Any positive stories travelling with kids?

[Leleophants]

Love travelling and always hoped we'd keep being adventurous and love life exploring new things. I'm pregnant and away now, but already feeling down at being so uncomfortable, not being able to drink and being so exhausted that we are achieving half as much.

Does the fun come back when you have a little person to take with you? We desperately wanted children and would choose them over travel if we had a to choose(why we made the choice to get pregnant!) Also having children is finite whereas we could technically still travel once kids are grown.

It would be just nice to hear stories of how our other passions can keep going!

You can definitely travel with kids - our first longhaul was when DD was about 3 months old. It's pretty easy for the first year, and then ages between 1-2 is the hardest re long haul flights as they are too little to be fobbed off with TV and if they don't have their own seats they are uncomfortable.

Now kids are 7 and 9 and completely seasoned travellers - they carry their own stuff on the plane and take most things in their stride and we have survived cancelled flights, elongated stopovers, etc.

In the last 9 years we have been lucky enough to go to places like Bali, Thailand, South Africa, Florida, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Goa, Singapore, Canada, Iceland etc.

Agree fly and flop is harder (unless you find somewhere with an excellent kids' club) and there are less leisurely evenings in restaurants, but it's a lot of fun to travel with them as they are so curious and look at things in a fresh way.

We’ve travelled with our dd’s since they were babies. They’ve clocked up about 25 trips ranging from city breaks to travelling through different parts of Europe by train, car and boat to long haul destinations. You need to be laid back, take things as thy come, be prepared for their routines to change and be prepared in general! But we love it! They are 3 and 6 now and we anticipate getting more and more adventurous as they get older. They get loads out of it from being exposed to different sights, cultures, languages, experiences etc. We don’t expect them to remember it all when they’re older, we just love our trips and we have the memories ourselves. We plan lots of downtime and chill days on the beach or by the pool to keep them happy but the older one loves exploring new destinations and loves a beautiful view! As long as we stop for ice cream!

Huge second about flight times! Just spend the extra £100 on the normal time of day flight, especially if you are more than 30 mins from the airport.

I grew up 30 mins from an international airport & totally took it for granted. Now we're 90 mins from LHR & 3 hrs from Gatwick where ALL our flights seem to go from and it's a giant pain with small kids, not to mention expensive. Thank God for the hotels INSIDE the terminal.

We found traveling fine... Until they developed travel sickness at 3/4 years old. Tame compared to others, but they've been to quite a few European Countries (and lived in 3!).
Train is our favourite travel method. More flexible than flying, more relaxed than driving.

We go on 2, sometimes 3 holidays per year, interspersed with a few short breaks. Been to a variety of places/different types of holiday and we really enjoy our family holidays. As long as you take into account their needs in terms of naps, eating, adding in a trip to the park etc. to break up sightseeing, it's fine and can be fun! I usually always google 'visiting X with kids' when planning a holiday, someone somewhere has usually blogged about it. We do a lot of self-catered apartments (with balcony) when visiting cities as we can still enjoy a glass of wine outdoors in the evening if DC needs an early night!

I'm a professional traveller, and within 1 month of being back at work after mat leave I took my baby to the Bahamas with me. I love showing them the world - the baby is now nearly old enough that she will be allowed to travel with me to work unaccompanied and we are already planning her birthday trip, where she we go through the airport on her own for the first time and come with me to work. Costa Rica is top of my picks for that trip but I am at the mercy of where work wants me to go, so it could be anywhere, but it will be exciting nonetheless!

I think you need to take into consideration what is feasible and what is likely to be enjoyable with a child. Things to consider would include health risks (you can't get malaria tablets down a toddler, for example,) how you will transport a child around (babies in snowy places can be hard to get around - deep snow no good with a pram, slippery ground - especially on a hill - terrifying with a baby in a backpack,) whether your child is a picky eater and how you will feed them in a tricky place, if they are likely to pick up a bug (OH used to go down with a tummy bug everywhere we went. He's got better with time, but the idea of 2 children explosively posing everywhere doesn't fill me with delight. It was bad enough being on a boat with OH and his dodgy tummy!)

Things that haven't held us back include time zone differences - we've cheerfully crossed 8 time zones just for a long weekend when I've taken kids to work with me! I just worked out what things we could do late at night while they were wide awake instead of sleeping. Long flights aren't a bother either if you go about them with the right mindset. Take enough gadgetry and kids will watch cartoons with a headset on quite happily.

Travelling with kids is a different experience and great fun. When we were in Italy they were treated like royalty and I was treated like some kind of superhuman for giving birth to them and then taking them to Italy. I'd been to Italy loads before then, but the treatment I got as a mother with kids with me was completely different to the treatment I got before. Same in the far east. You have to temper your expectations though. Few young kids will sit happily through a long meal, or in a bar on an evening if there is nothing to entertain them. This isn't a problem - we had a fabulous holiday last year and spent every evening sitting at a quiet beach bar sipping cocktails and playing cards or dominoes with them. You get to go to places you would never consider on your own - we found ourselves in the Trick Eye Museum in Hong Kong, I'd have never gone in there on my own but with kids it was amazingly funny.

We've travelled extensively as a family. We've been round Europe countless times, the Middle East, the Far East, Central America, Australia. We have Africa and South America still to tick off, but I have a list and each year I see what would be feasible and aim for that. This year I am comfortable that a child who falls off a sailing boat won't immediately drown, so we are going on a boat round the eastern Med. I'd wanted to go to Thailand but we can't all get the same time off work/school so we have to tailor our holiday to the time we do have. I look forward to all my time spent travelling with the kids.

What are thoughts on longhaul trips aged 3-9 months? Any plane tips? dp and I quite active and don't like lying around

Easiest age to travel as they can’t move! Somewhere direct (more than one flight is a hassle) somewhere that adores children. Most of Asia or the Emirates. Italy closer to home.