I survived a 4-week trip to Sicily with an 8-month old and 2.5 year old (and a husband). It went so well, we took another month-long trip to southeast Spain a year later. As I’m writing this, we’re almost-thriving on a three week sojourn to southern Italy – our third hop to Europe with littles in three years. You might be asking yourself how we survive international travel with toddlers. I’ve got tips:

Lower your expectations

Lowering your expectations is the first and most important rule to survive international travel with kids. Remember: you are not going on a vacation. You’re parenting with a better view. Unless you’re traveling with a nanny or have daycare services at your destination, you can expect to spend every waking moment with these tiny terrors. Know that it will be hard and not very much fun, but you’ll find pockets of joy and it’ll all seem worth it in hindsight. Eventually.

Pick a kid-friendly destination

Picking a kid-friendly place seems like a no-brainer when you’re, you know, planning a trip with your kids. But this is easy to overlook. Or easy to assume that you can just ‘make it work’. Why make this harder? I picked Sicily because it’s an island with great food and I figured I wanted good food and good views while tied to two naps a day. Sicilians also love babies, which is really helpful. Spain was less child-friendly, thus our return to Italy this time around. We have yet to visit a restaurant without a high chair here.

Divide and conquer the planning

BC (before children), my husband and I liked to plan our trips together. Or, more realistically, we’d just buy plane tickets and figure it out once we got there. Neither of those options work anymore, and since we don’t have time to do anything together, let alone plan a trip, we divide and conquer. I do flights and logistics, he does lodging, we divvy up destinations. This method is still stressful and imperfect, but it works. Mostly.

Dial back your itinerary

Now that you have realistic expectations, it’s time to apply that lens to your itinerary. For our family, we learned that we need to land somewhere and have nothing planned for the first 2-3 days. That gives us time to emotionally recover from the long flights and adjust to the time change. With kids, we’ve had to accept that we won’t be spending hours in museums or aimlessly wandering the town until we find food that looks good. We can do up to three things a day, but really two is best. Choosing “beach” with kids is always a good idea.

Pay more to sleep near the stuff you want to do

Walking 17 blocks to get to your destination isn’t a big deal when you’re a grown up, but it’s hard when you have short legs (and a small bladder). If you want to liberate yourself from a stroller, pay more to be near places where you want to spend time. If that’s not an option, be sure to look up the public transit stops (subway, busses, central train station) when selecting lodging. My husband also considers other things we’ll need access to, like the best grocery stores and kid-friendly restaurants.

Book lodging with a kitchen

If you already have kids, this will be obvious. You will not survive eating three meals a day at a restaurant with toddlers. Get a place with a kitchen, do breakfast at home, then alternate doing lunch or dinner out. Yes, I hear you, part of traveling is for the food — no one wants to cook and clean. But part of traveling is also for the experience of eating the food, and that experience can be ruined quickly by a toddler tantrum. Having a kitchen gives you flexibility to respond to the needs of the day.

Pack smarter, not harder

When you have toddlers in tow, it’s hard to also manage a lot of bags (particularly if you are moving to a new destination every week, as we choose to do). You need your hands for the kids. Therefore, you have to pack smarter, not harder. Go as light as possible – that’s part of the reason we choose warm destinations: no coats. For a trip of any length, you won’t need more than five days of clothes for each person, and you should strive to eliminate redundancy. So what if you wear the same shorts three days in a row? It’s funny how little you care about dirty clothes when it comes down to it.

For babies this can be tricky, but I believe in you! When our youngest was only 8-months, I traveled with enough diapers and formula for the travel day plus a day, then bought new when I arrived. Was I worried about the formula transition? Sure, but it all worked out. Kids are resilient.

Carry lots of snacks

We think about food more than anything else while traveling. We’ve always got snacks packed. So. Many. Snacks. I recommend that you pack 60% more snacks than you think you will need in your daypack for the day. Somehow they will get eaten. They’ll come in handy when you need to save yourself from emergency hunger-driven decisions or buy some time when the kids are on the brink.

When you see a free bathroom, use it

Bathrooms, especially abroad, are not always easy to come by. When you see a public toilet, just use it. Bonus if it’s free. Even when potty-trained, toddlers cannot always be trusted. It’s no fun running from restaurant to restaurant getting turned away while your little one yells “Mama, poopy. BAD!” (This same rule can be applied to pretty much anything: see food you want? Just get it now. Gelato? YUM! A public water fountain? Fill up those water bottles, mama!)

When in doubt, bring a grandparent

Grandparents are great, and they’re even better on an international trip. Don’t have a grandparent? Grab an Aunt. Or a cousin. Or a whole other family. For our month-long trips, we travel for part of the time as a family unit, then the rest of the time we’re joined by people who love us enough to tolerate traveling with the tiny twosome. The kids love having a surprise guest on the trip, and we love having another adult to help keep us sane. It takes a village, and sometimes you have to bring your village to survive an international trip with toddlers.

BONUS TIP: Go with the flow

As I write this, I’m on a train from Alberrobello to Bari (Italy). We arrived at the platform 20 minutes early, and our train was nearly two hours late. Did I mention the station was under construction and we waited outside in the wind? With my mother-in-law and two kids under five. Whelp, not how we planned to spend the day, but we had lots of snacks, used the free bathroom, and kept our itinerary loose. Since we’ll now get back at 9pm instead of 6:30pm as planned, we’ll just go home and make some food. If we’re hungry. We did eat lots of snacks.

Got more tips to survive international travel with toddlers?

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