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When Travel Goes Bad … And How To Bounce Back

July 24, 2016 / Travel, Travel with kids / 2 Comments

I try to be positive when I blog, so I never write about the many things that go wrong on our travels. I like to look back with joy on our adventures rather than remember the bad bits – which is why I love photography so much! I do get asked a lot, however, if our trips are as amazing as they look on social media, and the answer is no. While yes we are so lucky to be visiting some amazing destinations around the world, the truth behind the beautiful images is often a different story – one I don’t want to remember!

I am the biggest advocate of travelling with children – obviously I must be, as I’ve taken Cheese on over 30 flights in her four short years. I think it’s time to get honest, however, about the many things that do go wrong for us, and how we deal with them to stop our holiday from being ruined (where possible!). It’s time to get real!

When the kid isn’t a good traveler
When people hear about how much travel we’ve done with Cheese, they automatically assume she’s an excellent traveler. Honestly, she’s not. While she handles flights and jet lag like a seasoned pro, she does not deal well with the excitement of travel, or being away from her routine. We have tantrums galore when she can’t deal with the excitement of all the new places we’re seeing.

How we bounce back: we keep our routine as much as possible, with minimal late nights and rest periods in the middle of the day or afternoon. We also remove her from situations where she is unable to calm down, even if it’s just to our room for a short while at a hotel, or at a park or attraction, to a quiet place out of the way to simmer down again.

When someone gets sick
Two words: travel insurance! Always, always, always get it, because that one time you don’t, will be the time you end up in the ER with a bill that bankrupts you. Seriously, we have ended up in the ER in the US twice while traveling (once while at Disneyland!) and it’s seriously scary contemplating how you will be able to afford medical care when you’re so far from home. We were lucky that our travel insurance covered everything.

How to bounce back: We pack a giant medical bag with us, just in case. We pack things like pain relief, treatment for gastro, rehydration sachets, all-purpose antibiotics, sea sickness medication, antiseptic, bandaids, Mylanta, allergy relief for mosquito bites, etc. I am happiest when I can bring the whole bag home unused – but we’ve always had to dive in several times each trip. And travel insurance! Get it!

When flights are delayed or cancelled
On our last trip we had particularly bad luck with flights – three in a row either had significant delays of over three hours, or were cancelled. One day in particular we sat at their airport for eight hours waiting for our flight to leave, and two were either cancelled or delayed so late that they became short red eye flights – which are just torture when you have small kids in tow. The problems we had with flights were the absolute worst part of our trip.

How to bounce back: being prepared is the only way to cope. Check in with the flight 12 hours beforehand to get its status. We always travel with little neck pillows and a blanket for my daughter – these have been invaluable for sleeping in airports waiting for delayed flights, as well as on the actual flights itself. If your flight has a significant delay the airline might be required to give you meal vouchers (we were given three $25 vouchers our last delay).

My husband and I tag team sleeping on flights, and also at airports when we have massive delays – one of us will always try to sleep at the same time as the child so if she wakes up mid-flight one of us will be well-rested enough to care for her.

When there are epic tantrums
We tend to get so many more tantrums when we travel. Bedtime is a fight, every time we say “no” to something there’s crying and wailing, and there’s a lot more sass, yelling and arguing in general. What a headache!

How to bounce back: we deal with the tantrums as best as we can, with our normal discipline (we don’t tolerate certain behaviours) and enforcing routine. Husband and I also tag team with each other so the other gets a break when they can’t deal with it any longer. We try to remember that she is usually tantruming because she’s exhausted and overwhelmed, and try to calm her down rather than punish bad behaviour when we know the cause is the over-excitement cased by travel.

When luggage goes missing or breaks
We’ve had both these happen to us. Thankfully our luggage has turned up a few days later when it’s gone missing, and when it’s broken it’s still been usable so we haven’t had to buy new luggage.

How to bounce back: Report missing or damage baggage at the airport straight away. You will need to file a report immediately. Most travel insurance companies require you to file a report with the airline and try to get them to pay for it before they will agree to kick in – and there is usually an excess to pay with luggage, so you’re better off either trying to get the airline to pay or asking the luggage company if they can fix the luggage under warranty. We had a Crumper bag break after rough bag handling, and amazingly Crumper agreed to fix it for free as it broke under regular use. Amazing! In case our luggage goes missing, I always take a spare change of clothes or two for myself and my daughter in my carry on.

