TJ and I were chatting last night about how it’s hard to believe that we have been home from Italy for a month already… it simultaneously feels like forever ago and just yesterday…. and now here we are, back into the rhythms and routines of school (or trying at least, haha)… but still thinking about the trip…
One of the most frequently asked questions I received both during, and after, the trip were centered around traveling with children to Europe.
TJ and I have always loved to travel. When we got married (13 years ago), we knew that we wanted to travel before settling down to have children. And that’s just what we did. We had the opportunity to travel to Europe twice in that time span, and fell in love with the spots we visited. I was even in Paris on our last trip, unknowingly, pregnant with Harper. All that to say, when we made the decision to start a family, we told ourselves that we would continue to travel with our children. People laughed at us, told us “Good luck…” or “Have fun with that…” but it didn’t deter us.
I’ll never forget when Harper was 6.5 weeks old, we headed up the coast to Santa Barbara for our first family trip… then we decided to try our hands at a quick one hour flight to Napa when she was 3 months… Hawaii when she was 5 months… and then Boston when she was 8 months…. and then Park City when she was 10 months. And we did the same thing with Camille when she was born (until COVID put a halt on that for a while… then we switched to *long* roadtrips….). The point being, travel is something that is part of our family… something we all enjoy doing together. We’ve learned a lot over the years on how to travel with children and our main piece of advice is always “Lower your expectations.” We know what we’re getting into when we travel with the girls (it’s getting much better the older they get), but we’ve never come home from a trip and regretted it. In fact, in hindsight, we laugh about the hard times (because when we’re not in them anymore we can do that, haha) and the good memories are always what we come back to.
Flexibility is key too. I vividly remember a trip we took to Hawaii when Harper was 9 months old. She couldn’t sleep, and woke up around 5am every. single. morning. Instead of getting frustrated, or annoyed, we piled in the car and drove to various spots around the island to view the sunrise. It’s something we still talk about to this day, and never would have done if she hadn’t woken up so early.
I know I’m rambling, but I guess what my point is, is that traveling as a family is so rich and fulfilling. It provides life long memories that can’t be taken away. I’ll never forget when we got into the taxi in Paris to head to the airport one last time, and I looked over at Harper and we both had tears in our eyes because neither of us wanted the trip to end (Harper and I have done this together so many times haha). I find that everyday life pulls you in so many different directions, no matter how intentional you try to be (and I really try), but when we’re somewhere else together (even an easy 2 hours away in San Diego or Santa Barbara) we are laser focused on the family, and it’s so rewarding.
And now I’m done babbling, and sharing the 7 most frequently asked questions about traveling with children to Europe. I hope it’s helpful if you’re contemplating (or even have a trip planned)….
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1. Long haul plane tricks/tips… going to Italy with 3 littles in August. It’s an overnight flight.
First of all, the overnight flight is the best, and what we will do again when we fly overseas with the girls. As for how to “entertain” them, it was movies (in flight entertainment is really good on long haul flights… typically… and it had a lot of their favorite movies), tablets (which we only bring out when we travel so that they stay new and novel and hold their attention), coloring, and travel games (we brought along a travel Memory and HangMan game which were really great).
For sleeping, I spoke with our pediatrician ahead of the trip and asked about Melatonin, since we had never used it before. She said it was perfectly okay for us to use, so I went ahead and followed her dosing suggestions and it worked really well (I even took some). Once we were about 3 hours into the flight (after they had dinner) I gave them some melatonin and within 45 minutes they were both asleep and slept for about 6ish hours. All I remember is that they woke up with an hour left and the excitement was real, haha!
2. How did you deal with the time difference and bedtimes?
One of the best parts of the overnight flight, is that when you arrive, you only need to stay awake for a handful more hours (4-5), instead of all day, so when that first bedtime comes, everyone is pretty exhausted. We did have a 2am wide awake, wake up call, from both girls the first night (heck, we were all wide awake…) so, per the pediatricians rec, we all used melatonin at night, for the first 2-3 days, to adjust to the time difference. After that our bodies had adapted and we didn’t need it any longer.
