Travel Planning with Kids – What Toddlers Teach us About Travel Part 1

This is the first lesson that we learned about travel planning with kids, and if I’m honest the one I still struggle with the most.

We took our eldest son to Ireland when he was 9 months old.  It was the first time we’d traveled out of North America with him so we were determined to pack as much as possible into 2 weeks.  Since it was a road trip adventure we planned to traverse most of Ireland by not spending more than 1 or 2 nights in any one location.  This would allow us to see as many sights as possible in as many places as possible.

And for the first week we did exactly what we set out to do.

But, at what cost? 

We were exhausted most of the trip and our son was grumpy from being constantly uprooted.

Near the end of that first week, we were driving around the Ring of Kerry and happened to stop at the Skellig Experience Visitor Center.  We had read a tiny blurb in a travel book about it, but it was not on the “planned” list.  During this stop we learned a lot about the Skellig Islands and found out the first boats to the Skellig Islands started the next day.  The trip would be cool, but we hadn’t planned it and how could we fit it in?

We got in the car and started talking.

Why were we rushing around so much?  What would happen if we changed our plans?

Then we did something that we’d never done before…

We cancelled a tour we already had planned and booked spots on the boat to the Skellig’s.  From that point on, we really slowed down our trip.  We realized there was no point in seeing things if we weren’t taking the time to experience them.  We started spending more nights in each destination and taking more time at the destinations we visited.  To this day it was one of the best decisions we ever made and taught us that in travel, less is more.

We have our son to thank for that.

Now when we plan trips we try to stay in central locations where we can drive to multiple destinations.  We take time to enjoy the hotel pool, stop at a park to play, choose to do something unexpected, or simply take a break if we need it.

This is a tough one. 

So much depends on how you like to travel and what level of risk you’re willing to take.  For us, we aren’t willing to take the same level of risk of not having a hotel room, tickets on an excursion, or overly planned transportation as we did before we had kids.  This is especially true for Troy who once slept in a bar attached to a hostel because there were no beds left for him and his friends.

Before we had kids, we could get away with going to a place without booking much in advance.  Sometimes that would mean we couldn’t see a popular sight on the exact day we had planned or wouldn’t get to stay in the exact town/city that we had planned.  We’re both nomadic by nature so it wasn’t a big deal.

This approach to travel planning with 3 kids would be a disaster.

If we think back to that same trip to Ireland, we also learned this lesson about travel with kids. 

Before we left the USA we had most, but not all of our hotel rooms booked.  We weren’t worried about booking a couple places on the fly once we got there; however, once we changed our plans mid-trip I needed to cancel and re-book most of the hotels for the second week of the trip.  I was on the phone and online throughout the day trying to get our accommodations sorted.

It was a bit of a nightmare.

In some cases, we lucked out because we had a playpen with us and a couple hotels allowed us to have 3 people in a 2-person room.  Dublin was the hardest to re-book because One Direction was playing, all the hotels were booked, and we actually thought we’d have to drive back out of the city to get a room.  Now with 5 of us it would be nearly impossible to get a room in those circumstances.

Now when we are planning trips, we look at accommodation availability and prices up to a year before we want to go. This allows us to book the rooms we want for the best prices.  We book tickets for the most popular attractions early to ensure we get the dates we want.  And we research transportation options so we ensure we can sit together comfortably.

As we continue to travel , we continue learning and growing around travel planning with kids.

In April we spent a week in Arizona and being the first time we’d travelled there we wanted to see as much as reasonable. 

After asking friends and family who’d been there, researching on the internet, looking in guidebooks I narrowed it down to 6 destinations in 8 days and showed Troy the plan.  He looked at me and said: “Do you really think it’s a good idea to try to do all this in one week?  I think we need to pare it down.” 

Yah we’ve been here before.  I remember some of those trips and cringe at the chaos and stress over planning causes.

Okay.  Time to prioritize. 

We had a commitment in Phoenix that was inflexible, we’d been eyeing a trip to the Grand Canyon since we got engaged on the Vegas side almost 10 years ago, and I really wanted to see the Giant Saguaros.  So that left Petrified Wood National park, Lake Powell, and wine tasting around Cottonwood.  Of the 3 we kept Cottonwood wine tasting because it was a good place to stop between destinations and skipped the other places for this trip.

The result?  We felt like we had plenty of time in each place to dig in, explore, and indulge a bit.  We left Arizona feeling like we had really experienced the place we most wanted to see and didn’t cheat ourselves time.