We love to travel almost as much as we love to mountain bike. Almost. What’s even better is when we can combine both activities in one! We’ve definitely found that travelling with kids is a very different experience than when it was just the two of us — go figure. There are a few things we’ve found that helped us along the way to go from adventuring in our neighbourhood to adventuring as far as Costa Rica and Vietnam!
Expensive!!
Yes, there’s the added expense of the kids’ tickets as well as extra food costs for extra little mouths. Thanks to services like Airbnb, it can still be very affordable to travel with kids. By renting a place with a kitchen, you can cook a lot of meals at home, which means familiar foods for the little ones. Not to mention, there are plenty of inexpensive countries out there just begging to be explored that are still safe for kids. Plus, we found that by packing the Mac Ride kids bike seat on our trip, we could save money on transportation and activities.
Tantrums
Travelling is exhausting for the best of us. Long days in airports, language gaps, and time changes are some of the most difficult obstacles we’ve faced with our kids in tow. We’ve found that not planning too many things in a single day was key. If planning is your thing, though, kids can be great at helping to pick out activities for specific days, especially if they’re each in charge of their own day. When you’re all tired and exhausted, instead of pushing through, a family nap could be the only adventure needed on vacation that day. For us, the biggest help with avoiding meltdowns from both adults and kids was maintaining a good routine even on vacation. Usual mealtimes and bedtimes are a must. When it came to long travel days, we made sure to have plenty of games and activities for the kids to help keep them occupied.
Kid-Friendly Activities
We were worried that there may not be enough to do with the kids everywhere we went. Some activities just aren’t suitable for little ones. Luckily, when it comes to adventure travel, a lot of activities are perfect for families with younger kids. Snorkelling, hiking, and biking are amazing activities for kids of all ages. We particularly liked biking to see volcanoes while in Costa Rica. Kids biking is something we’ve seen in many countries, and it was lots of fun for our kids to come along for the ride, seeing all the children biking in their own ways in new places.
Is It Safe?
There’s always danger when going to a new place. Food sickness and crime come to our mind when we think of some of the risks we worried about. Worrying about the safety of your kids in an unfamiliar place is enough to scare even the bravest parent! We tend to travel to safer places that are a little more expensive while still being cheaper in comparison to some of the most popular family-friendly destinations. We found that it was important for us to feel comfortable so that, by extension, our children would feel comfortable, too. We decided never to go somewhere that would have made us too nervous or on edge.
Packing
This is the biggest struggle we have faced — limiting the number of toys or special items our kids want to bring. Getting toddlers and young kids packed for vacation is like playing Tetris blindfolded. You can start by setting limits on how many toys or special items can be packed. Having a “must-have” list for your child is a great idea, too. That way, they can see how much room they have left over for their toys and special items they want to bring. It’s almost guaranteed that you’re going to have some of their stuff in your bags. And by some, we mean a lot. But as long as you keep this in mind, you can save a little space among the essentials for your kids’ extras!
We aren't the only family travelling with our kids, either! We’ve been lucky enough to see other families jet setting off to adventurous new places for a vacation with their kids. @GetOutThereAustralia and @Jonasstefans are just two of the many families we get to watch exploring the globe with their little adventurers in tow every day.
We’ve been lucky enough to travel with our kids to near and far destinations, and every time, we bring the Mac Ride kids bike seat along. Thanks to its small size and ability to fold up, the seat is the perfect adventure activity for any vacation. The kids feel much safer with this familiar method of transportation, and now, we’re able to explore new and unseen trails and places. This touch of home has helped our kids to feel more comfortable in unfamiliar places.
So, how do you adventure travel with your kids?