As far as bedtimes, we’re very routine about them at home, but that went out the window during the trip. I think the earliest they ever went to bed was 8:30pm and the latest was 11pm. Most restaurants in Europe don’t start dinner service until 6:30/7… and dinner isn’t a quick bite- you’re there to enjoy the experience… so while we always took the first dinner reservation (typically 7pm) we often weren’t finished until 9/9:30pm. There were a couple of evenings where we sensed that they were really tired, so we headed to the restaurant to see if we could get seated earlier (6 is usually the earliest), and on those nights we were back by 8 and they were in bed by 8:30 (I think we had 3 evenings like that out of 14). We just needed to be flexible while still keeping their needs in mind, and I’d say that overall it really worked and we all adapted.
3. How did you decide to take them at this age?
We love to travel, so we’ve taken the girls on quite a few shorter flights (6 hours to Hawaii…) and some lengthy roadtrips (we drove to Park City back in 2021, which was 14 hours…) and they’ve done really well over the years (with the expected bumps here and there…), even with some unexpected travel hiccups (we had a delayed, and eventually canceled, flight to Hawaii this past summer, which resulted in a 16 hour travel day, and they were champs) so we were fairly confident that they would be able to manage a travel day, and trip, of this magnitude.
I don’t think I would have chosen this trip as our first time traveling together, or our first time on an airplane together… just because of how long the travel day was.
We also did a lot of pre-trip prepping. When we had the long, and unexpected, travel day to Hawaii we told them that would be what the Europe travel day looked like. How did they feel about that? We reviewed what we expect of them on the flight (i.e. inside voices), and we also talked about how we needed to really communicate during the trip: If you’re feeling tired and need to rest, tell us… if you’re hungry, tell us… always hold someone’s hand and don’t wander off, etc…. We did this repeatedly before, and during, the trip.
4. What is the youngest age you think this would be possible? I have 3 kids!
I honestly think this depends on your comfort level. We have friends who have taken their 6 month old and toddler all over Europe and have a great time. I personally felt this was a great age (for reference the girls are 4 and 7.5 years old)… they were active participants in the trip, were able to communicate how they were feeling (which was so helpful), and were also at an age where we had some flexibility with schedules (which we didn’t follow, haha).
Something I do want to note is that just because we were on a vacation didn’t mean the same kiddo behaviors didn’t follow… some tired and hangry meltdowns, food aversions, etc… you just have to be prepared for that and not romanticize the trip (we’re in “X” location, how can they be doing “XYZ…” and let it ruin your day). There were mornings when one girl was up and ready to go way before we were (this happens at home)… afternoons when there was complaining because of the heat (to be expected, it was 98 degrees, and we were walking all around Rome), and I think Camille enjoyed every single meal from the comforts of my lap (so I ate with my plate in my hand… happens at home sometimes too)… if you can be flexible and roll with that while on vacation, you can for sure do this trip.
5. How was the food situation and dining with kids? Is it kid friendly?
Italy food is hard to beat… cheese pizza and pasta (olive oil and parmesan cheese is always an option)… gelato… the girls were in paradise. So I would say that, at least in Italy, the food was an easy situation. When we went to Paris for the night I was a bit nervous, but we were able to find options the girls liked on the menu. I think it depends on the country.
As far as restaurants being kid friendly, we found them to be incredibly so in Italy (all of Italy, well the places we visited, were very family friendly… even the “nicer” restaurants)… even at the beach clubs, there were other children and families. I do want to note though that in the US they provide “kid’s menus/something to color with” but that’s not the case in Italy, so be prepared to bring whatever you need.
6. Tips on hauling their luggage from place to place….
No tips here, haha… just be prepared to sweat. Harper was at an age where she was able to help carry some small items, so I could help with the bigger pieces… you can pack less, which means smaller luggage and easier to manage.
7. Laundry situation!
I packed enough underwear (and then some) for each day of the trip, and then I packed enough outfits/pieces that I felt could be mixed and matched (skirts, shorts, tops), and some dresses for the girls. We had a few instances, namely with melting gelato, that resulted in the need to use the hotel laundry service (which every hotel had). Other than that, I was able to spot treat stains (I recommend brining along a small, travel size, stain remover stick) as we went.