When we’ve misjudged the weather
On our recent trip to the Florida Keys we didn’t realise how incredibly hot it would be. Living in a hot country we tend to assume we can deal with any kind of heat, but we were totally wrong! The intense humidity of Florida overwhelmed us and made it incredibly hard to get out and enjoy the keys fully.

How to bounce back: air conditioning! We stuck to either water activities or places that were air conditioned where possible, took lots of breaks during the day, stayed hydrated and set our expectations lower as to what we wanted to see and do.

When plans fall through
We had one epic bad day at Epcot in Walt Disney World where I’d organise us FASTPASSES a month in advance to get on the new Frozen ride. My plan was to review the ride and write about it for publications afterwards, so I was really counting on getting on this ride, and had planned the day around it. Of course luck was not in our favour and the ride kept breaking down over and over again the entire day. We were hot, angry, and spent the whole day waiting around for the ride to be fixed – which made me even angrier that we wasted the day and money this way.

How to bounce back: This was a tough day for me because it was the worst day of our trip. I was beyond furious at the wasted expense and a day when we could have done something else. In the end, I’ve had to let it go and just focus on all of the other wonderful days that we had. I’ve also learned not to pin plans on things I can’t control – like a ride!

When we’ve all got jet lag
Amazingly we had hardly any jet lag for our entire trip – until we flew back into Australia, where Cheese and I both suffered from the worst jet lag we’ve both ever had. It was just brutal – four days straight of waking up at 3 or 4 am, and feeling like a zombie all day. Combined with a head cold I picked up on the flight, it was the most agonising return I’ve ever had.

How to bounce back: rest, rest and more rest. I usually like to get back on track straight away after flying in, but this time we took it easy for the next five days, with no outings that weren’t necessary, lots of TV and iPad time (hey what else do you do at 3am in winter?!) and going to bed early, even though my brain was telling me to push myself to stay up later. Day five was the magic morning where we both slept in till 6am and woke up feeling more alive than dead.

What are some of the biggest problems you’ve encountered when traveling?

Family Travel Tips: Dinner Time When Travelling With Kids

April 19, 2016 / Travel, Travel with kids / 16 Comments

Travel with young kids can be an exciting adventure – but also a challenge when it comes to keeping small ones happy with their need for routine, early bedtime and plain food (white-bread-butter-thats-it-please!).

Day time can be a breeze eating out with kids abroad – it’s easy to find kid-friendly cafes or grab a croissant to go. But what do you do at night time, when you would usually be at home, serving plain pasta and a single strawberry at 6pm, with the kids down by 7:30pm? We have found dinner time to be one of the bigger challenges of travelling with a little kid, and I wanted to share some tips that have worked for me, as well as a good friend of mine, Leah from the Kid Bucket List, who has travelled extensively with her two kids around the world, too.

Leah’s tips:

When we became parents and started travelling I quickly learned that all the little shortcuts and insider tips we utilised during our travels as a couple didn’t transfer across to family travel.

Skipping meals and walking all day; throwing in a late night adventure and totally winging our accommodation is a thing of the past and has required a total reframing of our travel expectations.

When we travel to new time zones we try to quickly follow the typical routine from home. We plan for three meals at fairly consistent times and bedtimes, although a little flexible at each side, are usually set at around 8pm.

With double rooms often (well, always) cheaper than 1 or 2 bedroom suites, we often find ourselves sharing a bedroom. With bedtime at 8pm for the kids this does mean tv is off as soon as their heads hit the pillow. T and I make use of headphones and our individual devices. Not really the perfect set up, but I do read a lot of books on our trips!

If the kids are tired, we’re also partial to dining in our room. Not room service, but ordering at a local cafe and taking it home. We’ve enjoyed awesome pizza, sushi, tacos and even parmigiana from the little table in our room. I also stock up on lots of snack food within the day or two of arriving anywhere so they’re at hand. Full tummies make for happy kids.

Tweaking the way you travel when kids arrive and you’ll find it is the greatest adventure of your life!

My tips for eating out when travelling with kids:

Eat out all together early: If we aren’t jetlagged, we dine together at around 6pm near hour hotel and make sure we have snacks for later for if we get hungry.

Book an airbnb, apartment or suite with a separate bedroom: This is my fave way to travel as it means we can get some basic groceries and make meals for our very fussy child at night and either make food for us, too, or get takeout once she’s asleep and shut in another room.

Get a room with a fridge: This is critical for us! See the next point.

