Traveling with Kids
In today’s episode Dave and Jim discuss their tips on traveling with kids
During this episode we’ll discuss:
How much travel we do in a normal year
How much travel we’ve done during COVID
Any trips we’re planning for 2021
Tips for road trips
Tips for airplane travel
If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and sharing the podcast on social media.
Resources:
Transcript
[music]
Dave: In today's episode, we're discussing our tips and tricks for traveling with small children. Everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigue podcast. The podcast for dads by dads. With the recent change in masking guidance from the CDC, it really feels like we're turning a page on the pandemic, and that's got us dreaming about traveling again. Today, we're talking about our tips and tricks for traveling with small children, but first here's my deal. I'm Dave. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy.
Jim: I'm Jim. I've got a seven-year-old girl and a five-year-old girl.
Dave: After a year of being cooped up, many of us are itching to get out of town. A recent survey from Travelocity is predicted that family travel will be the first type of travel to rebound in 2021. This is due to the fact that parents are twice as likely to have traveled since the start of the pandemic compared to non-parents. The survey found that parents say they have greater familiarity with the changes in the travel industry and are inclined to take trips sooner, plan earlier and reserve earlier than non-parents.
Overall, they found that 60% of travelers say they're planning a post-pandemic trip within the next nine months. 24% of travelers are planning to go to a familiar destination, 30% are going to take a road trip or a beach trip, and 26% are planning a weekend getaway. Jim, I don't know about you, but I am getting stir crazy. My kids want out, they want to go somewhere anywhere. I'm just wondering, how much travel do you do in a typical year, normally?
Jim: Yes, we're missing it also. I'm ready to start doing some traveling. Usually, we do it-- As of last year, we started what's going to be an annual camping trip for about 10 days. Go up to the mountains. We usually go to my mother-in-law's place in Hawaii for about a week. Usually, that's in about October. Then we'll usually take one other trip to family, some sort of plane trip that we've got to go to visit my brother or some of my wife's family. That's about it. Then, it's been a while since we've planned what I'd call a big trip, a Europe trip or something like that, but I think that's on the horizon. The kids are getting old enough that they're going to remember the trip, so it's worth spending the money on to get more than just pictures, and they're easier to travel with, which is what we're talking about tonight.
Dave: Yes, absolutely. Yes, for us, normally, as I mentioned in previous podcasts, my wife is from Asia, so we usually go out to Asia. We might string a couple of countries together while we're out there because they're close. You can bang out a few on a layover or something like that. Not a ton of road trips. Typically, we really just have that one big trip to Asia, and that's it, but I think on the back end of coming out of COVID, we'll probably maybe look to do a few more closer-to-home trips as we just get more used to what the travel is like, airplane travel is like specifically with COVID. Have you done any travel since the beginning of the pandemic?
Jim: Hitting this year mark has been interesting to reflect on that, because I hadn't realized that we had done so- that I had spent so few nights in a bed outside of my own house. What we did is we did the camping trip last summer, which was an interesting experience. It felt like a trip in a foreign territory, like we had cut the tether. We were now off in the woods, literally. It was an interesting experience.
Anyhow, we spent nine days up the mountains. It's about a four-hour drive to get there. Having to stop at the restaurants and the gas stations on the way there just felt a little weird. Once we got to the mountains, it was fine. Then, we went up to the mountains to stay in a cabin with some friends of ours a couple of weeks ago, and that felt more normal. They were vaccinated, my family's halfway vaccinated. We didn't wear masks in the house or anything, but it felt okay.
Dave: We, especially in the summer, [chuckles] I think started to go a little stir crazy. I was like, "Let's get out of town and let's go find an Airbnb." Of course, everybody was trying to get away and find an Airbnb where they could be by themselves with a swimming pool. I'm like, "All right, let's find either some sort of barn or some swimming pool that we have access to." Of course, things were booked months out. We tried to do it on a whim too, we're like, "Can we try and book like this weekend or the next weekend?" We couldn't get it to work. Unfortunately, we didn't go anywhere at all over the summer. I think I've mentioned in other podcasts, my daughter, she just wants to find a pool and she just wants to get back into the pool.
