to think that travel has to change when DC enters the picture?

[lessonsintightropes]

DH and I are in our mid 30s and currently TTC. We've had a very good run of exciting adventures over the 6 years we've been together and have prioritised it over things other people would spend money on (like an expensive house, any kind of car etc etc) as it's something we both love and up until now haven't had any reason not to do it. We've got a couple of things booked in over the next six months which might raise eyebrows (travelling to India where food hygiene won't be fantastic) and hiking in northern Canada. I mentioned to DH that the latter trip will probably be our last hurrah for the next five years or so should we be lucky enough to get a BFP.

We've been talking for a while about nice places to go as a young family which won't massively impact on other people and will be both fun and doable (such as hiking in Scotland, spending time in Wales and Norfolk etc). I don't expect we'll get much further than visiting best friends in Holland who also have a young family for the next five years or so.

DH is looking a bit mournful and wondering whether things have to change so drastically - mates of ours who live in Vancouver (originally from Wales and NZ) routinely make transatlantic journeys with their DS (now 12 months). I think, because we don't have family overseas, that trying to fly or drive any further than 4 - 5 hours with a small baby is asking for trouble. He thinks I'm over worrying. We agreed to ask AIBU - what do you think? To round it out, most of our family lives in the UK, but most of our friends live overseas in Europe, Canada and the US. Thoughts welcome! Before it's pointed out, yes I do know that we are extremely lucky to be in a position where we can travel a lot. We've worked pretty hard to get here though, and as I said before, we prioritise it over a lot of things other people wouldn't.

Trains. Think about trains. The trains around Europe are great. Trains allow you to walk around when boredom strikes in a way that planes don't. You can look out the window and see what is going on. Eurostar across to France and then the whole continent is yours to explore. I recommend trains and holiday apartments, because when the kids are in bed it is really nice to have your own space to retreat to and not all be stuck in one room.

OP, it's up to you whether you're comfortable with doing long-distance travel. If either you or your DH doesn't like the idea then you can postpone it a few years.

Travel doesn't HAVE to change.

You can continued to spend a lot of money and time on long-distance travel if that's what you enjoy, particularly while you only have one child.

"We've had a very good run of exciting adventures over the 6 years we've been together"

And you're about to embark on the biggest adventure of your life together so far.

Going on exciting holidays in only one (not particularly adventurous) type of adventure.

Once you have another person entirely dependent on you, you might not care to spend your time in the same ways you have done until now.

There's another person in the family who, particularly when they are a baby, will get absolutely fuck all out of the experience of being in another country. So do you still drag them there through all the tedious plane journeys?

You might have other priorities for your money. Housing, which has not mattered to you up until now, might start to seem like something worth prioritising ahead of memories.

Also - think again if you imagine you can force your baby into being OK with noise and light. Babies are different, you work with the baby you get.

Ultimately there are loads of choices to be made and you might well end up travelling just as much as you do now. But you might no longer want to.

The point is - it's stupid to decide now.

Live your life, embrace this exciting new development and see how it goes.

Don't become one of those incredibly tedious couples who thinks going on exotic holidays makes them interesting.

One baby is pretty easy. And it's fun to feel like they are exploring with you. We lived in a very isolated place so didn't travel much when we were young, although had a beach so all felt like a holiday anyway.

And I think about where ds has been at his age in comparison and think blinking heck that is rather wonderful.

It depends a bit on the baby - my DS is a great traveller and has been since a tiny baby, but DD really struggles with being out of routine. We do still travel through because it's important to us, but we just have to adapt our plans to fit around the DC.

Doesn't it depend on what you want to do on holiday rather than travel per se? You sound like you like a challenge and that is harder with small children. Babies are easy, you pack em up and carry them on hikes. But from about one they keep wanting to be put down to explore themselves (like they are little people in their own right - I don't know!) and that massively reduces the range you can cover.

DH and I are both climbers, he has a passion for mountain biking and swimming, I love fell running. We've never had a beach holiday in our lives and can't see why we would. Fitting time to pursue our leisure pursuits around DD has been hard, though we live in the Peak District which helps.

What has worked for us is playing the long game. We have always spent loads of time with DD out and about in the woods, climbing tress, messing about on balance bikes, and she learnt to swim early (though I tend to think that is luck, children learn to swim when they are ready, you can support them with confident reassurance, but the range is still wide). That has meant even at 2 and 3 we've been able to mess about in the Alps on holiday swimming in lakes, jogging along trails whilst DD scooted on her bike, and hauling her up hills our shoulders. This suits us perfectly and gives us both the freedom to alternate going off independently to do the slightly more adventurous things we also enjoy. It will be tougher with another littlun next year. My personal view is that wild camping is unacceptable if anyone in the party uses nappies, so DD and her Dad will have to have private excursions for the nxt couple of years!

