281 - Traveling with Kids : 3 Lists and All My Tips
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Today’s episode is all about traveling with kids. We’ve been at this for a while and I’m so excited to share all of my tips + three lists that I cannot do without.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Whew! This summer has been crazy, guys. I am recording this episode the morning that we leave for yet another trip. We have been to the beach. We have been to Dollywood. We have gone to summer camps. Today we leave for the lake for a week and then we have one more big trip left after that. We're heading to Nashville where I'm actually flying solo with all five kids.
Each trip looks different. Sometimes we take two different cars like today. Will is already there with two kids and I'll be following behind with three kids. Sometimes we all pile in the minivan and we drive together like we did to Dollywood; llong road trip. Sometimes we fly all together as a family and sometimes I fly solo with the kids. We do what it takes. In this season of my life, I'm gonna be honest. I don't love travel. I told Will, when I have a baby, I just don't love to travel that first year. I made that very clear and I'm laughing because this year has been a year of travel. It's like I tried. I tried so hard, but these different opportunities kept coming up. Some of them, I probably should have said “no” to. Others, I'm really glad I said “yes” to.
What I'm learning about myself is when you say “yes” to a trip, you are forced to learn different new strategies when you have this many people in your family. So today I'm going to share three lists that I can't live without. In a previous blog post from years ago when I had two or three kids, I had one like big mega family packing list and I think my methods have changed a little. So I want to kind of share how things have changed now that we have five kids. But yeah, we have been road tripping and flying with kids over the last ten years. So I feel like I've learned a thing or two. I feel like I know some ways to make the process smoother. So whether you are a new mom or a seasoned mom, I hope that this episode encourages you. Maybe you'll just have like one thing or two things that you take away that will make your travel with your kids a little easier. That would be my goal. So here are my tips for traveling with kids and the three lists that I cannot live without.
Let's start with the list because I'm a list person and I feel like that's where all the packing begins is my lists. The first list that I make is the kid’s bags list. We have moved into the place where my children are now packing their own bags, which is amazing. I think I underestimated them for quite some time. I think as a mom, we're used to doing everything for them. And so it's easy to just keep doing that and make sure that they have everything. But Will is really good about encouraging me to give them the responsibility. So we've been doing this for over a year now, where I will print packing lists for each kid. I'll say at the top of the list, like for this week at Lake Gaston, I'll say this many outfits, this many jammies, this many underwear, three bathing suits, a cover up, a sweatshirt, slippers if you want to wear them in the house, your favorite lovey, books to read. I'll type it out on my computer and then I print four copies for my four big kids, ages 10, 8, 6, and 3. You would be surprised at how well my three year old does. In fact, this week he packed for himself. He can't even read yet, okay? But he has me read it to him or a big sibling read it to him and he packed first. He is so empowered and excited to pack for himself. He packed first and got everything on his list before anyone else did. So obviously I'm still packing for the baby, but that is the first list that I make is to delegate their own packing.
The second list that I make is what needs to get done in the household today. This is a family list. This is a list of chores/to-dos that have to be done before we leave the house. We will assign certain things to certain kids. Then Will and I will assign certain things to ourselves. So it will have a lot of things on there. Unload the dishwasher. Fold the laundry. Make your beds. Clean the playroom. It will have just anything. Grab the mail. Like anything that we can think of that we need to get done before we leave the house gets written on this list. Typically, this is a handwritten list. I get like a big marker, and I just sit down and I brainstorm at the very beginning of the day all the things we need to do and I make the family to-do list for that day. Or Will will do it. He's really good about doing the family to-do list. So first is a list for them to pack for themselves. Second is like the to-do list that we have to do that day in order to leave the house.
Then the third list is my food list. This only applies to when you're going somewhere where you're having to bring food for yourself, like an Airbnb, where you've got a kitchen and you're kind of meal planning and that type of thing, which to be honest is most of our trips. So when we go to the beach, when we go to the lake, even when we went to Dollywood, we still had to think of breakfasts and snacks and one dinner there. So I've got my meal list, which includes the meal plan for the week and then an extensive grocery list as well.
