I get caught in this loop while travel planning all the time: “Is this going to be worth it?”
Worth it, like:
- Will I be sobbing at 10,000 feet because I haven’t slept in six hours and my toddler is demanding another snack but we don’t have any left?
- Am I going to storm out of the hotel babywearing with a sound machine, begging my baby to just! take! a! nap!
- Do I have to repeatedly ask any waiter who happens to breeze by our table that we please, please need to place our order right now?
It’s easy to dwell on these tougher parenting moments. But I try to remind myself that these exist every single day, whether I’m sitting on a gorgeous white-sand beach or sitting on an 8×10 rug in our house.
Your toddler is a tourist, and you’re along for the ride.
I used to get caught up in the distinction between being a “tourist” and being a “traveler.” I fancied myself the latter because I made as much effort as I could to blend in wherever I was going. I wanted to “live like a local” as much as possible in addition to cramming in a ridiculously overplanned itinerary of every artistic and cultural landmark, top ten restaurant, and Instagrammable street. I would go to the grocery store in a new destination and ooh and aah over the packaging and goods, pretending this is not a very touristy thing to do.
Not me recreating the *exact shot* of every Instagrammer who visited this pool in Iceland, because that’s not at alllllll what tourists do.
This kind of binary makes you feel better about your impact of visiting another place. Tourists generate twice as much trash as locals do during peak season in Barcelona. Tourists smash priceless statues with selfie sticks. Tourists drive up rent in historical neighborhoods so quickly they drive out the people living there for generations.
I felt like as an *ahem* traveler, I was above all that.
But traveling with a toddler taught me that you have to embrace your inner tourist. Not the badly behaved kind, but the kind that goes to McDonald’s in another country because you know they’ll have food your kid will eat. The kind that only visits the top tourist attractions in their neighborhood. The kind that get overcharged for cab rides and need help with directions.
That’s okay. Embracing it instead of fighting it is what makes your trip fun.
You’re not on a vacation. You’re parenting in another place.
Every age/phase has challenges and delights, and you’ll experience them no matter what. When you travel, those moments don’t change. There is no such thing as a “vacation” from motherhood. You can only parent in another place.
That’s the great and terrible thing about parenting: It is beautifully relentless.
When you plan a trip, you can’t think about it as a vacation because that sets you up to fail. Instead, embrace the fact that a toddler will still be a toddler wherever they go. They’ll still need to follow their schedule, run out the zoomies, and make time for play.
This makes it sound like travel isn’t fun—quite the opposite! There is nothing better than running out the zoomies on a gorgeous hiking trail or playing with gigantic chess on a hotel lawn. Even at a traditional “vacation” destination, it looks different.
Last summer, we went up to Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT to do some hiking and exploring. And we did, sometimes as early as 5 AM on those trails or at the pool. 🫠 That’s what our life always looks like, and that didn’t change just by changing our location…though I’ll admit bleary-eyed pool play is a LOT more fun than lying down in the play tent wishing for the sun to rise.
Walking with my mini-me to go see some Highland Cows.
What I mean is, you have to go into your trip with the right mindset. Imagining a relaxing vacation where you lay on the beach all day is just not going to happen on your beach trip. (Though you can aspirationally put your stuff on a beach chair!) You probably won’t get to read your book. But you will have a TON of fun playing in the waves and the sand in a way you probably haven’t for years.
That’s what makes it all worth it.
The destinations that blend the vacation vs. parenting in another place dichotomy.
I do think there are exceptions to this rule, mainly places that are built with kids in mind. When I travel I focus a lot more on the accommodations than I ever did pre-kid. Any change of scenery is welcome for me and for my toddler, and we spend a lot more time enjoying the full grounds—finding every random shuffleboard, fire pit area, hot tub, you name it.
Thanks for being here.
Hello, cow. From my time as a not-tourist in Switzerland.
The more I settle into motherhood, the more my whole world flips. What I once took as a truth slides around a little bit. I find these bits of wisdom like random pocket change in a couch cushion. A-ha, so *that’s* how you get a toddler to take a nap without a fight! So *that’s* how we can get excited instead of scared about thunderstorms! So *that’s* how…
All this to say, I’m very much still finding these sprinkled throughout our days as we switch between phases and our little one slowly becomes less little. This mindset shift—oh, I’m still a parent, just in another place—really helped me on our last trip. It’s also made it easier for both myself and my husband to ask for breaks/time-outs in a way that we weren’t before. We each tap out at home for naps or to read in peace or whatever we need on the weekends, so why not when we’re traveling? Because we had such a strict idea of what it meant to take a vacation, we weren’t having any fun.
Happy to report that traveling has been SO much more fun since I figured this out, and I hope your next trip goes more smoothly, too. My mom always made little surprise bags for each family member to open slowly throughout the trip, and it’s my great honor to continue that tradition.
Here’s to little treats that make vacation special,
Kayla
If you liked this post, please consider supporting my work. I’m just a mom in the thick of the toddler years trying to create core memories for our whole family while minimizing meltdowns—I sincerely hope this helps you do the same.
This post was originally published on Travel with Toddlers. Subscribe for more real-talk travel advice, toddler-friendly itineraries, and tried-and-true gear recommendations.
