r/Travelwithkids

We will be traveling with an 8 week old and a 2.5 year old.

When traveling with our 2.5 year old we have used an umbrella stroller and it's great.

What are the best options for two? With one so little I'm not sure what to do. Is there anything that would work with a baby and a toddler? We have the Uppababy Vista at home but hesitate to travel with a big heavy stroller like that - plus it's expensive and I don't want it damaged during travel.

Pushing two strollers through the airport along with bags sounds challenging but might be an option?

Would love to hear what others have done!

I’m flying alone with my boy for the first time next month and am so stressed about it. He’s never flown before and It’ll just be me and him. I can’t bring the car seat on the plane with me (he hates his car seat anyway) because i can’t carry my backpack, him, and the car seat. Where do i sit? Do i purchase a seat for him? is he even allowed to sit in the seat? How do i even keep him entertained for a 4 hour flight? He’s a busy body and hates sitting still.

Tips for traveling with a 7yo
I can't believe I'm asking this. My 7yo is a world traveler, but he's started to enjoy it less as he gets older.
This summer we are going to Paris for a week and I'm having flashbacks to our last big trip to Tuscany. He hated all the adorable Italian towns and complained endlessly. I don't want him to be on a screen the entire time, and I hope he will learn to love travel one day, but today I need all the tips to try to make it pleasant. 😄

I purchased a flight for myself and my 2-year-old about a month in advance. It is a 2-hour flight on an Embraer E175. When I try to select seats, there are no regular seats available. About half of the seats are marked “unavailable,” and the other half are Economy Plus, which would cost over $120 plus tax for both of us.

Is this a common situation where the airline is holding seats and will assign us seats together at the gate, or is this essentially forcing us to pay extra? This is my child’s first flight, and it would be extremely stressful for both of us if we were seated separately. I also don’t think anyone would want to sit next to a scared or crying toddler without the parent nearby.

For all the other flights on this trip, I was able to select seats together. This is the only flight with this issue. Should I just pay the $120 plus tax to avoid the risk, or is the airline likely to seat a parent and a 2-year-old together at the gate? It feels very unfair to have to pay extra just to sit next to my small child.

Flying solo with my 15 month old this week and I’m waffling on if I should bring our bugaboo butterfly.

The plane we’re flying is quite small and I’ve flown this route a lot, a lot of times they ask for 40+ people to gate check their roll on bags. I’m terrified of the airline gate checking and breaking my expensive af stroller. But it also would be a huge help to have it.

Wonder if others have had experiences where they’ve been forced to gate check.

We’ll have a stroller at my parents house when we get there so it’s really a question of if the juice is worth the squeeze to navigate the airport

Bonjour,
J’aimerais demander aux mamans qui ont déja voyager sans leur enfant de 1 an comment ca s’est passé c’est un voyage de 10 jours pour aller voir mes parents le voyage est long c’est 8h de vol en plus je suis enceinte dans mon 2 eme mois donc ca serait compliqué d’amener mon bebe j’appréhende beaucoup ca vu que ca fait un an que je suis avec mon bebe a la maison donc j’aimerais prendre aussi ces 10 jours pour me reposer me ressourcer un peu et revenir avec plus d’énergie pour aussi larrivé du deuxième bebe , alors qu’elle va rester avec son papa qui s’occupe d’elle donc elle passe du temps avec lui il sait comment s’occuper d’elle, j’aimerais avoir vos retours merci!

What are some preferred approaches to cleaning bottles or pump parts while traveling? I don’t love lugging around dawn and a brush which is our approach now.

Hi everyone,

I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, and one thing I’ve found really hard when planning trips is figuring out whether a destination will actually work for our family.

A place can look amazing online, but that doesn’t always answer the questions that matter with young kids:

• Is it stroller-friendly?
• Are there playgrounds or easy outdoor spaces nearby?
• Is public transport manageable with tired kids?
• Are restaurants relaxed about children?
• Are there enough low-stress things to do between the “big” attractions?
• Is it actually fun for both a toddler and an older kid?

I started building traveltods.world because I couldn’t find this kind of practical info in one place. The idea is kind of Nomad List, but for parents traveling with toddlers, and I’d like it to become community-based, with real input from parents who have actually been to these places.

I wanted to share it here as a resource, but mostly to get feedback.

When you’re choosing a destination with young kids, what do you wish was easier to know upfront?

I have less than 48 hours before our first ever trip with my little one. I’m not a single parent but the circumstances I am in led me to a decision to travel with my baby on my own. The trip would be over 26 hours including the drive up to Dublin and 2 layovers. I would appreciate if there’s any tips that would make our journey easier as I’m really very anxious about this trip on top of feeling devastated that my husband will not be there on our “first flight” and other “firsts.” Thank you.

Hi, wife and l love cruising but have only done Virgin. Have a baby on the way and want to book a trip for late March when they are 9 months.

Royal Caribbean looks amazing. We def will cruise RC one day if not this vacation.

My general question is for people who have done both, cruised with a baby on RC and stayed at an all inclusive, what they preferred and so on.