At rising 4 she is just ready to start indoor climbing. She won't be ready to climb outside for a few more years. But our long game is to all enjoy a range of things outside together. She wants to climb btw. I am als strongly of the view that children should be supported to do the things they enjoy, not nagged to do the things their parents love. We'll be buggered if the next one likes beaches!

My top tip though is to take it at your DC's pace. Pack loads of snacks, take short routes, always be ready to turn back, and stop to climb interesting trees or pretend a stick is a magic wand.

So things don't stop, but they change. I wouldn't walk the West HIghland Way with a small child. In winter the Devil's Staircase is too dangerous and in summer they'll just get eaten by midgies. But the wonderful stretch of twisty turny clambery path at the top end of Loch Lomond near Inversnaid is perfect for adventures and not far from the road. And at Kinlochleven you can practice ice climbing inside if the great outdoors isn't so great.

There's another person in the family who, particularly when they are a baby, will get absolutely fuck all out of the experience of being in another country. So do you still drag them there through all the tedious plane journeys?

The flip side to that, is that, when they are still a baby, they will probably be just as happy snuggled up on mummy or daddy's lap whether they be on the sofa at home or on a plastic seat in an airport.

Yes, TwoCats, that's true too.

Great post Penelope, especially the bit about what you will be DOING on holiday, not just where you will be going.

And 1 years olds and their insistence on doing their own damn exploring! :o

Wild camping is not for people who still use nappies, but camping in ordinary campsites with refuse facilities is brilliant with toddlers - they are OUTSIDE ALL THE TIME! What could be better?

We've travelled an awful lot with DS (now 10), he loves it. Perhaps helped by having just the one child & he doesn't know any different, has been flying all over the place since babyhood. We go to smart restaurants with him too as DH & I love to eat, again, he always has joined us so it is no problem at all. He used to take small toys as a baby, then a book when a bit bigger, now nothing, he's fine to join in our chat without any need for distractions.
We've drawn the line at destinations requiring vaccinations/malaria mind you, I'm not keen on that just yet, maybe in a couple of years when he's a teen.
Biggest problem is that it costs much more, a 3rd flight, bigger room, restricted to school holidays.

The other thing we do now is holidaying with friends and family. We will do something like camp with friends for a long weekend, somewhere that the children can run around in a wild pack together while the adults relax. We would never have considered doing something like this before having children but they absolutely love it.

One of the things I notice after taking DS (now 10) on many holidays is how little travel means to him.

I can remember being desperate to travel even at an early age. By DS's age I had a list of places I wanted to see. DS on the other hand is not the least bit bothered. Given a choice sleepovers would win rather than a holiday.

Sorry just to clarify for the couple of people who I think misunderstood - we're not talking about getting in a camper van and travelling for months, we've both got jobs. But we do like putting ourselves in some challenging situations.

There have been some brilliant ideas and suggestions! I particularly like the long game suggestion and thinking about doing similar destinations but at a different pace. Thanks so much for all these ideas!

And YY to all those telling me it's impossible to decide now - and that DC will have their own ideas about what they want to do

Airbnb & house swapping have made travel with tinies easier for us. I wish I had known about both when dd1 was smaller -I feel like we wasted 2 years.

Now that dd2 is 2.5 we travel again & are plotting India for later this year.

If you have the funds, you can travel as much as you like with young dc. Enjoy.

alibaba - and that just goes to prove that you can't know how it will be until you get your own baby, eh?

Carlajean - making some wild assumptions there. My sons haven't ever been a problem on flights, so unless someone on the flight was like one of Roald Dahl's Witches, who couldn't stand the smell of any child, I don't see how they "ruined" anyone else's experience. But you know, don't let facts get in the way of your prejudice there.

Can I suggest holding off making plans until you actually know!

Nothing worse than spending a whole heap of money on and getting all excited about a holiday that becomes about as appealing as a bath in cow dung when your circumstances don't fit with what you've planned.

Save the money for it, but don't book or plan it

If you have the funds, you can travel as much as you like with young dc bollocks. Sometimes due to completely unforeseen circumstances it can become impossible. Between 0-6 months DS puked up endlessly unless I was travelling with my own personal doctor and washing machine it would have been impossible.

carlajean - as the airlines are happy to charge a fortune for children - I really think they are happy to have them on board.

My still quite youngish kids have been lots of places. TBH, As fab as it has been I sometimes wonder if we are making it too common and easy for them. They are so blasé about travel and having been to some amazing places - at their age my one holiday to Spain each year was so looked forward to and so exciting. When I was older and went off backpacking and discovered so many places for the first time it was amazing and so appreciated. Just hope we don't spoil it all a little for them though the family time spent together has been so lovely.