That was unfortunate. This year, we might hopefully plan a little bit better. Although, at this point, it feels like you'd have to be planning for what, July, August, since we haven't done anything yet. We did do a short local beach vacation during spring break. It was just two nights and three days, but it was great. We found a little Airbnb that was right on the beach, so the kids would play on the beach and it was 5 feet away from the porch. It was nice. It was sort of a semi-private beach, which we hadn't realized too, so that was really, really good. What are you planning for 2021? It sounds like you're going to go back camping again, same place, same deal, or are you going to go try and go somewhere else?
Jim: Yes, the camping thing is unique for the family. My wife's family went to this one campground when she was growing up for years, so we've carried on the tradition, so same place, probably even the same campground, same time of year. That'd be nice. Similar to you, we may be planning these shorter trips. You said short trip out to the coast. I've got a lot of friends, my brother's done it where they're taking these short trips. He has three or four-day trips that are like an hour or an hour and a half away from home, which is weird for me because I think I need to be far enough away from home that I can't race home and do something real fast, really feel like I'm on vacation.
Being stuck in the house with COVID, it's a nice change just to be an hour, an hour and a half away, and be in the woods or on the coast or something like that, so we might try a couple of those. Then, we will go visit some family in the South for the holidays. Well, we're planning to now. So far, it looks like that's going to work out.
Dave: Is that going to be plane travel? Are you guys going to jump in the car? Or what are you thinking there?
Jim: Yes, it will be taking a plane. I think it's a direct flight, hopefully. It is three-quarters of the country away.
Dave: We're, I think earlier in this year, I was telling my daughter, "Well, there's maybe a small chance that we might be able to travel in October because we have this random October school break." I'm still not quite sure. It really feels like until there's a vaccination for children-- I think right now it's 16 and up, I think they're working on 12 and up, but our kids are still a little bit away from 12 and up. I'm not clear if I would feel comfortable yet go into like a Disneyland with the kids or something like that. I'm not sure.
I feel like, well, at that point, is part of it also that we're just saving the money that we would've otherwise used on a trip and maybe take a slightly bigger trip or stay in a hotel. For instance, Disneyland. Maybe you stay at a Disneyland hotel where you're at the park, versus offsite where you now have to take the shuttle in or park. I'm debating like, is that the better play to just say, "Hey we're just going to pass on this year again, but certainly by next summer we should feel pretty comfortable." I think that, yes, we'll probably still try and pull off a couple of days here, a couple of days there. It doesn't mean that we won't travel at all, but yes, I think the kids really want to get out. They're sick of being in the city. It's funny because it's not like we used to travel that much out of the city before, but I think it's that they know that they're not supposed to go anywhere, and so-
Jim: Exactly.
Dave: -by definition, they want out. They want out as fast as possible.
Jim: It's strange that I didn't realize how much travel was a part of my life until it was taken away. I wouldn't have thought that was something, "What do you like to do?" "I like to travel." That's not necessarily true, but there's a certain rhythm that my wife and I had since in our marriage, certain trips we do here or there. To have that taken away has been a very strange void. It's something that I didn't realize I had until it was gone, and our kids and yours also feeling that same way.
Dave: Yes. It's funny, I use Google Maps and I allow for the Google Maps to track me, and they send every month, they send a summary of where you've been. [crosstalk] Its interesting to see that they're like, "Oh, you've been to--" [crosstalk] Right. They show you like, "Oh, this month you've been to two new cities and you've spent, whatever, 10 hours in the car." It's funny because I can look at the number of hours I spent in the car and I'm like, before COVID the entire month's worth of hours that I spent in the car, that was like one week of commuting for me because I have a pretty long commute. I'm like, yes, that would have been done in a week prior to COVID.
Yes, it's just interesting, It quantifies how much, in particular, I am not leaving the house. It's a reminder, I guess, of all of the other things that this has taken away, just the things you take for granted, as you pointed out. As you think about road trips and the kinds of things you guys have done, what are some of your tips on road trips?
Jim: The big win last year on our way up to the camping trip was a porta-potty. I had never thought about this before, but it's like you did for potty training, except it's got a little shield in it, I throw a little cat litter in there. When the girls need to make a rest stop, we don't have to pull in to a dirty gas station, we can go into a rest area or find a private place to pull the car over. It's fantastic. It was a great move, and again, I don't know why I've never thought about it before. I guess we never had to because we weren't in a pandemic. That was a big change. I think it really worked, particularly, like I said, it's about a four, four and a half-hour drive, so that saved us a lot of trouble.
