Traveling With Young Kids

Travelling with children can be somewhat like taking a herd of wild goats in your vacation. Whether they're your own or someone else's, factoring a child's needs into your journeys involves a lot more than sticking on a CD filled with pop music and making bathroom stops. Here two Rough Guides writers discuss their hard wisdom. To start, mum of 2 Hayley Spurway offers guidance on traveling with toddlers, subsequently Ross McGovern reveals the way he handles to travel with older children. Hayley Spurway's tips for traveling with toddlers

Invest in a child locator

In my experience, toddlers aren't fans of reins, backpacks with a leash, or any infringement on their liberty. Keep tabs on these at airports, train stations and packed attractions using a child locator. The child wears a little unit (strapped to a belt or shoe) and you maintain the crate. If you lose your kid set off the alert and follow the sound to find them.

Have quite a few family games ready in case of delay.

Punch-buggy and padiddle are very popular, if violent, favourites for car journeys, whereas more cerebral ones such as the Alphabet match are safer for air travel.

Bear in Mind the Medication

It should be on in your own travelling checklist, but with children along means carrying a small first aid kit is all the more vital: plasters, antihistamines and sachets of painkilling syrup may save a lot of stress later on. Antimalarials are also available in liquid form.

Encourage them to keep a travel journal

Get your kids drawing and record things they've observed and intriguing foods they've attempted. Who knows, this may also encourage them to try different foods. Collecting postcards from places you visit and asking them to compose themselves a message on the back means they could attain adulthood with a library of memories all their own.

Be prepared for the climate

It's simple guidance, but kids dressed comfortably for the terrain and weather will be more happy in a new environment. Together with all the gear accessible, there's no explanation for dressing toddlers in ski-suits four sizes too large, forgetting their gloves, or leaving them wrapped on a beach where sea urchins lurk.