Traveling with kids is a gigantic pain in the ass.
There are sleep schedules and meltdowns, sudden pangs of hunger and the question of whether or not it’s okay to let you kid watch ten hours of television on a transatlantic flight (it is).
Not to mention all the stuff.
Still, the upside of taking your kids new places far outweighs the stressors that come with getting to those places.
Emily and I travel a lot with our kids because Emily and I traveled a lot before we had kids. Exploring new places and revisiting those we know and love is intrinsic to who we are.
Our just-started summer is about to kick off in earnest, as next week, we’re taking our kids to New York City for a week. It' should be a relatively easy trip when you consider that a few weeks after that, we’re all headed to a remote mountain village in France.
We’re lucky that we’re able to travel as much as we do. We also try to be as smart about our lives as possible in order to travel as much as we do. There are a lot of things we don’t do throughout the course of a year in order to take the kinds of trips that we take. Because traveling is one of our priorities.
Showing our kids as much of the world as we’re able is important to us. Creating little humans that can withstand the rigors of long travel days is important to us (even if, as it absolutely the case at present, they won’t remember most of these trips we’re taking these days).
Still, traveling with kids is a gigantic pain in the ass.
Traveling alone, on the other hand, that’s easy.
And, like almost everything else in life that we took for granted when we were childless, we’re reminded of just how easy it is whenever we have the opportunity to travel by ourselves.
To wit; a few weeks ago, I took a trip to Roswell, New Mexico. It was a bit last minute, as one of my oldest friends told me he was taking his dad, a man who I’ve known and loved for most of my forty years, on a bucket list trip to chase alien legends.
After a quick discussion with Emily, I was in. I bought a flight, booked a hotel room, and marked my calendar.
A week or so later, I was at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, alone, waiting for a predawn flight to Dallas. Sitting at my gate, sipping on coffee, I realized how relaxed I was, how there were no kids to occupy or chase, no diapers to change or stomachs to fill. Nobody was crying. Nobody was climbing up my legs. Sitting on my flight, I realized that I didn’t have to worry about a baby’s popping ears or a son kicking the seat in front of him. I simply enjoyed more coffee and pecked away at a long essay I’ve been working on. After we landed, I grabbed my single carry on and headed to meet my friend and his dad. There was no waiting for carry-on strollers or Pack-and-Play’s at the luggage carousel.
The three of us then drove the eight hours from Dallas to Roswell, tacking a road trip onto our alien adventure. And on that drive, we stopped two or three times. But that’s it. Two or three times for a quick stretch of our legs and to restock on chips and water. No long lunches. No sojourns to playgrounds for our kids to work out their pent-up energy.
The rest of my three days in Roswell went exactly like this. I did what I want, when I wanted (except sleep in. I still couldn’t figure that one out and I woke up daily my regular time of 6am… Eastern. Which is 4am in Roswell). I didn’t have to consider what kid-friendly options restaurants might have nor did I have to worry about rushing back to the hotel for anyone’s nap time but my own.
I was able to read and take in every bit of information at the alien museums we visited, to take my time and move at my leisure.
But almost everything I saw and did came with a little pang of sadness that Emily and our babies were missing out on this amazing trip. I thought of my son constantly, who would have loved all of the alien ephemera around town. I noticed little grassy hills in and around Roswell’s downtown area and imagined my daughter toddling up and down them. And every time we passed a playground, I thought how much fun my kids would have there.
And just as I did last year, after I took work trips to Medora, North Dakota and Santa Fe, New Mexico, all I could think of as I flew home was how and when I could bring my family to Roswell, to show them all of the fun that was there waiting for them.
As big a pain in the ass as it might be.
Vol. 61 - To Travel Alone
Oh man, this article hit me hard. I’m heading out on a six-week trip with the family and completely know how you feel. Once you have kids, it’s hard to travel with or without them. Best of luck with your upcoming travels. Take care!
I love this! I absolutely felt this. I want to travel the world with my babies as well. Living vicariously again through there lives is where the sparks of parenting truly flies, IMO. :)