Stash plenty of snacks in the room: I always visit a supermarket when we are staying somewhere longer than a few nights and stock up on basics my fusspot daughter will eat, like yoghurt pouches, bread, cheese, butter, cereal and milk. The long-life milk cartons are a particular life-saver. If we have any late-night food emergencies then we know she will always have something she can eat. I’ve even been known to take Vegemite from home in those small sachets that you get from hotels because they make anywhere in the world taste like home.

Bring disposable Tupperware: I like to grab food during the day that my daughter will eat, like bread rolls, a croissant, bagel etc, and store it in either a disposable Tupperware container or ziplock bags so when it comes to bedtime, I have something on hand that she is guaranteed to eat that is still relatively fresh.

Do you have any more tips for making dinner time easier when travelling?

Kakadu Dreaming: My Travel Bucket List

August 3, 2015 / Australia, Travel / 4 Comments

With our relatively small population, you could be forgiven forgetting what a big country Australia is. It’s the 6th largest country in the world, about twice the size of the whole of Europe. From hip urban cities to deserts and wetlands, Australia is a country you need a lifetime to explore.

As a Sydney girl, I’ve seen a lot of the east coast of Australia. I’ve yet to visit an area that is high on my travel bucket list – the Kakadu area in the Northern Territory. Recently I learned a lot about the amazing nature and cultural experience Kakadu has to offer, and I can’t wait to visit when Cheese is a little bit older and ready for the adventure. I’ve put together a bit of information for you to start your Kakadu dreaming, too.

What is Kakadu?
Kakadu National Park is the largest park in Australia, covering almost 20,000 square kilometres. The park includes wetlands and rivers, and is home to around 2,000 plant species and wildlife from saltwater crocodiles to turtles and birds. Kakadu also features Aboriginal rock-art paintings dating to prehistoric times.

Actually, where is Kakadu? How do I get there?
The easiest way is by coach tour or by hiring a car, and traveling from Darwin or Katherine. I just Googled how to get to Kakadu and, as a side note, it’s a 42 hour drive from Sydney, if you feel like an epic road trip.

Where should I go in Kakadu?
The area of Kakadu I’m talking about in this post is called Gagudju. Gagudju Dreaming, part of Kakadu Tourism, is the largest collection of facilities catering to tourism in Kakadu and includes accommodation and various tours and cruises. It’s also an eco-certified ecotourism destination.

Who should visit Kakadu?
Anyone can visit Kakadu, but it’s best suited for adults and families with kids eight years old and older. The adventure tours to see much of the beauty of Kakadu are limited to participants aged eight and over.

What do I do there?
The three big things people travel to Kakadu to see are waterfalls, wetlands and indigenous culture. Yellow Water Cruises operate several cruises a day on Kakadu’s most famous wetland, Yellow Water Billabong, and has been awarded the winner of the 2012 Qantas Australian Tourism Award for Major Tour and/or Transport Operators. Spirit of Kakadu Adventure Tours use a modern fleet of 4WD vehicles for all day off-road adventures to visit the waterfalls, swimming holes and escarpments of Kakadu. Warradjan Cultural Centre gives insights into the culture, history and the effects of white settlement of the Bininj people in interactive displays and exhibitions.

Kakadu Dreaming: My Travel Bucket List via christineknight.me #travel — Gagudju Crocodile Hotel, Jabiru. Kakadu NP accommodation tourism hospitality architecture IHG
Photographer: David Hancock. Copyright: SkyScans

Where do I stay?
While there are several types of accommodation (including Yellow Water Camping and Cooinda Lodge) families will the Kakadu Crocodile Hotel which is, as the name suggests, shaped like a giant crocodile. The hotel has a beautiful outdoor (and shaded!) pool and is the perfect spot to stay while exploring Kakadu National Park. The hotel is a relaxing, air-conditioned place to take a breather after your days out adventuring. Food-wise, you can enjoy modern Australian cuisine in air-conditioned comfort, enjoy a full Australian breakfast, snack and lunch menu, buffet, and a la carte dining.

When should I go?
Kakadu has two seasons: wet and dry. The wet season is November to March and the dry is April to October. Depending on when you go, there are different experiences to try. The dry season is the most popular time of year to visit, when most of the sites are open for tourists. Hotels are more expensive during this season. If you visit during the wet season, you can expect to see spectacular floods and storms with fewer visitors. While some attractions are closed during the wet season, popular areas such as Nourlangie and Yellow Water are open all year round. Plan your itinerary online.