Also, I've got this trick that I use in the road trip, where I crank up the heat just a little bit, 74, 75 degrees. Girls just knock out and they sleep. They just doze away. Then, when we get close to where we're stopping, I turn on the air conditioner and some fresh air or something, they wake up naturally. It's really nice. It's a nice way to give us a little peace and quiet. I just had to make sure I don't fall asleep with the heat.
Dave: [laughs] Right, that's a good move.
Jim: It's a trick that I learned from flight attendants. You just put everybody to sleep with a little heat. Let them doze off, and then you get some peace and quiet.
Dave: I'm curious about the porta-potty. Can they go to the bathroom? Do they do it in the car? Do you have an SUV and they go in the trunk, or do you have to take it outside and then just behind the car?
Jim: Yes, we got a-- I don't know what do you call them. Mid-sized, small SUV. We got a deck in the rear that they can set up down there.
Dave: Which is it's funny because that's always been like the bathroom. When the kid, when you needed to change diapers-
Jim: Yes, exactly.
Jim: -and they were young, you put them on that deck. It was the perfect size. I remember that's what we were thinking about when we got our car for our kid, we're like, "This could be very, very useful for impromptu diaper changes."
Jim: That's right, diaper changes, naps, picnics.
Dave: Yes, actually, we've eaten out of the trunk of the car in particular with COVID. There have been a few day trips that we've gone on and you can't-- There's nowhere to eat, and so you take it back to the car. One time in particular, we left the SUV at home, and so we just had to sit down and the kids are sitting in the trunk eating food. It was great. It worked out fine.
On my end for tips and tricks, I guess, one thing is the kids don't get their own devices. We fill the space with podcasts and other audiobooks. Their go-to is Stories Podcasts. I don't know if you've heard that one, but that one's really good. I think the stories are fun and it's just, they don't always have moral dilemmas or anything, but they're just fun stories, and some of them are pretty long. They can be as short as 12 minutes, but some go a decent amount. One of the other things I've actually started to do is I've taken all of my records from what I grow up, and I've converted them all to digital. That's in heavy rotation.
Jim: Like your vinyl? You've taken your vinyl?
Dave: Yes.
Jim: Wow.
Dave: I've converted all the vinyl to digital in the car. Actually, just recently, I have let my four-year-old understand that this is actually where they- it comes from vinyl, and so he's now using the record player.
Jim: Oh, cool.
Dave: Which is great because that was my whole thing, is that I want him to be able to put on whatever he wants. That's one of the things we've lost with the move, the shift to digital. He has full control over whatever he wants to listen to, at least at home, but yes, those are in heavy rotation in the car, actually, even just when we're around town or anything.
Then, just the standard stuff that people do, travel bingo. I don't know if you grew up on travel bingo, but I certainly did on the long road trips. We've got the Melissa and Doug Water Wow! books. It's just, you put a little water in there. Then, I think for our oldest, she's got a little table. I used the clipboard at first. Oh, actually here's a tip that I did. I think it's Crayola Color Well, right? It's those pens that they only- the color only comes off on a certain type of paper. When you look at the pens, they're all white. What I did for, I think one of our very first road trips, is I think it came with a set of five, and I actually attached the five of them to a clipboard with some string so that she wouldn't lose them, and so she could just draw on that. They were taped together, or it was a little bit string, and then taped it so that she wouldn't lose any of them. The caps were all taped. That kept everything nice and neat for the first road trio. That's a little tip there.
I guess the only other thing that's maybe not as obvious, is I do always tend to break up long trips, every couple hours or so. Like if we're doing a six, eight-hour trip, we'll do the pull off on a side place. It's either an activity or somewhere to walk around, or I might just throw a soccer ball or something in the trunk just to get out and run around. I usually do plan my trips though. I think the website's called Roadtrippers. You can basically say, "All right, I'm going from Point A to Point B, and show me all this stuff along the way." I will basically, in advance, plan the rest stops, so I know, "Okay, if we can just make it to this point, they'll get a good 30-minute run in because there's some kid's activity or something."
