Best travel playmate for going abroad?

[Enigma85]

We are due to go abroad with a 1 year old who has just started crawling. Can anyone recommend a travel playmat that we could put on the floor at the airport and in the hotel so they can crawl around?

Not a playmat but we took a small ball pit to put on the beach/ by the pool when they were crawling to keep them contained and play

Is that really a thing? How do you keep them on it? Mine was 6 months old and crawling everywhere. I can’t imagine keeping him contained to a playmat in public places like that. Surely he’ll just crawl about in the hotel etc as he would at home.

You can’t crawl very far on a play mat, or any other kind of mat for that matter. Can’t be just crawl around on the floor like all the other babies?

I'm so pleased to see these responses! I foolishly googled it and on some forums people were making out it's like child abuse to let a baby crawl on an airport floor so I got all in my head about it! One parent suggested putting mittens on them to crawl but my baby will whip them straight off.

Not sure what airport you’re flying from OP but in the airports I’ve flew from with my baby there’s been little soft plays and kids areas they’ve enjoyed crawling around to burn off some energy before the flight

I just took a lot of disinfectant wipes everywhere.

Airports are truly disgusting though, you will have several moments of hands going from floor to mouth, it’s gross but probably good for their immune systems…