Travelling around the world with a toddler... good idea?

[hellomama]

OK, so my life crisis continues... I think we are going to go and travel for a bit so we can come home and have a new perspective on everything. Where do we start?!
We sold out house and have some money in the bank and ideally I'd like to see a bit and then work a bit. DS is 16 months old, will he enjoy this experience? Am I going completely mad? Is this going to change our lives for the better?
Has anyone had any experience of travelling with a little one? Any recommendations of places we could visit or things we could do would be welcomed.
This will be the first crazy thing I have ever done in my life... Please help me plan it!

There was a thread fairly recently about a mnetter who had gone round the world with her kids - a bit older than your ds I think. I have no idea what it was called though - sorry!

I'd love to do it too!

nappybaglady

blog written by her DH. It's great reading and quite encouraging for you too I should think, hm.

Friends of ours are currently doing this. When they started dd was just over 4 and ds just 2.

Mum and Dad are fairly experienced travellers and started off with rather ambitious plans, more to do with their interests rather tahn the children's tbh. After a few months research and planning they decided to visit south east Asia (can't remember which countries off the top of my head), NZ, Australia and South Africa.

I will have a look at their web thing to check for more info. if you like. Could be a while though!

Friends of mine did this and had a fantastic time - they took a camper van and travelled Europe. When they left their dd was 9 months and their ds was 3. They were away for 18 months and said it was the best thing they ever did.

I am sure having had this experience can only be a fantastic thing and if you don't go when you've got the money you will surely regret it in years to come. Don't think, go!!!! Kids are so flexible and really don't want or need for much, I am positive so long as he is with you he will have a ball.

I am soooooooo jealous! I would love to do this but DH is self-employed and we can't leave the business

Message withdrawn

why don't you buy an old camper van and just bugger off round europe for a while

It will be loads easier with one child at this age.

My friends DCs seem to be bored and rather moany according to their weblog

Thanks for all the positive responses. DH and I have been talking about it all evening and he is excited as me about it all. We would like to go to somewhere in the Americas, Canada or S.America or Mexico; maybe Thailand or Malaysia for the beaches; and then Australia and New Zealand. We're going to have to plan and plan so that we spend our money wisely and also so that we don't get stranded in the middle of nowhere with a hungry DS! I think it is do-able though...

I will start a MN weblog so you can virtually join us on our travels!

hellomama we have just done 3mths backpacking through Eastern Europe with our then 16mth old when we left. We had a ball, you do have to do a bit of preplanning probably more so than if you were just winging it yourselves but it really was no problem and we found it surprisingly easy and are still getting comments about how 'brave' and 'amazing' it was for us to do. We stayed in our own rooms in hostels so many of them we were able to cook our own tea, many came with breakfast but we just had a ziplock bag with cherios or somesuch for dd with a small tuppaware in our bag in case we got stuck not knowing where to get breakfast. A large variety of dried fruit is great as quick snacks when travelling and we tried to keep many bus/train journey's between towns/cities down to less than 5hrs. Visit museums during day time naps in pushchairs which avoids boredom and first thing you ask at the tourist office is where is a good child's playground and allocate an hour each day for their time. Easy to do around the lunch time as you can make sandwiches and take them to a park or something.

Hellomama - Do it, you'll have a great time. DS was 19 months when we set off. He absolutely thrived on having both of us around 24/7 and it was such a privelege for us to spend so much time with both the kids.

Have no time to respond properly now but will tag this thread and try to get back next week. Thanks Janh for linking our blog - we were wondering why there was another surge of hits on it.

ps hello chuffed. How's the bump?

we went "round the world in 80 days" {or 3 months really}

DS was 6 nearly 7 years old

we had a deffo brill time

we hired a campervan round New Zealand for over a month

it was deffo brill

We went JAN - MARCH 2002

we went to australia and hong kong with a 10 month old and pregnant again. including some backpacking, overnight train trips, etc.

the only bad bit really was the terribly long plan flight with very mobile toddler. and the jet lag - she got it really badly it took a month for her to sleep through after each crossing of 12 hour time difference.

apart from that, it was good. and far easier than it would be with 2 or more children so do it now....

