly, when you get back from vacation the last thing you want to be doing when you’re exhausted after a long travel day is to install 4 car seats into a car while standing in a airport parking garage. And so, travel car seats have been the best option for us!
So here are the travel car seats I’d recommend:
Forward Facing + Travel Often: We LOVE our WAYB Pico car seats. They’re pricey but since we do travel often, it was worth it to us. They only forward face but fold up so small and they’re very lightweight.
Rear Facing: This is the car seat we’ve used for all the kids for rear facing. We can stack 2 of these on top of each other into those rolling car seat travel bags. They are extremely lightweight and fairly inexpensive.
Forward Facing + Don’t Travel Often: Before we purchased the Pico car seats, these are the ones we used for forward facing. Also super lightweight and very inexpensive. We can stack one of these + the rear facing car seat mentioned above + a pico all in one rolling bag.
Boosters: These are the booster seats we use. The have a removable back, they’re lightweight, inexpensive and also fit into those rolling car seat bags (it’s a tight squeeze with the back on due to the height but it works and we can stack 2 Pico’s on top).
12. One Pair of Shoes
This isn’t always doable (especially when we’re attending an event or are on a beach vacation where we plan on going out to nice dinners) but we try out best to stick to one pair of shoes or two max. For winter vacations, the kids wear a pair of boots on the plane and that’s the pair the wear the entire trip.
And for summer vacations, we typically have them wear a pair of shoes that can be worn both casually and dressy (like their Adidas Sambas) and those are the pair they wear on the plane because they’re heavier and bulkier. And then the sandals get packed in that one packing cube! Ava, though, has a pair of sparkly sandlas that works for both the pool and nicer events so for her, it’s just that single pair and that’s all! Packing minimally and wearing the larger/heavier items on the airplane is so darn helpful in keeping our suitcases to a minimum.
I hope this helps and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, need clarification or need any other tips! Happy traveling!