So those are the three lists that I use now. Notice that I don't go by a list for myself anymore. I don't need a list for Winnie. I kind of have those things down and so I just start to throw everything in our bags when it's time for me to pack for myself and Winnie. Then Will packs for himself, and the kids pack for themselves. So I feel like the personal items have really been simplified in that way. But now my focus is on the house and everything we've got to do before we leave, and then on the meal plan and the grocery list, which is pretty extensive and probably the hardest job when you leave for a week and you're feeding seven people a day.
Okay, so those are my three lists. List for the kids to pack for themselves, a list the day of to get everything done in the house, and then my meal plan list. Now, I am going to spend the next, I don't know, ten minutes or so and I picture you listening and being like, “Nancy, what do you do when you travel with your family?” This is me just brain dumping all of the advice that I would give you if you and I were sitting together and you were about to go on a big trip and you were just like, “Nancy, tell me what I need to know.” Okay, so this is it. Now, this is not comprehensive. I'm sure I could add probably like twenty more things to this list because there's just so much that goes into it when you travel, but these are some helpful things that just popped into my mind, okay?
First, start packing three days before you leave. It will relieve so much stress. Give the kids their list in advance. Start packing for yourself. Start doing laundry and getting all of the laundry cleaned, put away, so that you can pack from fresh clothes. Start the process three days before.
The day that you leave, aim to leave two hours before departure time. Okay, maybe you're listening and you're like, “Nancy, that's ridiculous.” Well, when you have a family of seven people, it is not ridiculous. It literally takes us two hours to get out the door. I mean, it's just insane the amount of last minute things that pop into your head before you leave that you have to accomplish and do. So leave yourself that buffer time. Getting all of our children just to go to the bathroom and get their shoes on and get their waters filled and get in the car is probably a twenty minute ordeal. Just that loading them up. So we have to really target, like if we want to leave at noon, we need to target 10:00am and say let's have everything done by 10:00am because that will leave us an hour of buffer for me feeding Winnie, for feeding someone who's hungry or getting extra snacks. Of course, the load up process that I mentioned. But also just little things like, let me clean the coffee pot before we leave. Let me unload the dishwasher. Let me start the dishwasher. Let me switch over this laundry. Let me grab a few things that we're forgetting. Let me go feed the chickens real quick. Literally, our load up process just takes a long time. So yeah, if you aim for two hours ahead, what's the harm in being early? I mean, you can take a nice stop on the way, which is great.
I would say another tip is each kid gets two bags. One, their suitcase. We love the duffel bags by Walker Family Goods. This is not an affiliate thing. This is just, hey, we love these bags and they're colorful. Each kid gets their own color. I love a duffel bag because I feel like you can pack more in the trunk if it's duffel because they smoosh down really nice. Then each kid gets a travel bag, like a carry-on type bag, that they could keep with them in the car. We stock their REI hiking backpacks, which is our favorite kid travel bag and hiking backpack, with snacks, a water bottle, and things to do. Usually books or coloring pages, markers, things like that. So each kid gets their own suitcase and then their own little travel bag.
On travel days, I would encourage you, if you have a baby, or you're traveling with someone two or under, just don't worry about their schedule. Don't worry about their nap schedule. Let them sleep when they'll sleep. This is a hard one. This was harder for me in the beginning. Like when Milly was really little and she was on a schedule and she would get off schedule, I would stress out about it. I would try to have her fall asleep at a certain time on the plane or in the car. You just let her sleep when she sleeps. Let the kid do whatever he or she needs to do on that travel day and just kind of work with it. So staying flexible with travel schedules is really helpful.
If you have a baby, bring a stroller and a carrier. I think it's nice to have both, especially if you're in an airport. But don't stress. If you feel like you want to do a quick trip, I have traveled both ways where I only have a stroller and I only have a carrier. But now that I'm kind of older and I like options, I just stuff the carrier. Love the Lalabu. That's my favorite one right now. I stuff the carrier in the diaper bag and then I have the stroller as well.
Always have an emergency bag of things you think you won't need. Mostly medicine, things like Tylenol or ibuprofen, the thermometer, nail clippers, band-aids. We're going to the lake, so I have ear drops packed, like ear drying drops and garlic drops for the ears. Anything that you think you might need in the middle of the night that would be great. We also always pack sound machines. I pack an audio-only baby monitor when we travel. Just kind of having a bag of travel stuff ready to go is really, really helpful.
