Tips & Tricks - Baby Travel

US Passports for Children

January 6, 2012 By Christy Leave a Comment

Do you need passports for children when traveling to other countries? The answer is an emphatic "yes"! Even when traveling to Mexico, EVERY U.S. citizen is required to have a valid passport. The only exception is travel to Canada by land or sea. When traveling from Canada by air, you are still required to present a valid passport upon return to the United States. This includes children. But a child is still allowed back into the US from Canada with only a birth certificate as proof of citizenship. How Failure to Provide Valid Passports for Children Can Wreck Your Trip Six weeks ago, we … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Humorous Stories, Tips & Tricks, Travel Abroad, Uncategorized Tagged With: passports, passports for children, passports for kids

Flying With Young Children

February 8, 2011 By Christy 4 Comments

Today I'll be flying with the kids from Grand Rapids, MI to Savanna, GA. We'll spend a couple weeks in Sea Island, GA with my husband's family. John is driving to Georgia so he can visit a few of his helmet video camera accounts. I always like to have a few new tricks up my sleeve when flying alone with the kids and I just came across this article in by Kim Wallace on BabyCenter.com called, "How to enjoy a plane trip with young children". It's very comprehensive and contains good, solid air travel advice. How to enjoy a plane trip with young children. Like many parents with young … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Destinations, Flying With Kids, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: air travel, airplanes, travel with young children

5 Tips for Flying with a Baby

January 9, 2011 By Christy Leave a Comment

You’ve scoured the internet for travel destinations, successfully booked your vacation, and purchased of an obscene amount gear for traveling with your baby. As your departure date looms ever nearer, apprehension mounts as you contemplate a flight with your new little bundle of joy. Fear not. Whether this is your first trip or you’ve already got several baby travel adventures under your belt, we’ve collected some tips to make your travels relaxing and enjoyable. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Destinations, Flying With Kids, Health & Safety, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: airplane baby, ears on airplanes, flying with baby

You “Guten” anything for that?

September 30, 2010 By Christy Leave a Comment

by Michelle Moore, Nurse and mother of two When a child gets sick overseas... My husband and I traveled 14 hours from California to Germany, and were DELIGHTED when our room was equipped with black-out drapes so we could all adjust to the new time zone. We were equally delighted when our 2 year old slept the first 14 hours we were there...until we had to wake her up (as new parents, it was a strict and holy rule NEVER to wake a sleeping baby). While we thought we co-created the world’s perfect traveling baby (“What great adaptation she has to a new time zone!” followed by, “Great … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Destinations, Flying With Kids, Health & Safety, Packing, Tips & Tricks, Travel Abroad Tagged With: international travel, Packing, Traveling with sick children

Car Games – Part 2:Turn Your Car Into A Rolling Preschool

September 12, 2010 By Christy 1 Comment

Hmmm. Car Games-Part 1:Baby was delivered to you on May 22. Now, nearly four months later, we bring you Part 2 of our car travel series. It's been a wonderfully relaxing summer, replete with pleasure-filled days hanging out with the kids on the shores of Lake Charlevoix. With the start of the school year, I'm mindful of just how much time we're spending in the car! Living in rural northern Michigan, I have managed to escaped the drudgery of rush hour traffic. Even so, I spend hours a week behind the wheel with kids in tow. Studies show that much of a child's future success is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Car Travel, Destinations, Gear Reviews, Tips & Tricks

Car Games – Part 1: Baby

May 22, 2010 By Christy 2 Comments

If you read my last post, Share Your Plane Trip with Young Kids Disaster Story, you may have realized that I started BabyTravel.com not because I have all the answers, but because I made a lot of mistakes. But my ineptitude was not limited to air travel. In fairness to myself, I wasn't inept at traveling in the car with a baby, it just caused severe and lasting emotional trauma. So this is part one of a four part series on keeping kids entertained in the car. Life-altering experiences affect different people in different ways. I used to be a rock climber. Once a year, a group of us would … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Car Travel, Destinations, Humorous Stories, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Baby, Car trip, infant

Share Your Plane Trip with Young Kids Disaster Story

May 12, 2010 By Christy 5 Comments

Sharing travel tales of woe? How is this productive? Rest assured, I am not trying to encourage anyone to wallow in self-pity or scare the pants off some new parent preparing for their first airplane trip with a young child. Mistakes are our best teacher. And why not let someone else make them instead of you? So I'll go first. Here are my top 5 travel screw-ups! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Flying With Kids, Humorous Stories, Tips & Tricks, Travel Abroad Tagged With: flying with baby

Technology to Make Travel Easier

April 24, 2010 By Christy 2 Comments

Faithful BabyTravel followers will know that I originally published this post 2 months ago. Since then, we've seen a HUGE increase in the number of iPhone apps for parents traveling with children. I am re-posting this with three times the apps. Please post comments if you have a great iPhone, Blackberry or Droid app for keeping kids entertained! Kayak.com Kayak.com is like a having virtual travel agent. And now, mobile phone applications make this massive search engine available wherever you go. The iPhone app includes KAYAK Trips so you can easily manage your itinerary. And yippee, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Car Travel, Destinations, Flying With Kids, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: iphone applications, kids apps, travel apps

ProSeries Part 1: Carley Roney Founder of TheBump.com

March 9, 2010 By Christy Leave a Comment

I've been listening to an interview series by the founder of Mothercraft Coaching, Carley Knobloch. The profiles of the moms she interviews are fascinating. I've synthesized the information in these interviews and applied it to traveling with young children. The first interview is with Carley Roney, the editor-in-chief and co-founder of TheKnot.com, a hip one-stop wedding planning solution, and its sister sites, TheNest.com for newlyweds, and TheBump.com, for first-time parents. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Baby Travel Perspective, TheBump

Measuring Your Child's Feet for Shoes

February 28, 2010 By Christy 1 Comment

Last spring, we were packing for a six week trip to Europe. Three days before the trip, our son announced that is shoes felt tight. Since a shoe shopping trip was not in the cards, I hopped on the internet to buy new shoes. (thank heavens for Amazon Prime with free 2-day shipping!) Not knowing whether he'd gone up 1/2 size or a 1 1/2 sizes, this handy little sizing demo from About.com saved the day. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Packing, Tips & Tricks