Are you dreaming of Kakadu too? What’s on your travel bucket list?

This post was produced in conjunction with Gagudju Dreaming.

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14 Tips For Travelling With Kids

July 29, 2015 / Travel, Travel with kids / 24 Comments

We just arrived home after our epic around the world adventure with the preschooler. While all of our victories and mistakes are still clear in my foggy jet lagged head, I wanted to write down what I’ve learned about making international travel with a little kid a success. Here’s what I’ve learned after six weeks, four countries, five cities and eight flights with my three-year-old.

1. Take a stroller
Unless your kid is a strong walker, bring a lightweight umbrella stroller. We thought our 3-year-old was done with a stroller, but we didn’t take into account that we would be walking an average of 10km a day, and that our child would be battling jet lag as well as over stimulation in a new environment. She was exhausted. I cursed myself for giving away our trusty Uppababy G-LUXE that we’d use for previous trips, and got their lightest model, the Uppababy G-LITE, to make our trip easier.

2. Pack well for flights
Be prepared to battle hunger, thirst and boredom on long flights. Take an empty water bottle and fill it when you get through security and pack dry snacks and liquids up to 100ml like yoghurt sticks. Security will allow small ice packs to keep dairy cool. Take lots of pairs of underwear, wipes and a spare set of clothes, plus some small new toys and activities that your child will love. Hand out the toys one at a time when a meltdown is imminent. Charge up the iPad with new shows and games. A flight is not the time to limit screen time.

3. Break up flights
We slowly made our way around the world in short flights to make it easier for our daughter to handle the travel. At the end of a five-hour flight she would be itching to get off and no iPad on Earth could placate her.

4. Fly during the day
This is a big time waster if you only have a short time period to be away, but we found it really helpful in getting over the jet lag faster. We planned our flights to arrive at our destination and then go straight to bed. As a result, our daughter would wake up a few hours earlier than normal, but more like 4 or 5am rather than 1 or 2am.

5. Pack well for the kids
Things you should pack lots of: underpants, lightweight tees, shorts/skirts/dresses. Light is key so you can wash clothes and have them dry overnight hanging up in the hotel bathroom. I always pack travel detergent so I can wash clothes in the sink, and stain remover because I use it on my daughter’s clothes pretty much every single day. Clothing-wise, I prefer items that cover more skin over her chest and shoulders rather than strappy singlets or dresses to give her more protection from the sun. I never travel without sunscreen, either. I take a few small ones for my handbag as well as a larger one to leave in the hotel. Shoe-wise, even in summer I pack a pair of closed toe shoes for my daughter (which she wears on planes), as well as shoes that can be worn in water, such as Saltwater sandals. Always pack a small medical kit in case of scrapes, blisters, cuts and so on. We include child pain relief, mosquito repellant and stop-itch creams in case of bites.

6. Leave stuff at home
Anything fancy you don’t want stained or ruined on the trip, for both you and the child. Heavy clothing that takes days to dry. New shoes that haven’t been worn in. Delicate clothing. Expensive handbags or jewellery.

7. Choose your locations wisely
We chose to visit cities that had lots to do within walking distance of our accommodation, or a short train ride away. After all of that flying the last thing you’d want to do is arrive somewhere and then have even more travel to do to see the sights.

8. Weigh up pros and cons of apartments vs hotels
We stayed in both apartments and hotels on our trip, and there are pros and cons to each. Hotels were great in areas where we wanted to be close to everything, such as Barcelona and London, where the apartments were a bit far to then commute each day around the city from with an already tired child. We all ate dinner together each night and pretty much went to bed at the same time too – it was a bonding experience. In New York we stayed in an apartment for two weeks that was central and found it the best of both worlds in terms of location and amenities. My preferred option would be a centrally-located apartment so we can do our washing and make basic food.

9. Get hotel inclusions
Try to get breakfast included so you can fill up and grab some fruit and pastry for later, and make sure wi-fi isn’t an added charge. We stayed at Grosvenor House in London and had an amazing breakfast included (pictured above) but not wi-fi, which was a big, unexpected charge.

10. Plan less
Your itinerary with a little kid should list one single thing to do each day. Plan to spend more time doing that one thing, and getting to and from there, and don’t try to squeeze in single thing you want to see. You’ll be so tired you don’t enjoy it. The journey is part of the fun for kids, so allow time for taking a look at parks, buildings and trains on route to your actual destination.

