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Have kids, will travel: 8 tips for family trips

Kids should learn how to travel, and parents should learn how to support kids to make travel fun and adventurous. I polled a number of friends and family who have traveled with their kids, asking them for their favorite travel tips. Here are eight favorites relating specifically to airplane and road trips, but I am sure these same lessons apply to most every form of transportation.

4. Toys are for distracting

Andy Nelson / The Christian Science Monitor, File
Unfazed by the beginning of an overnight train trip, 10-week-old Kiran waits as he waits for his mother and brother to finish the ticketing process at the Amtrak counter at Union Station in Washington, DC.

"When R and M were small, we always tried to have a new toy (or one they had not seen for awhile), so that they had something to occupy them for awhile." – Priscille, mother of Rachel and Matthew

Silly parent, your kid doesn’t want to play with the brightly colored educational toy you purchased them as a special treat for the trip. They want to lick the grease off of the hinge of the backseat tray table on the plane. Pick the travel toys that will distract little ones from A) banging or kicking the seat in front of them (especially if that seat is your driver’s seat in the car) B) cleaning the tray table hinge, back seat pocket or space between the seats with their hands or mouth, C) Screeching at the top of their lungs in disgust at the corn you just tried to feed them.

Buying special toys for a trip is encouraged, just don’t allow your stash to run low before the seatbelt sign turns off or you make it out of the driveway.

Three of our favorites for the infant and toddler crowds – Sophie the Giraffe, Little People Wheelies, Indestructibles chewable books, and baby-safe edible jewelry.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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