There's actually one place in particular, if you go down South, it's about, I don't know, three hours away. It's like a restaurant, and they have this little cowboy town. It's this huge rest stop. It's really built for the kids, and so that's one of those things where we actually will plan our departure time so that we can roughly arrive there at lunch. Then they can get out, run around, eat some lunch, and then get back in the car, they'll doze. We have two or three more hours in the car. Then, at that point, we're basically almost there. I think pre-planning the breaks is helpful, versus going like, "All right, the kids are freaking out, it's time to pull over." Get it out in advance and being proactive on that.
Oh, and then don't forget the sunshade, because we just of the road trip that we just took, we forgot the sunshade. He wasn't super annoyed, but I could see that our son was on the sun side the whole time, so that did really suck.
[laughter]
One of the things that my daughter has noticed recently as there are cars, some of her friends have cars with devices built-in, like the old minivans and stuff like that where there-- Do you guys do devices on road trips? Do you stick them in front of the screens, or how do you handle that.
Jim: No, we don't do the screens in the car. I think part of it is just concerned about motion sickness. I know that when you're on the interstate or the highway, it's probably not that big of a deal, but I also, I don't want to get in the habit of that. Look out the window, try to learn how to entertain yourself, read a book, color, talk to mom and dad, hit your sister, or whatever it is that you do in the backseat. There are some people that they've got the screen that they can mount on the back of the car, so they watch movies like they could and in an airplane. Maybe I'll consider that someday, but I think it's premature now.
Dave: I feel like the fighting and all, that's a rite of passage of a road trip.
Jim: [chuckles] Exactly.
Dave: That is part of the road trip that someone's going to-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Stay on your side.
Dave: Like, "Dad, are we there yet?" That's just part of it, like quiet, and picking the music, and all that stuff. Those are the memories that I have of road trips, and so I think that's part of what it is. Actually, one of the fondest memories I have of road trips growing up is, when we were kids, we always-- When we would take road trips, we'd always get up at the crack of dawn, and so--
Jim: Yes, likewise.
Dave: Right? The first stop is to the donut shop because it's the only thing that's open, and we didn't grow up with pastries or doughnuts. It was always like a treat, and so there'd be milk and a doughnut in the car, and it's whatever, 5:00 in the morning. Then, you eat breakfast, then you go back to sleep, and you're maybe halfway there at that point, but our family cannot get up that early, much to my shame, but-- [crosstalk]
Jim: Oh, so many times I've thought we would. So many plans that turned into nine o'clock. [laughs] Leave before the dawn.
Dave: These days, I usually, I have a time when I plan to leave, that then say, okay, it's within the hour,-
Jim: Exactly.
Dave: -I'll feel pretty good. Usually, that I can make that work. On airline trips or international trips, these are going to be a lot more complicated. What kind of tips do you have on airline flights?
Jim: We do use devices on the airplane. Actually, I was going to say, they're better now that they're older, but it's been a year and a half since we've been on a plane with them, but at the beginning-- Here are some things not about airplanes, tips about airplanes. Don't take a red eye. That was something that we tried early on. Like, "This is great. The girls will sleep all night. We don't have to worry about it. It'd be a coast to coast trip." No, it was a nightmare. It was awful. They didn't sleep, we didn't sleep, and no one is staying the next day. It was nuts. That's not a tip.
We have headphones and devices, so they got the iPads. We download some TV shows and there are some game apps, but usually, TV shows and movies. That'll keep them entertained for quite a while. All the usual stuff, coloring books, some things to read. When the girls were younger, particularly, I'm thinking of the first one when she was about 18 months or two years old, we got a tip from a friend of ours where we brought a box of chocolates or a bag of chocolates for the flight attendants. We got on the plane and we saw that whatever flight attendant was at the front, you assume it's the head flight attendant or whatever, kind of pull them aside and be like, "Look, this is our first flight. We've got a young baby, we're really sorry. Here's a box of chocolates." That is solid gold because when the kid starts to cry, and everybody around you starts to complain and look at you, look sideways at you, the flight attendants got your back.
Dave: [laughs]
Jim: I've talked with some friends who are flight attendants, they don't care, it's in the gesture. It's the gesture of like, "Hey, this is going to make your job harder, we're really sorry about it." It's a solid tip I give to new parents, just try to get some allies that way.
