Travelling to Europe
I’ve just travelled with my family for three months and here are my 5 top pieces of advice.
Booking flights at the right time.
Night flight for the long distance was essential for us. Once the food service and plane had settled with lights down we stealthily blew up our inflatable mattresses for the kids and hoped for sleep. It’s handy to know that a 9pm flight means approx an 11.30pm bedtime.
Staying in a place for a long period of time.
We chose three locations, staying at each for one month because we wanted to minimise the amount of travel days. Even a short flight means a full day of travel which is tiring and disruptive for adults and kids. We thoroughly researched each location, and even though we didn’t need much, our non negotiables were to be walking distance to a cafe and water for swimming.
Holiday with friends.
We have travelled the entire time with our very good friends who have kids very similar ages. The reduction in parenting (especially for the four year olds) needs to be mentioned! They played non stop, and as a result we were almost able to enjoy an aperol while sitting down. The 18 month-ers prevented that however. It has also meant sharing the food load. If you’re cooking for two kids, you may as well be cooking for four.
Taking familiar foods from home.
I would say my children are on the picky /selective eating end of the scale but what toddler isn’t? They also don’t eat pizza, pasta or croissants!!!! A challenge in Italy! Having familiar foods for the first few days - while we got our bearings, caught up on sleep and sourced food - was invaluable. I took some weetbix, jar of Vegemite, a few instant rice pouches, a can of salmon or tuna, a can of baked beans and some porridge sachets (these were so handy on the plane-we forgot to order kids meals for their seats).
Invest in good monitors.
We took two monitors that could connect to wifi so we could see the kids on the phone app and still be able to enjoy a drink/meal out of earshot. In some locations we had restaurants 50m away or under our airbnb building which we felt comfortable going to as we could see both kids at all times.