Now I'm just going to throw out a bunch of plane specific travel that I feel like might be helpful. Then that will conclude the episode. So when we're thinking about flying on a plane, I feel like it's next level, but we've done it a lot and it does not stress me out nearly as much as it did at one time. So my rule of thumb when traveling on a plane is I just think about everyone around me first. So I do whatever I can to keep the kids happy and quiet. If I have a baby, I always try to nurse the baby on takeoff and landing because that just helps with their little ears. Or give them a paci or a bottle during that time so that they can have that sucking motion because apparently that helps their little ears relieve the pressure.
With the other kids, I just kind of spoil them. We don't do personal tablets for our kids, except on a plane. So they have the little Kindle Fires, but we really don't let them use them other than on a flight. That is because they think it's special. They stay quiet and entertained the entire time on a flight. We do have a rule of thumb. We don't let them push play or watch anything until we've hit 10,000 feet because I want them to look out the window and see the clouds and kind of know what's in their travel bags and things like that. But yeah, I think just thinking about everyone else around you in the plane is kind of our mode of operation when we're flying. We're like, as long as our kids are happy and quiet, then we're good to go. We have had plenty of flights where we don't do the tablets, especially with my older kids, like Milly, Lyndon and Beaufort, because they just love reading so much now. So I really think that we're pretty much, in the next year or so, going to get rid of all the tablets and switch to books for flights. For my littler ones, like Benji and Winnie, (I mean Winnie doesn't need anything now. She's a baby) you know, those toddler ages where they can just be really, really needy on a flight, the tablets really help.
Also, when you're flying on a plane, be sure that you make a car seat plan in advance. If you're renting a van or a car, make that in plenty of time. One thing that can be kind of stressful is having to lug all of the car seats and boosters and check them. We've done it before. It's totally doable. We always check them. We never carry them on. I just don't want to deal with that on an actual plane with all the children. However, one thing that you can do is when you are renting a car, you can request car seats. You can request like two or three. I always make sure that if I have a baby, I'm bringing the baby's car seat. That's just my personal thing. But if I have like a forward facing upright booster situation, I will 100% just have the company that I'm renting a car from supply that for us.
Learn to change a diaper on your lap. That is seriously such a great travel hack. I changed Winnie's diaper on my lap so many times in Dollywood. Just like a quick switch. Nobody saw. Quick diaper switch. It's so much easier than trying to find a bathroom and taking them in. Now granted, it's nice to have a changing table. You can, but I just love a quick lap change. I do that in the airplanes too. So much easier than trying to change a baby's diaper in the bathroom. Now, you know, if it's a messy diaper, if you catch my drift, you go to the bathroom. You change it there. That's just way too gross and messy to deal with around people. Again, always thinking of people first. But if it's just a wet diaper and you need to change it real quick, I think it's so easy to quickly do it on your lap. So you know you, you know your baby. I always ask Will to hold up a blanket or cover up the baby really quick and I just do it really, really fast.
Another tip for planes is I always decline beverage service if I'm flying with a baby on my lap or a toddler on my lap especially. But when the kids get older, I always allow them to choose whatever beverage they want on the plane, as long as it has a lid on it, because it makes them feel like they are having the best, most special time on the airplane.
Okay, bring extra onesies and an extra t-shirt for yourself in the diaper bag. You never know what's gonna happen. You never know where you're gonna get stuck with a messy situation. So it's always good to have something for yourself and the baby. If you can, get a known traveler's number so that you can always be in the pre-check line. You get checked in so much faster. You don't have to take off your shoes. You pay, I don't know, like $85 or something, and it lasts you for years and years and years. You always have to enter your known traveler number in when you book the flight, but it is worth the hassle, especially when flying with kids.
Also, be sure that you always take a copy of your baby's birth certificate with you if they are flying two and under. So make sure you get that birth certificate and make a copy of it far in advance of your flight.
My last advice is just to say “yes” to all the help. If you are on a plane and you are flying with kids, now especially when I fly with the kids by myself, people will be like, “Wow, you are doing this.” “Wow, do you need anything? Are you okay? Can I get that bag for you?” Do you know what I always say? “Yes. Yes, you can get that bag for me. Yes, you can stroll... Yes, you can do that. You can lift that heavy thing for me. Yes, sure, I'll go ahead of you in line.” I always just say yes to the help. Now, the only exception is if someone asks to hold my baby. I'm like, “No, you're not gonna hold my baby, but I appreciate the offer.”