I’m basically thinking either the perfect day at coco bay vs an all inclusive in the DR.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Edit: someone brought up a good point. We can cruise without flying.

Hi folks. I am planning to take my wife and 1-year old baby to a relaxed Japan tour in November 2026 for 15-20 days. Idea is to have a relaxed itinerary and enjoy autumn as well as local vibes there. While a lot of itineraries are available online (thanks to ChatGPTs/Claude), I would really like to understand from folks who had been to Japan during Nov/Dec, how is the travel during these months? I am planning to be there in the second half of november.

• Most important, is it advisable to travel with a baby during those months? Are most cities/locations are stroller friendly?
• is there anything that we need to be aware of while travelling inside the country with an infant?
• Which all cities we should cover to enjoy Autumn vibes?
• Should we book accomodations/transits/sightseeing etc through Japan-based tour companies? I can manage the air tickets to and fro from Tokyo.
• How do you manage local sight seeing outside Tokyo, assuming not all places are accessible through JR pass? how affordable is taxi service there?
• How safe are AirBnBs there? Planning to stay in Ryokans for 3-4 days, but other stays will be staying in hotels or AirBnBs.
• Any tips to make the trip memorable?

Thanks in advance

These are the places we wanted to hit, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. We are still deciding if we should do more of a China tour and forget about Hong kong. We aren't big on historical things, we are mainly traveling to eat and finding activities for our daughter. We are open to going to any of the other Asia countries. Do you guys have any recommendations on where to go and activities to do?

We are planning on traveling to Europe from the US with my toddler who will be 17 months old at the time of the trip. The flights have a 3 x 3 x 3 seating arrangement. We are thinking of buying him his own economy seat so we have a whole row to ourselves and a bit more room with him. He is under 2 and could theoretically fly as a lap infant. This set up is much cheaper than 2 business seats, which we also considered. My only question is do we have to bring his car seat? At our destination we don’t need it and I hate the idea of lugging it around everywhere for three weeks. Should we get one of those harnesses that clips onto the seat? I’ve heard that some airlines don’t allow you to use them.

When you’re planning a trip do you want to speak with a local parent?

I ask because I always do, and I wonder who feels the same way. In November, I planned a trip to Japan for my family and kept going back and forth on whether we should bring a stroller for our 5yo twins. I asked the parents I knew. I went to forums like these. I asked AI. But everyone shared something different and I ended up confused. Then I spoke to my tour guide in Kyoto who was a dad. He said don’t. His opinion finally closed a question that had been opened for a month.

As a result of this trip, I ended up building a feature on Togethr (traveltogethr.com) that matches parents with a Local Parent on a call to answer any open travel questions. My hope is that this connection between a visiting and a local parent will ease the anxiety a lot of families have when traveling. Or it can spark discovery and allow families to travel like locals. Right now it’s early (limited cities) and I’m honestly trying to validate whether this is something other parents care about at all.

I’d appreciate any and all of your thoughts. TIA!

We are travelling a 12 hour flight with our toddler(2.5year old) and 7 month old baby.

Would you choose to sit at the bulkhead with the bassinet for the baby but the arm rests do not lift up or in a regular row where toddler can lie across us and we carry/ baby wear the baby?

Hello! Looking for a travel stroller (or simply a stroller to travel with, we don’t mind gate checking) for our 8 week old. We will be traveling to Europe to see some family in ill health. Our main stroller is the nuna mixx next and we LOVE it but are not willing to risk it getting damaged during travel. Looking for something on the cheaper side (or something I can find second hand). Would prefer parent facing and/or something that has a pramette mode (without a separate cot). Thank you!!

This group is so helpful as I try to navigate our first international trip! I’m struggling with flights times. I understand it’s best to keep him close to his natural rhythms, routine and sleep times. The tricky part is that we are booking with miles and therefore can’t be as picky.

Would love any advice here. The flight that meets our needs best departs at 9:45P and his bedtime is typically 7:00. Help 🫠😭

Has anyone ever been told they can’t store their cabin approved stroller in the overhead bin because it isn’t in a storage bag?

I recently purchased the Bugaboo Butterfly 2 and got sucked in to buying the travel bag by the salesperson who said that airlines can decline letting you store it in the cabin without a bag.

Feeling a little dumb now and ready to return the bag because I’ve never heard of this rule, plus I travelled on an international flight recently with a different travel stroller and nobody said anything about it not having a storage bag.

Hellooo fellow moms 🤍
I’m going to be travelling with my 6-week-old on an 18-hour flight and I’m honestly super nervous about a lot of things 😅
Would love to hear your experiences!

My family owns a vacation home a little over two hours away from where we live and I would like to go spend a lot of time there this summer while I am on maternity leave. I have a two year and am due with my second child in two weeks. With our first we traveled 10 hours in the car when she was 10 weeks old, and just took frequent long breaks and I would do the same thing with this baby, just wondering if we could make the 2 hour drive as early as 2-3 weeks. I know her immune system won't be great but we would mostly just be staying at the house and not around others so I'm mostly worried about the car ride.

TYIA!!