The Most Important Thing To Bring With You When Traveling With Kids

January 6, 2014 By Jillian

Before we had kids the thought of traveling to a kid-friendly destination made me want to gouge my eyes out. Seriously. I had visions of kid friendly travel being a trip full of toddler tantrums, screaming packs of kids in a pool, tons of luggage, and more cartoon characters than you can shake a stick at. I was definitely of the mindset that when we had kids we would just take them along to wherever we wanted to go and there would be something interesting for them to do when we got there. Because we were travelers, not tourists. Because we would be cool parents, not typical parents. Fast forward six months into twin parenthood and to our first vacation with the entire extended family.

A few weeks ago we went to a Club Med property that was family friendly. < Insert stereotypical image of screaming children in the dining room here.> I cringed as I read review after review praising the place for being kid-centric and having a great kids club. Great I thought, a property full of parents who cannot wait to get rid of their kids. I imagined something like the food fight scene from the movie Hook.

As a parent and a traveler, this would most definitely not be bangarang.

It turns out that kid-friendly didn’t mean food fight city. It meant having a changing pad in our hotel room, having strollers for us to use on property and having dozens, literally dozens, of highchairs available in the main dining room. That’s right, kid-friendly meant traveling with kids without a trunk full of baby gear. It also meant a baby water park, baby food in the dining room and a bottle warmer in the hotel room. There were plenty of activities for adults without kids and even an adults only pool far, far away from the kids club and kids pool. Sure, our six month old twins were not old enough to join the kids club for movie night or marco polo in the pool, but I was certainly appreciative of the kid-friendly amenities. In fact being kid-friendly meant that we could actually take a break.

And as it turns out, that was pretty bangarang.

Maybe, as I’m learning quickly with parenthood, I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Like backpacking the world, traveling with kids requires certain equipment, but probably the most important is the one that I had left behind- an open mind. Next time, I’ll be sure not to leave it at home.

Traveling With Twins: How To Pack

December 3, 2013 By Jillian

Traveling with twins requires a lot of luggage, right? Well not necessarily. Now that we’re well into family travel season we figured we’d reveal how we pack up our twins. It’s not as much luggage as you think. In fact our first trip with the twins required NOT A SINGLE piece of checked luggage. How did we do it? We arranged for a pack n’ play on the other end, counted out the clothing we needed and got it all in compression sacks. I felt like a victory.

Since then however we’ve learned that we need more than just one extra set of pjs or outfit and our luggage has grown a bit. As a couple who spent 21 months traveling around the world with only carry-on size backpacks however, we have fought the desire to over pack. Here’s what we brought on our last trip to D.C. with our 5 month old twin girls:

Clothing: The clothes are the easy part. You know how often you need to change your kid. Some kids go through 3 or 4 outfits a day while others can wear the same onesie all day long. Like adults, mix and match outfits are good. Admittedly we are fortunate because we have twin girls so in theory they can share clothes meaning we don’t have to bring double of everything. On the other hand, even with a boy and girl if you’re careful about how you pack (bringing gender neutral items) you may be in luck. We’ve found (through an unfortunate night in Toronto!) that we should break the travel rule when it comes to baby clothes- look at everything you’ve pack and then ADD an additional set of pajamas and daytime clothes.

Baby Carriers: For us, these are essential travel items – the twin stroller can be a bit cumbersome to navigate a city with. We love both our Moby Wraps and our Ergo Baby Carrier’s for different reasons. I love the flexibility of the Moby Wrap, especially when the girls are going to be wrapped up all day – it’s nice to be able to change positions and carry them in different ways. We also use the Moby Wraps on the plane to carry the girls – besides being a great way for them to nap (yay!), it also helps keep hands off of them during boarding. Maybe two sets of carriers is excessive, but the Moby’s are pretty small and I love the ease of the Ergo Carrier, especially when we’re taking them on and off a lot in one day. It’s also a bit easier to show someone else how to use and have the girl’s positioned correctly.

Sleep Solution: We use our Pack N’ Play Twin Bassinet still when we travel with the twins. We are way beyond being able to use the bassinets, but even without them our girls are pretty good sleeping together in the Pack N’ Play. Note that Graco does not recommend putting two babies in one pack n’play. That is a choice we have made. Pretty soon the girls will be too big to share the pack n’play, but until then this works for us. I looked at other options like the LulyBoo, but ultimately decided that the pack n’play was easier for us since we already had it.

