If you are planning to visit somewhere with your children I hope you want to enjoy the trip. Then some very easy and applicable tips can make your holiday more enjoyable when you are traveling with your children to any destination. So, let’s check them out…
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Tip 1: Countdown Box
If you have kids who are excited about going somewhere special (like a Disney Cruise) and they have calendars or planners have them start the day before you leave and write “1 more day!” and do that until you get up to the recent date on the calendar.
Many kids did this with the planners their school handed out and loved decorating their “Countdown” box!
Tip 2: Necessary Equipment
If you’re taking young children to a ski program, make sure your child has all the equipment necessary. No goggles (or gloves, snow pants, boots, etc.) can mean that your child sits inside while others frolic in the snow.
When possible, sign your child up the day before they will be in the program – the morning lines can be quite long. If you plan on watching, keep out of sight. Your presence makes teaching them how to ski nearly impossible.
Tip 3: Advance Preparation
Prepare your children in advance for the trip you will be taking. If you are traveling by car or plane, you can show them on a map the route you will be taking.
Even young children enjoy following the route on a map. Show your children travel brochures on the places you will be visiting, and if you can check out some books from your local library about where you will be going, you can use them too.
Tip 4: Another Use for Zip-Lock Bags
Carry snacks in little zip-lock bags instead of whole cookie boxes or chip cans. You can split a box of cookies into four or five zip-lock bags, which you can give to your kids when they are hungry.
Tip 5: Appropriate Documentation
When traveling with children, especially if one parent only may accompany the child (ren) out of the country – make sure that you have a signed and notarized letter from both parents stating that permission is given to the accompanying parent (or temporary guardian) to take the child out of the country.
Make sure also that the accompanying parent or guardian also has the necessary medical release forms for the said child(ren).
This is especially important when traveling to Mexico. Travel agents or the airline should have these forms available. Submitted by Anne Hudson: If one of the parents is deceased, you will also need a death certificate for that parent.
Tip 6: Be Organized
When you go on a trip with 4 children this young, things go a lot smoother when you are organized. One of the things that helps is to pack the children’s clothes in gallon-size plastic bags.
In each bag is 1 day’s change of clothes. Each bag has the child’s name on it. That way they just reach into the suitcase and pull out a bag. This eliminates the digging and hunting and cries when they can’t find everything.
Tip 7: Children Can Help with Planning
I’ve noticed that it helps when kids are allowed to feel like they have a say in the travel itinerary. A lot of times the ‘traditional’ mostly-inside planned vacations aren’t too great for the kids. Make sure you stop frequently on road trips to let the kids run around and play outside for a while. If you’re staying at a hotel or in one location, find a local square, park, or pile of rocks (especially good when wandering around Great Britain – all those castles!) that the kids can play in – run, scream, torture siblings, etc. It helps ease stress.
Tip 8: Games
You played them as a youth – now it’s your chance to pass along the family favorites to the young ones.
The licensed game – ever so popular on those cross-country journeys – would work for the preteen set. Toddlers and preschoolers can help learn their colors by identifying the colors of cars. And be sure you learn a few family-type songs.
Even if your voice isn’t of concert quality, you’re sure to at least amuse your children. And if that doesn’t work, you can always pawn them off on other drivers by getting them to wave to people from the back seat.