Dave: I like your story about the red eye. One of the earlier trips we took to Asia, so from where we are, most of the flights to Asia leave at about 1:00 in the morning, and so our daughter was super keyed up. She was, I don't know, maybe five years old. She was super keyed up. We leave for the airport, it's 10:00 PM, and I'm like, "All right, well, at least she'll sleep in the car." Doesn't sleep in the car. We get to the airport, it's eleven o'clock, you'll be there two hours early, I'm like, "Okay, she'll fall asleep at the airport." Doesn't fall asleep in the airport. Get on the airplane, I'm like, "All right, she's going to be out." Turns out on a 13-hour flight that left at 1:00 in the morning, I believe she slept for about two hours.
Jim: Oh, my goodness.
Dave: That was brutal. Part of the problem there was the fact that she could watch video the whole time. Like mom and dad, we went to sleep, and she was just on. I guess one lesson there is that, yes, if the kid is allowed to watch video the whole, they'll just do it.
Jim: Yes, they will. Right.
Dave: We are of the same mind as you that, there's not a ton of screen time at home, but when it comes to flights, man, devices, devices. Download all this stuff. The last time we came back from Asia, I now know what the Netflix download limit is. You cannot download more than 100 episodes, because I hit that limit. I like to make sure there's a lot of options for the kids, but also, the thing is, the part of the reason I download too is I always assume that the inflight entertainment system is not going to work.
Jim: Exactly.
Dave: Because if I'm on a 13-hour flight, and it doesn't work, we have problems. I've seen that one time. I was flying domestically, it was maybe a six-hour flight, something like that. I don't know if the family wasn't prepared or what, but it was clear that the kids had planned to watch devices, and it just, for whatever reason, wasn't working and they had no backup. Like they didn't have books, they had nothing to entertain those kids. That was a miserable flight for those of us that were in the general vicinity. The opposite of what you're doing, by getting the flight attendants on your side, like those guys didn't do themselves any favors.
Jim: [laughs] Right.
Dave: Devices all day long. You just got to make sure you turn them off and set some lines. The first time we traveled, our daughter was 18 months, and that was to Asia, and so we did a test flight, where we just booked something close to home, about an hour away. Part of that was for us to understand just what it was like to go through security, and how does breast milk go through. Some of these, you can research online, but it's a little bit different when you're in there in the process and like, does the stroller have to go through? Then, can I take the stroller on the plane? If I do, do I walk it down the jet bridge? It's just all of these little things here and there. We just jumped on a, I think it was a 40-minute flight, and she went right to sleep. We're like, "Okay, this feels like we'll be okay for our upcoming flight."
I think that especially if your first flight is going to be a long-haul flight, I would suggest just do a quick test run, and also, now you've got to build an excuse to just take a weekend getaway a couple of days and just have some fun with your child.
Jim: It's worthwhile to do the test run. All that stuff, I guess any time is-- I don't know, the 13-hour flight or an hour flight, doesn't matter, but just that first time and making sure you've got the ID for the kid if you need it, you got your passport, your birth certificate, fold-up stroller, just hold that drill. That's a really to do that once.
Dave: Right, and then like, how do you change--? Like, is there enough space really in the bathroom to change your child? All those little things. Do you really want to throw the--? Where do you put the diaper? Just all of this stuff.
Oh, and here's another one actually, since we're talking about diapers. When we travel, we have stopped traveling with diapers. It just takes up too much space in luggage. We'll take a few days worth. I would say the last time we came back though from Asia, we were cutting it real close. We ended up with one diaper. We were sweating it. We're like, "You know what, worse comes to worst, we'll go find a parent whose kid is about our age, and we'll ask to borrow a diaper.
They take up so much space, and it's easy to find diapers. I think the only thing is, that in certain countries, they're using the-- Well, most countries are it's weights and kilograms. You just need to know how much your kid weighs in kilograms, which is easy to figure out. Then other than that, I think that's good. Also, it's kind of fun to see how other people have made their diapers because some countries have really great diapers, like super intelligently designed diapers. That's always fun.
Another trick that we've learned, especially in Asia where there's not a lot of space, whether it's in department stores, or elevators, or whatever, is get a super small stroller. The GB pocket, we bought that the last time we went. That stroller actually has the world record for smallest stroller. When you fold it up, it fits in the airline seat below you. You can easily fit it in the overhead, but it'll fit in the storage space at your feet. It's that small.
