Putting The Pieces Together - Planning to Travel With A Baby
How we planned a two month trip with a baby.
Before Mike and I met, we were keen travellers. Individually, we had both done fairly extensive travel in different parts of the world.
Adventure was just who we were.
We found each other and travel was something we wanted to experience together, but before long, we were expecting a different type of adventure - in the form of a baby, Miss Adventure.
Once we made it through the initial shock, fear, and excitement of a newborn in our lives, travel was back on the cards.
In the years prior to the arrival of Miss Adventure, we had a travel board of places we wanted to experience. But now with a baby, we had to do some thinking and figure out what destination was best to take an 8 month old:
South East Asia - being Australians, this was a little too close to home and we wanted to venture further. We would have another chance to explore this region at a later stage.
Mexico - as new parents, we weren't quite ready for this level of adventure... just yet.
Europe - we were confident we could brave a 20+ hour flight with Miss Adventure and make it to the other side of the world.
So Europe it was.
We gave ourselves 4 months to plan an international trip as a family of 3, which would see us travelling for 2 months. What's the 1 thing that could go wrong?
Sickness.
It started and ended and struck in between - sickness was the common thread throughout this trip, but it was the initial sickness that would push us into making the idea a reality.
We all came down with a virus in January, which kept us all housebound over the course of a week. At the height of the sickness, in the midst of delerium (whilst we were trying to keep Miss Adventure entertained, who, of course got better quickest), we commited to travel dates and the whole itinerary came together.
It took us only five days to plan and book the entire two month trip to Europe. Our first international trip as a family took the form of a backpacking journey through Europe.
Backpacking with an 8 month old? It wasn't what you think - we weren't staying in hostels, doing pub crawls or returning to studies once our adventure was done. What we were doing was traipsing around Europe on a self-guided tour, with heavy backpacks (plus additional baby gear) and Miss Adventure in tow.
We wanted to cover quite a bit of ground across the continent, travelling from Frankfurt in Germany, all the way down to Rome, Italy, whilst soaking up the countryside and enjoying the 'in betweens' of our main destinations. Our preferred mode of transit was train travel, which allowed for a slower, more relaxed pace and meant that Miss Adventure was able to move around (if she wasn't napping).
We opted to stay in Airbnb's; not only to get a slice of local living, but to also take advantage of the amenities. This meant that we had a kitchen to cook in, which was useful for catering to Miss Adventure's 8-month-old-palate. A separate bedroom to the rest of the living space was also key - this was so that Miss Adventure could nap peacefully, while we could be relaxing in another room. There were a few nights where we stayed in hotel rooms, but because these didn't offer the same amenities as an apartment, we tried to keep those stays to a reduced number of nights.
In terms of durations of stays, we tried to space out our time in any one place as much as possible. This was to allow for the slower pace of travel, where we could take our time in enjoying a destination, but also provide a buffer for those unpredicable nights with a small child. We stayed in our 'main destinations' for about 1 week, with 'transit destinations', being much shorter stays of 1-3 nights.
The route was carefully mapped out, taking into consideration how long it would take to travel between destinations. We tried to limit train trips to a maximum of 3 hours total travel time per day and we always tried to travel so that we would leave one accommodation and arrive at the next accommodation, at a time that we could check-in straight away and get settled. The last thing we wanted to do was kill time whilst juggling all of our luggage and a small baby, in the hot European summer.
We booked the entire trip all in advance. Accommodation, all connecting flights, we even knew which trains we would take - every day of the trip was scheduled. This was very out of character compared to the way we travelled before Miss Adventure - we used to pre-book a portion to start a trip and then from there, see where the wind took us. However, when travelling with a baby, we thought the sponteneity of that travel style was no longer suitable. It was important to keep to a plan, this meant that most of our focus could be on taking care of Miss Adventure on the road, rather than scrambling to try and book last minute stays or transfers.
Remember when we spoke about sickness being a constant on our first trip to Europe?
Having made all our plans it seemed like nothing was going to stop us from having the dream adventure as a family, until, Miss Adventure was struck down with an illness, 3 days before our flight.
With every hour that passed, Miss Adventure seemed to get worse and with every hour that passed, we were heading towards an international flight that we didn't know if we could make...
[The adventure continues soon.]
See you on the road.