Best Way To Travel With Kids

Travelling with children can be somewhat like taking a herd of wild goats in your vacation. Whether they're your own or somebody else's, factoring a kid 's needs into your travels involves a lot more than adhering on a CD full of pop music and making bathroom stops. Here two Rough Guides writers share their hard-won wisdom. To start, mum of 2 Hayley Spurway offers guidance on traveling with toddlers, then Ross McGovern shows how he handles to traveling with older children. Hayley Spurway's tips for travelling with toddlers

Have quite a few family games ready in case of delay.

Punch-buggy and padiddle are popular, if violent, favourites for car journeys, whereas more cerebral ones such as the Alphabet game are far safer for aviation.

Don't overlook the medicine

Whether they're out of routine, jet-lagged, or eating less healthily, children always seem to get sick on holiday. Dampen the effect of broken nights, frayed temperaments and fevers by packing an easy-to-swallow medicine like Calpol in the UK. Other standard ingredients on your first aid kit should include antiseptic wipes, plasters, sting treatment, and a thermometer.

Use public transportation

Many toddlers love the novelty of travelling by train, boat and bus, so ditch the hire car and use public transportation where possible. In Switzerland, my two-year-old would replicate the names of the subway stops as they were declared - provoking ripples of laughter and making him much more excited about dressing the train every day.

Take your time

The best thing you can choose - whether at the airport, sightseeing or getting from A to B - is extra moment. Toddlers love to explore and don't care for the time pressures of travel, so you're prone to retain your cool if you factor the faffing, gawping, stalling, toilet stops and tantrums into your timeframe.

Be app-y

Thanks to toddler-friendly apps, there's no need to cram a toy box into your hand luggage when travelling by airplane. By all means take a novel and a magical scribbler (crayons only get dropped down the side of seats), but the very compact form of entertainment is a device loaded with apps and games.

Remember the medicine

It should already be on your own travelling checklist, but with kids along means carrying a small first aid kit is all the more critical: plasters, antihistamines and sachets of painkilling syrup may save a whole lot of stress later on. Antimalarials are also available in liquid form.