Jim: It's interesting, because I was going to make that comment too. We had one that folded up, and it was about the size of like two medium pizza boxes stacked on top of each other. It might have been-- I think was an UPPAbaby, but also, I was going to-- It was tiny. You could put it in a suitcase, you could put it over your shoulder, it was fantastic.
Dave: Yes. Actually, the last time we brought it home, we brought it home in the suitcase. Totally useful to have, especially in parts of the world where there's just not a lot of space. In Asia, the elevators are tiny. You can fit-- A lot of times, like if we're in Japan, especially in the subway, you can basically fit the stroller and three people, and that's it. You're competing with older people that are trying to get in and there's like one elevator per train. It's kind of a mess. Certainly, those strollers are absolutely worth their way to have something that's really small and that tight-turning radius and everything.
Another thing is that we-- When we went to Hawaii, I don't know, a couple of years ago, we bought travel car seats for both of our kids who were still in car seats. It felt easier to do that than to rent them in Hawaii, which just felt like it was going to be a pain. We bought the Cosco, which is not the same as Costco. The Cosco car seat, they're $50, they're 10 pounds, super light. The weight is especially important when you're carrying all that stuff. We get out of the airport, it was a 10, 14-day trip, so we've got two big roller bags, two small roller bags, a stroller, two car seats, and two kids. It looks like we're moving all of our stuff, because of-- Really, to be able to throw those into some backpacks. It's only 10 pounds. Sometimes that's lighter than the bag I take to work. That was really helpful.
Then, for the younger kids, I guess maybe the last thing for younger kids is, and I mentioned-- We actually talked about this in Episode 5 of the podcast about how to reunite with a lost child, but ID bracelets or a Jiobit, like a tracker. With the ID bracelets in particular, email address, phone numbers, and the Jiobit it just through Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi, and cell signals, you can keep tabs on your kid.
I think those are especially important when you're traveling internationally and you don't speak the language, because if your child gets separated, they're already going to be in a state of stress, and then on top of it, if they can't understand what the adults who are trying to figure out how to reunite them with their parents are saying, whether it's police or just some person who's trying to help out, I think you really want to give that person as many different ways to get in touch with you. That email address, phone number, any way that you could line, anything that you can think of to make it easier to reunite with your child.
Those are things that I think of for the younger ones. Do you have any, I guess, specific things for older children, things that you notice is, as the girls got older, where you're like, "Yes, this now all of a sudden, becomes more important," as it relates to travel tips?
Jim: I call them safety meetings. I don't have a tracking device or something that we could put on the girls, which I probably will next time we traveled, particularly internationally, but we would have more, particularly since they understand more, they're better at speaking, they can communicate better. We have a regular safety meetings, which we have when we go to the park or whatever, but just on a larger scale, make very clear, "These are the procedures. This is what happens. These are the people you look for. This is where you go. Do you know the phone number?" They would know the phone number, and so on and so forth. Just as they got older and it was easier to travel just generally, and then easier to communicate with them about these safety rules. That's something we'll keep up, but I do think the tracking device is worthwhile.
Dave: Yes, and I like, again we're referencing a previous podcast, so it might be good to go back and listen to Episode 5, but one of the things that you were talking about in that podcast was the safety meetings and being proactive about that. I like that because we don't always proactively do that. I think that's something that we need to do, especially when you're in a new city, or country, or a museum as the case might be, or store, or whatever. I think we're going to have to just be more conscious about that as we're going through. I think that was a good tip.
For us, on our end, so my son is a picky eater. He's still a picky eater. I'm hoping it grows out eventually, but on flights, especially long flights, I will usually bring his food because I know he's not going to eat whatever is on the plane. It might be something as simple as just making a sandwich or something like that. It doesn't need to be anything crazy, but I'll generally have food for him, as well as some snacks because otherwise, by the time we get to where we're going, he's going to be a mess. Especially for picky eaters, make sure that you're prepared for that.
I mentioned earlier how our daughter didn't go to sleep that one time when she had the opportunity to just binge watch a whole bunch of videos. What I found, the way that I actually solved that, was I got her just some audio books or podcasts, whatever, but something that she could listen to to go to sleep. I'll say, "Hey, it's time to go to sleep. Shut this thing off, put on some headphones. She'll eventually just drift off because there's no visual stimulus at that point.