So there's that, but you know, just soak it in. I think one of my favorite moments when I travel with kids, I always try to look for these little pockets of joy. My favorite moments when I'm traveling with my kids is when we're boarding the plane, I just love to look at the faces of everyone watching us board the plane. Most of the time people are so gracious and they are smiling and they are waving at the kids and they're smiling at me like “You can do it!” I just encourage you to soak it in and enjoy it because traveling with kids is not for the faint of heart. It is a heavy lift. It is a lot of work, but people see that. They see you and they see that. Just you know, if people give you eye rolls or not nice looks, just let it roll off your back. Don't don't focus on them. Focus on the people that are like “You are amazing. You're doing great.” Smiling at you, waving at you, waving at the kids and encouraging you.
Okay guys this was like my brain dump of travel. We literally leave in four hours to go to Lake Gaston. I am here with Beaufort, Lyndon, and Winnie. Winnie's napping. Will's already there. I was like, I am getting this podcast out into the world because I think it's helpful to record it when I'm in the midst of it. I just want to encourage you to finish out this episode and say, and this is a pep talk for myself today as much as it is for you if you are in the midst of packing or traveling or if you have a trip coming up. It's so hard. It's so hard to leave. It's hard to get out of your normal rhythm and routine. It's hard. There is a time and place to say no to trips and to travel. 100%. We actually just modified our plans because I'm home with Lyndon and Beaufort because they've been sick this last week. So I was like, there's no way I can do everything and leave today. I'm going to be too stressed. I still was stressed because I'm taking care of sick kiddos and trying to do so much to get out of town.
I just want to remind you the hardest days of traveling with kids are the two days before you leave. Hands down. It's so hard. I have really tried to invite the Lord into these days to give me sharpness of mind, clarity of thinking, patience with the kids, patience with myself, and let it be an opportunity to invite Him in to some days that are just typically stressful for me. Then I also just have to remind myself of what is around the corner. Why are we doing this? The quote that I'm closing with today is so beautiful, and you'll hear it at the end of the episode, but it talks about giving our kids roots and wings. We do need to stay rooted in our home and in our rhythms and in our house. It feels good for me as a mom. That's my happy place. That's where I want to be. I love to travel, but it's hard for me. It's really like, it's a stretch for me. So I'll just be transparent and say that while I've learned a lot through the years. I still don't love the packing up and getting out the door process, even though I feel like I've gotten better at it. But we have to focus on, what are we doing here? What are we doing when we're traveling? We're giving our kids memories and we're allowing us to see each other as a family outside of our normal rhythms and routines, which allows us to discover who we are and the life around us. So I encourage you, if you're in the thick of it, if you are about to leave, make those lists, delegate what you can, invite the Lord in, and know right around the corner is some of the greatest memories of their childhood. So your work will not be in vain.
Thanks for listening to episode 281 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Listen, I know that I have said I take July off. I typically do, but I have just loved the Two Roosters ice cream special. I can't believe that my podcast was turned into an ice cream flavor. Still, we are having so much fun. We go to Two Roosters and eat ice cream as much as possible. But I feel like because it was a podcast feature, I was like I've got to be podcasting this month. It's just too fun. Like honestly, it just felt fun for me. So I will likely be taking a few weeks off in August as I look towards starting the school year and getting my kids all settled. So if you notice that I'm gone for two weeks, that would be why. I did take off two weeks in July, just kind of randomly. So I'm probably going to take off two or maybe three weeks in August before the school year starts. Just know I'll be back. If you miss me, I will be back.
Everything I mentioned today can be found in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/281. You can always find me at nancyray.com or follow me at @nancyray on Instagram.
I did want to mention the Work and Play Cornerstore. It's still alive and well. It's my Amazon affiliate store. My storefront. I am adding my favorite travel white noise machine to the Cornerstore today. So you can always find that at nancyray.com/cornerstore to see my favorite Amazon recommendations. I can't travel without my white noise. If you are a white noise lover like me, then you understand.
I am going to close with that beautiful quote from Hodding Carter that says,
“Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings.”
Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.
