Traveling with kids: how to pack

Traveling with kids: how to pack? Our loyal reader Giedrė, who travels a lot with her family, shares her tips. Giedrė introduces herself: “We are one of those families who often go on trips. With our daughters, aged 2 and 4, we’ve also visited many of Europe’s far-flung destinations, such as the Azores and Madeira, and we’ve been on two month-long trips to Asia.” How do you pack for a road trip with kids?

Traveling with kids: how to pack

Traveling with kids: how to pack? – Giedre shares practical advice in great detail and, most importantly, it’s a real tried & tested tips&tricks.

Our goal is to travel with as few things as possible, because that way:

• we have free hands. When travelling, we have to carry around those who “have a sore leg, no strength left”, etc.
• Packing is much quicker when moving from one place to another. It also reduces the chances of forgetting or leaving something behind in hotels.
• Since we often have to take extra flights during the trip, we save on luggage costs by travelling with hand luggage only.

So, our four-person trip to Asia for a month consists of four backpacks. What we pack:

• 5 sets of underwear each
• Swimsuits
• Sun hats (children only)
• 5 outfit options for children, e.g. 2 dresses, 3 hoodies, 1 skirt
• Adults – 4 outfit options, e.g. 2 shorts and 5 t-shirts or 2 dresses, 1 shorts, 3 t-shirts
• Socks – 2 pairs (for children only)
• Sleepwear
• Hygiene items and only essential medicines. I often take runny nose spray and temperature medication. I also make sure we have a thermometer.

We consider how we will dress for the journey and how that outfit could be useful later on. E.g. we go with a t-shirt that counts towards the 5pc later on, or a sweater to cover up on colder nights.

I try to make sure the clothes are cotton, linen, so that they dry quickly, don’t wrinkle, etc. My experience in Asia is that it is not worth taking the nicest and most luxurious clothes you can find. Because they sometimes get damaged in the laundry.

On average, we wash our clothes every four days. Either in our flats if there is a washing machine, in public laundries (takes 1 hour, during which time we eat ice-cream or have lunch), or in a laundry where you get all your clothes washed and ironed in a day (€3 on average).

The children can take one soft toy with them on the trip (and then they have to take care of it for the whole trip). We take colouring books and some pencils. As well as small figurines that they can then use to play games of their own imagination.

We organise our luggage to make travelling easier:

• one backpack with winter warm clothes and boots. We left it in Kuala Lumpur last year while we were travelling in Indonesia and only took it when we returned.
• a backpack for light clothes
• we also have a small backpack for the computer, with room for children’s toys, a water bottle, sweaters (very common in Asian countries for restaurants and public transport – really cold).

Planning a long trip? Three tips to prepare for the jet lag (time difference)

Everything seems great, you’ve set off on your trip, adventures and discoveries are ahead of you, but after a long flight across the ocean, the kids’ minds get mixed up and the start of the trip is a bit of a mess.

On the first flight to the Caribbean islands – Curacao – I thought I was going to die. Because the children’s sleep rhythms were differently disturbed. They were up screaming in the middle of the night or in the morning at different times. And after a few of those nights we were out of our own minds.

So now, here are some tips we use when choosing long flights:

1. Manage sleeping times already during the flight, e.g. (depending on the direction of the flight) try to get the children to sleep as late as possible, as this will help them cope with the time difference on arrival.
2. With two children, we try to make sure that we have two separate rooms only on arrival until the time balances out. This reduces the risk of one waking up and the other waking up immediately. We try not to change the location for the first three nights after arrival to allow the children’s clocks to calibrate.
3. Be prepared with food – if the children wake up in the middle of the night and say they want to eat, have some yoghurt, cereal or snacks (as little sweet as possible to help them fall back asleep).

And it always helps to be calm – just when you know that the time difference will still be reflected in the children’s behaviour, mood and sleep rhythm, you don’t put a lot of expectations on the first few days and just wait for them to settle into a rhythm.

The article “Traveling with kids: how to pack” is an original article prepared by “Travel 4 kids®”. Copying and use without permission is strictly prohibited.

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