Jim: Visual stimulation, yes.
Dave: The cabin lights are down because they're trying to get everybody to sleep anyway. She'll nod off pretty quickly. That was one that it took a little bit of time for us to figure that one out, but that works. I started to forget another picky eater thing I was thinking about is, when you're in the venue, and especially if you're internationally and you're having some hard times finding things that your kid will eat, don't forget to go to the grocery store or to the local convenience store. 7-Eleven in other countries is it's just cooler, because it's local food, and so it's more fun to go anyway. We've been in places certainly where he won't eat anything, and so we'll go to the grocery store, we'll have to find cheese or strawberries, things which you actually, in certain places, will have to go to the gourmet store to get cheese, strawberry, and yogurt, because it's not something that they do have much in that country. He'll just pound through it. That's my in-laws enjoy saying, they're like, "Man, your kid is so American."
[laughter]
He's just like, "Yes, I need cheese, I need strawberries." Like, "We don't have a ton of that stuff here." Don't forget that sometimes that's what's necessary to make sure they're eating something. I think just, again, as we're traveling, especially to other countries where we're not visiting family, I've learned that with two kids at four and six, or I guess four and seven, that not to schedule too many activities.
I'm the planner. The way that we do things in our family is, my wife is responsible for getting us to where we're going, and then I usually plan everything else out, so like the actual activities, and then how we get from one activity to the next. If there are any restaurants that we might visit. I've found that scheduling more than two activities is just, it's too hectic. There's one morning activity, you break for lunch, and hopefully, lunch is near the activity. I generally do that, but I know some people work their trips around food, so it just depends what you prioritize. Then, one thing in the afternoon. That usually, is all that I think you can comfortably get in without stressing yourself out about missing this or that.
Then I guess the last thing, especially as it relates to international travel, so when we come back, we're talking maybe usually 12 to 14 hours time difference. We consistently send the kids right back to school the next day. If we come back on a Tuesday night, they're going to school on Wednesday. I find that they adjust much quicker that way, simply because they're with their friends, so they're just having fun. They don't fall asleep. If I kept them out of school for that day, all they're going to do is sleep during the day. It's just going to continue to create problems. I really believe that it's just best to send them right back. They actually tend to adjust much quicker than the adults do, I find, because again, they're in their element.
Jim: They're more resilient.
Dave: Yes. One thing I'm curious about, so my in-laws, they don't tell their son in advance about travel because it keeps him up too much. I'm curious, do you give advance, "Hey girls, in a week from now, we're going to go here." Or how did you guys approach the--? Is it like a big reveal or is it like, "Hey, we're going to do this thing."
Jim: Wake up on Saturday, "Guess what? We're not going to the park, we're going to Disneyland."
Dave: Which is exactly what my in-laws do. They're like, "Get up, we're going to the airport." [chuckles]
Jim: No, we give them some heads up. I think it's fun to see the excitement. Like I say, it gets them keyed up, but if it's far enough out though, it's not like it's going to keep them up at night. It's also a nice way to practice the passage of time and calendars. We've got one up on the wall and be like, "Here's today. This is the weekend. We've got so many sleeps until this day, and then we're going to take our trip." It's fun to have that countdown. It's not quite like Christmas Eve with the excitement, but it is that sort of advent calendar countdown to the trip.
Then I feel that the basic teaching method tell people, you know what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you just told them. Something similar to that in the travel. We set up, "Here's what we're going to do. This is what we're going to go see." Then, they get there and they're like, "Wow, that's the thing we've been talking about for two weeks." Then, when we get home and revisit the trip. I feel like it solidifies those memories. Rather than just kind of being a kaleidoscope of experiences over several days, they've got some benchmarks of like, "Yes, we said we were going to see this thing. We did do that thing. We did it, we saw it." It just makes it feels like there's a little bit of a structure to the trip. Overall, and it's fun to have them involved too, and they do get excited. They pack their own bags and things like that. We get them on board.
Dave: That's interesting because one of the things that I hadn't really thought about until you started talking about it too, is that the advantage to having that conversation also, and also as they're getting older, is to allow them to help in the planning. Like I said, I typically pick all this stuff and I know what the kids want to do, but I think that certainly, our oldest daughter is old enough to have some input to say, "Well, I'd rather do this instead." I think that that is, "Hey, we're going to go here," and then let's start talking about the kinds of things we're going to do.