I travelled with my DC when they were babies but as I BF until they were over a year old it made it very easy. My SIL bottle fed and was INSISTENT that "having a baby won't change anything, we will just carry on as before..." She was challenged on this whilst pregnant, not by me, and in a huff she booked a holiday island hopping around Greece before the baby was even born.
She had to come home after 5 days as the baby was so severely dehydrated as she wouldn't take her formula with different tasting water!!! Nothing worked, not bottled water, nothing. Total waste of money and a horrible experience for all of them.
As other posters have said, BF will make it easier but you really will have a much better idea of what is and isn't feasible for you once your baby arrives. Best of luck with it all.

DS is two years old and we took him to Hong Kong and Tokyo at 10 months old. It's not the best experience having to entertain a baby in the confined space on a 12 hour flight, but we all had a brilliant time and DS loved the attention he got on holiday.

It's certainly do-able to go on long flights etc., but you do have to plan around the child e.g time a museum trip around their nap time so they sleep, if they're crawling/walking you need to let them move around, they can't sit in a buggy all day.

I found our trip to the Isle of Wight great with DS last summer as her loved digging on the beaches and paddling in the sea. I found that more relaxing, and honestly if rather stay closer to home with holidays whilst DS is little. It's just personal preference really.

I've not found it a problem, but I do accept it can be daunting and you do need to consider how your child takes to it. I had my first overseas and did lots of travel, had another back in UK and did three trips abroad each year - finding it generally easier to travel by car and stay in rented houses.

We did a month travelling in Sri Lanka with 4-1/2 and 18 month old and it was fine (flight back was a different matter but hey)

Never had a pram and both were/are constantly on the boob for years so that helped cut some of the clutter down and made travel a bit easier.

Personally I don't think you'd have to totally rein it in - DSis is in Vancouver and we did three weeks there with DCs of 18m and 3y 2m; the flights were fine on the whole. I reckon the worst age would be about where DD is now - 2y 2m, when they are bloody-minded but not quite able to manage themselves in the way 3/4 year olds can.

You have to accept some things won't be possible - an example on that trip being my wanting to hike out to this amazing glacial lake about 9m round trip - it just wasn't really an option to have a child on my back all that time. But we did do the Whistler train wreck with them and that was awesome!!

And it's nice to get all visionary and think you could easily do exotic places, but if your kid did get sick it would be bloody miserable. You'll kind of realise when you have DCs. But no way rule out travel to first world nations just because of things like flight times. Children handle jetlag loads better going west so the US especially is feasible.

Our twins have not curtailed our travelling. They are 3.8 years and have been to South Africa, Mauritius (x2), Egypt, Israel, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and probably a few others I have forgotten. It does require. Bit more advance planning (e.g. Bassinets on the plane, hotels with childcare if you want some down time) but those things are available the world over if you want them.

I think it's all in the attitude. If you want to holiday outside of the usual Butlins/Center Parks box then you definitely can. In my experience thus far our DS has risen to our expectations of what fun looks like.

When we found out we were having our somewhat unexpected DS we knew that we would live the sort of family life that involved lots of travel (car, plane, train whatever) and sleeping in different beds and different places because that's what we do.

We travelled with him very early on and made a conscious effort to avoid an elaborate home-centred bedtime routine complete with complete darkness, white noise, nursery rhyme CDs etc. he has a blanket we can take anywhere that means 'bedtime' to him and a drink of milk but that's all, and we relax bedtimes so we can eat out altogether. We've had nights where it hasn't worked but we've accepted that as par for the course and we don't stress about it. Most of the time it's fine and he knows that at home different rules apply and it's bed at 7 up at 7.

We took a 10 day road trip in the states with our then 18month old and it was fab. We did things differently but it was still wonderful. At the Grand Canyon where pre-child we would have hiked down to the river we ended up hiring bikes and a trailer for DS and cycled the rim instead. It was great in a completely different, toddler friendly way, but it was still a holiday how we like to holiday. You have to be careful with food stops (small children do not accept a handful of goldfish crackers and a banana in the back of the car as dinner, it seems) and make sure you have places to sleep but I reckon that your potential child should fit into how you live your life. If you would kill yourselves/each other at Haven then don't do it. You just need to plan a bit more and be relatively relaxed with regard to bedtime and naps. Our son has epilepsy and associated additional needs, too, and we just roll with it and are well insured. Go for it

I think it depends on how you feel when baby arrives. There is no reason why you shouldn't go anywhere with dc but it will be harder work, more expensive and take much more planning. Is your dh willing to be fully involved in this too?
I travelled lots before dc and took ds to nz when he was 8 months old. I haven't been anywhere since as neither of them sleep well, they are both pretty fussy eaters and it just seems like alot of stress for things that they will not necessarily enjoy.
I have resigned myself to the fact that my adventures are on hold for a few years until they are older and holidays have to be about what suits them.
that said I know other people who take their kids away all the time and they seem to manage well.