Car Seats: It’s not an option to travel without the car seats unless you are going to a city and are planning to use public transportation (like a subway) 100% of the time. If you purchase a ticket for your twins or plan to use the car seat on board, make sure it is Airline approved. We have the Peg Perego 30/30 which is airline approved- we have brought them on board twice without a problem when there have been extra seats on board. Otherwise we have gate checked them without a single problem. Some airlines will even provide you with a thick plastic bag to check the car seat. Otherwise you can get a protective cover or car seat bag pretty inexpensively.

Stroller: Although it isn’t the easiest to navigate around with, we always travel with our double snap n’ go stroller. We use it to go through the airport quickly and efficiently with two squirming babies. It’s easy to collapse and small enough to fit in the back of a rental car without a problem, plus it has a decently large bottom for storing carry ons.

Toys: Admittedly we are bringing more and more “entertainment” on each flight. Traveling with twins doesn’t require double the toys, we just swap toys mid-flight to help keep things interesting. We always travel with our letter links, which both girls love and are fantastic to use to clip things to both car seats and the stroller. Thankfully they are silent, yet colorful and interesting enough to keep a baby amuse for a little while. They are also our favorite teething toy right now. We also love these colorful animals from Lamaze: Freddie the Dragonfly (called Jacque in our house!) and Pierre the Peacock. Again, colorful, interesting, but without the incessant music that so many toys have. We also bring a few soft touch and feel type books, which the girls love to play with at this stage.

So there you have it. That’s what we bring traveling with twins. What would you add to the list? What would you leave at home?

Traveling with Twins: Airplane Travel

November 5, 2013 By Jillian

We took our infant twin girls up to Toronto last month and boy it was a nail biter. Although the girls had already flown to Chicago (at 9 weeks old), we weren’t really sure how things would be now that we were past the newborn stage. Virtually all of the advice singleton parents gave us, while spot on for a singleton didn’t really take into account the team approach that traveling (or raising!) twins requires. You live and learn however, and we applied some of our travel knowledge to the twin situation with pretty good results. The key as always with travel is to plan, plan, plan. You cannot be over prepared for traveling with twins. That doesn’t mean traveling with twins requires you to over pack, in fact it means the opposite, pack only what you need because extra luggage with twins is a real pain in the neck (and back!). We’ll go over what we bring in another post.

Travel with Twins: Four Key Steps

Step 1: Choose your flight carefully.

There are some airlines that are family friendly and some airlines that are business traveler friendly. Choosing a family friendly airline whether you are traveling with twins or a single baby can mean the difference between life or death. Ok, not that dramatic, but remember that traveling with a baby, just like raising a baby requires team work. That’s especially true when you are dealing with twins. Look for an airline that accommodates families through flexible scheduling (Southwest), a free carry-on bag with a lap baby, family seating or open seating. Take a flight that coordinates well with your baby’s sleep and feeding schedule. We try to take off just around the time the girls will be hungry. Sounds counter intuitive, but it ensures that they are hungry when we feed them during take off- a key to helping their ears adjust to the cabin pressure.

Airplane Travel With Twins

Step 2: Be prepared for security

Getting behind a family with twins may be a business traveler’s nightmare but it doesn’t have to be. Prepare for security before you get there. I have two separate carry on bags, one with my breast milk, pump and toiletries and electronics – basically everything that needs to be separated or declared. Toys, books and activities go in the other bag. Before I even get to the X-ray machine I tell the TSA agent that I have breast milk and I separate it on the belt. Then we lay things on the belt in the order in which we’ll need them on the other side, stroller first, then car seats, then shoes, etc… We’ll talk more about traveling with twins and airport security in another post.

Step 3: Choose your seat carefully

Although you can sit with your partner if you are traveling with one baby, we were surprised to find our that traveling with twins required us to sit in separate rows – either across the aisle from each other or behind one another. That’s because planes are designed to accommodate only one lap baby, i.e. in a row of three seats there are only four oxygen masks. Knowing this before you get on the plane will help you choose seats that work together, versus having to be resat far apart once you are on the plane. You absolutely want your partner near you when you are traveling with twins- strength in numbers!

Step 4: Use your twin attention to your advantage

The moment we get out of the car anywhere we get attention, so why not use it? We smiled, the girls cooed and we chatted it up with our fellow passengers before we got on the plane. We kept the babies, happy, occupied and smiling in the gate area. When people said to us for the 100th time that day, boy do you have your hands full, we smiled and made small talk. In our experience flight attendants are just like everyone else, they love playing with babies. Use that to your advantage and ask to be placed near an open seat (if the seats are assigned) or to be moved to the back of the plane where the twins will be less disruptive. You won’t get anywhere if you don’t ask and in our experience airline staff is more than happy to accommodate.