I feel like also at this point, there can be a little bit more conversation around maybe prepping them, things like cultural, you know, "Hey, in this country people eat this for breakfast." Just laying that foundation of saying like, "We're going to go visit another country. It's going to be different, it's going to be fun. You're going to learn a lot of stuff. You're going to see a lot of new things." Laying the foundation for that teaching moment. I guess being proactive about making it a teaching moment, I think, when you have that conversation in advance.
Like I said, it's something that I really haven't done too much before because I guess part of me always worries about we're three months out and they're like, "Well, when are we going to go do that thing?" It's plain in the middle of the week and then on the last week, and you're just like, "Okay, am I going to hear this for the next three and a half months?" I do like what you say about understanding the passage of time.
I think that, again, certainly, our daughter is old enough to be able to have some more input into that. I think that's also just in general where I'm starting to see her growing is that she's capable of having more input into things as she has her own interests. It's obviously balancing that a little bit against our son, and making sure that the adults can still do what they want, but I think that'll be the fun experience. Then, for also her to understand that trade-off, right? "Well, okay, you picked your thing, now, we're going to pick our thing. You might not going to it, but you're going to do it because that's the thing that we want to do." That's part of how we traveled is there's some trade-offs. I like what you say about prepping them for the trip and then having that conversation,
Jim: It's funny, I was reflecting on this in this whole conversation, I don't think we've used the word vacation.
[laughter]
I think that's key. We're talking about travel. I heard somebody say early on that vacations with kids is pretty much just parenting somewhere else. It pretty much what we're talking about, but we can still have those experiences, but I don't that idea of laying on the beach, laying in a hammock. [chuckles] Those things are gone. [laughs]
Dave: Right, that's not going to happen. Well, certainly, you come back from the long trip and you're like, "Man, I need a vacation now." Once you've gotten back, you need time. Here's a question, do you guys, when you schedule trips, do you come back like the day before you're supposed to go back to work and the day before everyone's supposed to go back to school? Assuming that you have some time. Like summertime where the kids-- Well, actually that's not true. Assuming that you have a little bit of time to say, "Okay, well, we can do 10 days and still be home for a couple of days before we have to get back into it," or how do you schedule your returns?
Jim: We've done it both ways. I can't say that we've got a sort of a principle about it. I think probably frequently, we'll come home on a Saturday, and then have Sunday, and then go to-- I think it's also for me, have a day off before I go to work on Monday. I don't think we've-- Frequently, I think we do your method where we come home Sunday night and then they go to school on Monday. If there's not a big time change or anything like that, it's not a problem. I agree, they get into their rhythm, they get into the structure and they're just- we're back to normal in no time.
Dave: Yes, I don't think-- [chuckles] Again, it's been so long since I've traveled, but I don't think we have a process either necessarily. Certainly sometimes, it's like, "Well, we can come back a day earlier," but that's just one less day on the vacation that we've spent, whatever, 16 hours to get here.
Jim: Exactly, right.
Dave: Let's just eke out another day, screw it. We'll be tired, but it'll be fine, and at least we have one extra day. The truth too is on those flights, one extra day really is a half-day when you consider all the getting to the airport and all that other stuff. I think we generally try and push it as far as we can. Then if it's domestic travel, we'll come back maybe a day early just to give ourselves a little bit of chance to come home and do nothing, but if it's international travel, I think we tend to just try and go the distance. [crosstalk] Yes, just maximize every little bit out of it, because it's the one trip we have. Even a long trip internationally, it's not really that long, right? It's 10 days, 14 days at the most.
I think also as the kids get older, some of that time is because we have these random one-week breaks, but as the kids get older, it's harder to-- Sometimes, we'll go beyond just the straight seven days. It might be they miss like a day of school or two days of school, and as they get older, that'll just be increasingly harder to just blow off a day of school. Pre-K three, whatever, who cares, but middle school, high school, that becomes a little bit more significant. Well, hopefully, we'll both get back on the road pretty soon, right?
Jim: Yes, I hope so.
Dave: Well, we hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you've got any questions for us, hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatige. That's P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
[music]
[00:41:59] [END OF AUDIO]