We went to STA travel today and have made some tentative plans... not booked it yet - but perhaps next week. We are planning to start in New York, then fly over to San Francisco and have a road trip in a camper van up to west Coast Canada. Then we hope to go to Hawaii, Fiji and on to New Zealand, where we plan to camper van it around again for a month. Onto Oz where we can work for a bit and finally home via Singapore, Thailand, Bankok and perhaps Moscow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nappybaglady - we have been reading your blog with real excitement. The writing is very eloquant and engaging. I was going to contact you for info about where you stayed in NY and any other advice you may have about our trip?

We have quite a few months to go for planning etc as we hope to leave in April 2006.

here is the deffo brill company we used and they gave us a free upgrade to 6/7 berth mercedes

HUGE windows for children to see out of

we stayed in MALDIVES, AUSSIE, NZ, FIJI, HAWAII, LAS VEGAS and TORONTO

have fun with the planning

Ok guys I have just seen this thread and it has got me into all sorts of trouble - have forwarded it to DH and started an extreme nagging campaign (at 5am...) to get him to chuck in his job so that we can do the same.

What a fantastic idea, what an amazing experience to share with your child/children. I really admire you all who have done it/are planning to do it! hellomama, keep us posted on your plans! Go to hawaii it's wonderful.

hellomama

Am completely snowed under at the mo with trying to sort out permanent jobs and other RL things - I guess this is the consequence of taking 3m off

Despite current hassles it was worth every minute, and every penny. We had a great time. We decided to go during Feb, booked flights in March and left home on 2May. I resigned and DH got 3m leave from work.

We booked flights with Trailfinders who were v good. Took about 3h to book it all. You need a bit of a plan when you go in but the travel adviser was v knowledgable and helped us to refine our itinerary. Once booked it's expensive to change the ticket before you fly but not too bad to change it once you've made your first flight. We changed one of our dates for free and one of our destinations for about £50 each.

Stayed at Red Roof Inn in NY, close to Empire State and Times Square. Neither posh nor grotty. Good location and I think it cost about $100/night B&B. Breakfast was bagels/cereal/fruit. A bit repeteitive by 6th day but adequate.

Would be delighted to help but forgive me if I don't respond quickly at the moment. If you need quick advice about anything CAT me.

...and when it comes to packing your bags - I am officially an expert. 3 months, 4 people, 2 bags (OK, there were 2 buggies, a travel cot and a couple of daysacks too, but all the kit was in just 2 bags)

I'm excited for you. So glad everyone is enjoying the blog. DH had a few copies made into a book to give out for Christmas pressies and for the kids to keep. It still makes me laugh when I read it

Another couple of thoughts.

Campervans. Have you done this before? The main problems we had were space, speed, sickness and weather. It was the hardest bit of our trip. We happily take the kids in our tent but the campervan we had was small.

The kids constantly bumped into everything whenever we were inside it. Also it made DD travel sick (she used to regularly sick but is OK these days in normal cars). We got round this by mainly travelling in the afternoon. We gave them both lunch then doped DD with travel sick meds and set off. They would both sleep for 2-3 hours so we could get a bit of driving done. However as the van's top speed was about 55mph we couldn't travel very far.

When might you be in NZ? If it's winter over there the camper will get pretty cold at night. If it's summer you should be OK with the aircon as long as you've got an electric hookup.

Don't let me put you off campervans. RTKM had a fab time in one in NZ. We didn't plan or book ahead well enough for that bit of the trip so were left with a cramped stinky slow old rattle-bus (can you tell I didn't like it?) but we still eneded up having a good time. And it provided some good stories for DH's blog!

Do get a camper but just go into it better prepared than we were

Thanks so much for all this information Nappybaglady. I appreciate the time you have taken to post. We're going to be in a similar situation to you when we get back, although we're both jacking in the day jobs and will live with my parents for a bit when we get back. No idea what we will end up doing but we will deal with that when it happens.

I'll post again if we need more info!

Kitegirl, glad you have been inspired. Once the decision is made it is so exciting. Do you think your DH will ever come round to the idea? I have to say, in the past, DH has always been more keen than me to do this, but things to change, and here we are now making the plans he once only dreamt about!