Traveling with twins isn’t as scary as we thought it would be and dare I say it was easier the second time around.

How We Travel For Free

September 30, 2013 By Danny

Some call it a game yet others call it an obsession. We apply for the credit cards that offer the largest amount of points and miles and aren’t afraid to use those points and miles.

Over the past three years, since returning from our RTW trip around the world, we haven’t been afraid to put our good credit to use. We pay our bills on time and in full each and every month and have very high credit scores as a result. This means that when we apply for credit cards, cards that offer large and lucrative sign-up bonuses, we usually get accepted. We’re smart about what cards we use for what purchase and take the time to make a plan. In the end, we’re rewarded.

We’ve flown thousands of miles on thousands of dollars in airfares and only paid a few hundred dollars for the occasional airfare or credit card fee. We still have gobs of miles to spend and are generally accruing points and miles faster than we can spend them.

Over the coming months we’re going to talk more and more about the strategies we employ. We’re careful with our credit, consider it our most valuable asset, and watch it closely. Many of our close friends and family have watched this over the past few years and a few people have joined us in this ‘hobby’ while others still want more information as to how…so we’re going to tell you!

Stay tunes for now but watch for more over the coming weeks and months.

Why I Opt Out of TSA Body Scanners at the Airport

September 11, 2013 By Danny

I think all Americans will spend some amount of today reflecting on the events of September 11, 2001. For me, as a frequent traveler, I seem to do this every time I go through a TSA body scanner. I was in Washington, DC at the time of the 9/11 attacks and remember them quite well but not knowing anyone, personally, who was killed that day, the TSA security procedures act as my reminder. Each time I go through a TSA checkpoint, I am shocked and dismayed that I am the only visible person opting out of the TSA body scanner. My reasons for doing so are many, and it is frustrating to see so many pass through these machines without stopping to think about what they are doing.

There are many arguments against these TSA body scanners with most being a matter of privacy (they take a naked photo of your body) or safety (they blast your body with radiation). I think I was able to get past both of these issues until I watched the below video, taken from my home airport. The author of the video currently has a case pending in U.S. court system but he makes it quite clear that these machines raise some serious questions, but do little to enhance our safety.

The response of the TSA to this video, was quite telling in my opinion. More telling than this is the change of heart TSA officials have had since leaving the agency. A former director of the TSA now calls for a complete reversal of many of the TSA’s current practices because they do not add significantly to our security yet continue to raise privacy and safety concerns.

Basically, for me, it comes down to a few basic factors:

I am a law-abiding citizen and do not deserve to be submitted to inspection as though I am a criminal. Although the ‘nudo-scope’ machines are not currently in use, they may return to use.
We really don’t know the long term affects of this radiation but there is significant research out there suggesting that these are not as safe as the government might have us believe.
TSA body scanners are very expensive and I don’t like paying for it with my tax dollars.
As the video above showed, TSA’s body scanners don’t really help to make us more secure but are just one piece of the ‘security theatre’ currently employed.
Many of the TSA agents I’ve spoken to, one agent each time I opt out, agree with my decision to opt out and tell me their reasons for doing the same.

I recently came across an article in the New York Times in which the author was very critical of the entire program. Although I am also critical of the program, I have to disagree with nearly everything this author wrote in his piece. Ever since I’ve educated myself on the program and decided to opt out I have repeatedly found TSA agents to be both friendly and understanding of my choice. Generally, they work to get me through security with minimal delay and usual confess they tell their friends and family to do as I am doing. One in Detroit recently told me their standard office joke is that there will be commercials in 30 years asking: “Did you or someone you know work for the TSA before the year 2020 who might be suffering from fill in the blank radiation disease, if so, call this number!”

I do generally believe that most people in government are in their chosen career because they have a desire to serve their country, hence my personal experiences with TSA agents are generally quite pleasant. This doesn’t mean that lobby dollars aren’t in play (feel free to do your own research on the staggering amounts spent to get these machines in airports) nor does it mean that anyone on either side of the debate truly knows the long-term health impact of these machines. For my money and time, I view it in my interest to opt out and I wish others would do more of the same. I have always assumed that opt out statistics are tracked by the TSA (I’ve actually seen daily counts) and the more people opt out, the sooner TSA PreCheck will be available to everyone.

image credit – NYTimes.com

The Most Important Thing To Bring With You When Traveling With Kids

Traveling With Twins: How To Pack

Traveling with Twins: Airplane Travel

Travel with Twins: Four Key Steps

How We Travel For Free

Why I Opt Out of TSA Body Scanners at the Airport

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