Tips for traveling with kids

I just packed up my family of 6 and flew from Spain to Denver (starting with a 2 hour drive to the airport, followed by a 3, then an 11 hour flight).

...THEN packed up 3 of my spawn for overnight camp.

...THEN packed up the other 3 of us to hop from Denver to Michigan.

I am a badass travel mom...and I'm damn tired!

Whatever your plans, summer means hauling kids around! - Dragging them along while you do errands... - Packing up the crew for a camping roadtrip... - Loading them on a plane to fly across country...

Moms. Be. Schlepping.

(Don't know what schlepping is? It's Yiddish for 'hauling around a bunch of crap, including yourself'. You can thank me for that awesome vocab enhancement later).

Travel with kids is hard, whether it's an excursion to the grocery store or a trip around the world. It's a lot of logistics, contingency plans, preparations, distractions, and adjustments. BUT, it is also totally doable and (believe it or not) FUN...if you know a few tricks.

I talk to a lot of moms who used to travel a ton and thought they'd keep it up when their kids came along, but now they use our coaching sessions getting ready to brave Target with a toddler, and dreams of adventure and exploration with kids have fallen by the wayside, but I am living proof that it doesn't need to be like that. If I can globe trot with 4 kids, you can definitely figure this out too!

 

I recently teamed with Jodi Fried of LoveAdventureMom as a part of her free series, “Small Outing to Big Adventure: How to Embrace and Include the Kids," and it was so great to chat about my own experience traveling around the world with kids, and the tools I teach my clients to be able to navigate their own excursions.

I made sure to keep the advice solid for any kind of outing, from small shopping trip to big rolling stone adventure, and we focused specifically on Maintaining Behavior and Discipline Away From Home. Want to know my best advice? Obviously you'll have to listen to get the whole scoop, but here are some of my favorite spoilers:

1. Get it right at home before you take your show on the road. 2. Your stroller is a mobile time-out machine. 3. A lawn chair and novel in your trunk are the best antidotes to chaos in the car.

I'm not the only fountain of wisdom in this series, of course. I'm looking forward to hearing from all Jodi's other parenting gurus about adventure with family; I still have a lot to learn and many more long plane and car rides with my kids ahead of me!

The struggles of motherhood are real, but they do not mean we have to put our wanderlust on hold. We can hike, ski, travel and peacefully run errands with our kids, I promise! Claim your spot today and join me if you want to learn how to get your traveling circus to run smoothly.