Travel and summer go hand in hand, but the enthusiasm and the excitement that you feel when traveling alone or with friends doesn’t feel the same when you have kids along. Hence, having a travel hacks as a parent is a must.
Traveling with kids as a parent can sometimes be very rewarding, but you can’t deny on the fact that it takes lots of responsibilities and hard work and can be quite expensive too.
Let’s face it, while family vacations can be lot of fun and mesmerizing, traveling with kids can also leave you feeling frustrated, especially when the kids are too small. From car seats to packing clothes, play stuffs and increased baggage fees for families it becomes stressful.
Traveling with children as a parent can’t be easy at all. So, it’s worth having a few travel hacks to make your trip go smooth and easy.
Here’s what every parent needs to know before they leave on to the next family vacation.
Sharing devices
If your kids are small and very mischievous, this travel hack can actually work pretty well.
Kids these days are fond of watching stuffs on YouTube. So, have one smartphone or tablet for the kids to watch especially while traveling on the bus, car or plane.
This will make them more concentrated towards one thing and they will probably make less noise.
Pre snacks
Traveling with kids as a parent can be exhausting and you might need a little extra fuel to keep them going.
Packing snacks for kids as well as yourself will help you to avoid stopping on a long drive for unhealthy fast food.
Not only that, if you have kids around the age of five years, this travel hack is a must.
You need to feed your children time and again otherwise they will start making disturbance to the entire vacation.
Electrical outlets- band aid style
Having little kids putting their fingers everywhere to explore everything can get very dangerous.
If your child is the one who stick fingers in a socket at a moment’s notice, childproofing is a must.
So, while traveling carry a small roll of blue painter tape, which can temporarily cover everything that puts your child in danger. This will help you to feel free about your child and enjoy your travel.
Reusable water bottles
Most people don’t even realize when they have let hours go by without drinking a drop of water, and then a headache starts creeping on.
If you bring along a few empty water bottles to fill up, you will not only save money, but you don’t have to wait for the kids who gets thirsty time and again.
So, to avoid any sort of illness and frequent disturbance by the kids, this hack is a must to be used by every parents.
Id bracelets, travel cards
While travelling knowing your address isn’t always as helpful as you think for your children. Traveling can not only be enjoyable but also stressful if any of your child goes missing.
So, always make your children armed with a parents cell phone number, hotel information or any emergency number.
This is very much essential if your child gets separated from you. You can also arm them with id bracelets or travel cards to make the journey peaceful.
Power for all devices
Powering all your devices before leaving and packing a power strip to plug all the devices will help you a lot while traveling.
This is great when you are traveling internationally and you have limited number of adapters.
Also, it can be helpful when your kids need to get entertained using your smartphone or tablets and also for clicking photos and videos.
So, powering all the devices and packing a powers strip can be helpful for you to enjoy your traveling.
Pack in Ziploc bags
Rolling up your clothes and packing it in Ziploc bags is a common packing travel hack and one that is worth repeating. Not only does it save space in your bag but also decreases wrinkling.
Packing one complete outfit for each of your child will help you to quickly and easily pull out everything you need without any hassle.
So, if you are traveling as a parent with your kids, this travel hack will save you from carrying heavy bag packs to your vacations.
Keep everything organized
If you are fond of traveling but you do not know how to keep things organized, especially when you are a parent, traveling cannot be fun.
To have an easy and peaceful travel, you need to keep everything organized from the bags to your children stuffs before and while traveling.
This travel hack will help you a lot in saving your time as well as getting everything right.
Bring toys and books
Carrying toys or books for the children will help you a lot to divert their mind from doing mischievous behaviors and help you to enjoy your vacation, at least for a certain period of time.
This can be far more fascinating and interesting for the children as they are already familiar with the toys and books, and will hold their attention for longer.
Give older kid some responsibility
If you are traveling with two or more kids, it becomes impossible to handle everything by yourself.
So, give some of the responsibilities such as looking after the smaller kid, carrying the bags, counting the money to them.
You can also ask them to read and follow signs to your departure lounge and let them lead the way.
This will lessen your burden towards the kids and also teach your child to become responsible.