11. Allocate down time
What worked for us was going out in the mornings to see and do something, and then returning to the hotel or apartment after lunch for a rest before heading out for an early dinner. We all needed the siesta!

12. Find fun for everyone
We planned activities that gave everyone a chance to enjoy themselves. We visited cathedrals, playgrounds and also had a fancy high tea. With all of our needs being met, all three of us enjoyed the trip. My husband and I were happier to spend time doing “kid” things like the said playgrounds when we knew that we were also going to be able to visit amazing places like Sagrada Familia, too. Taking our daughter to places we wanted to see for ourselves also taught her to put up with doing things that made other people happy even if she personally didn’t care for it. This was a moderately successful lesson that we are still working on. We were actually pleasantly surprised with how she enjoyed a lot of “adult” sights, such as the Familia. I have a beautiful memory of my daughter dancing in a rainbow shining through the stained glass windows inside the cathedral that will stay with me forever.

13. Stay longer in less locations
We thought we had planned well with a week or two in each location along our trip, but it was still a lot of travel – too much. Next time, we will stay even longer in one place, like a month, and go at an even slower pace as our 6-week trip left us all exhausted.

14. Break routines
At home I have a strict schedule for our daughter, especially with dinner and bedtime. No late nights, very healthy food, designated meal times. On our trip, however, we put the enjoyment of our trip before our daughter’s schedule to make life a bit easier. We ate out every night. Our daughter was in bed late and slept in. She ate way too much pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches. Bending the rules was fun for us all. Has anything changed now we’re home? Nope. We are back, without fuss, to our schedule, family rules and diet. Holiday success.

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Pros And Cons Of Travel With Little Kids

June 24, 2015 / Travel, Travel with kids / 8 Comments

As we’ve done a lot of travel with Cheese since she was only 3 months old, this is something I get asked a lot. We travelled for necessity – from New York back to Australia and Hawaii to see family, and to Canada to get our visas renewed. If we hadn’t needed to travel so much we would have probably been too scared to do so, as Cheese was a really tough baby, toddler, and, let’s face it, a tough preschooler. Being forced to travel was actually great because it made us get out and experience the world and create wonderful memories instead of staying home and just keeping to local, easy experiences. I wanted to share a few pros and cons of travelling with little kids.

PROS:

You still get to travel
My husband and I love travelling passionately. It’s an integral part of who we are. We were determined that when we had a kid that our travel would resume as soon as possible. We didn’t expect parenthood to be as hard as it was, but we are getting on with the difficulties while still seeing the world. We don’t want to wait until Cheese grows up to see everything we want to see – we want to experience as much as we can while we are also still young and fit enough to enjoy it. As I write this, we are in Barcelona, about to head out for tapas lunch. Travelling with a little kid is obviously a lot different than pre-kid (goodbye lazy mornings and romantic nights fueled by sangria!) but it is still incredibly enjoyable. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t do it. Adapt to the changes and travel is still wonderful, with kids of any age.

Your kid grows up a world citizen
Cheese is an American and Australian citizen. As well as significant travel in these two countries, she’s also been to Canada, Mexico, Spain and soon London. And she’s only 3. She already adapts to different cultures easily and speaks handfuls of Italian and Spanish. She understands what different languages mean and is able to confidently interact with people no matter what they look like or what language they speak. She is already a world citizen.

The memories are priceless
The years we spent in New York are among the best in my life. Each trip we have taken has been challenging, but has created memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Cheese at 1.5 yrs stroking a dolphin in Hawaii. At 2.5 yrs dashing down a beach in Mexico. At 3.5 yrs dancing in a rainbow inside the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Young kids are cheap
The younger your kid is, the cheaper it is to travel with them. Babies are free for everything, and kids up to a certain age get free transport/entry/hotel pull out beds. This trip to Barcelona, we’ve only had to pay for Cheese’s flight and food.

CONS:

It’s exhausting
I won’t lie, it’s really hard work travelling with a little kid. Jetlag is a killer – the first few mornings in Barcelona we were all up at 4am. Having a little kid means there is no such thing as a relaxing time either, it’s constantly go go go to keep them entertained.

You see and do less
Travel with a little kid means changing your expectations of what you’re going to see and do in any location. Less galleries and historical walking tours and more playgrounds and kid-friendly outings like castles.

All in all, it’s worth it to us to travel while Cheese is still young. We have such itchy feet that we can’t seem to live any other way.

What about you? Do you travel a lot with young kids?

What To Pack When Flying With Kids

June 5, 2015 / Travel, Travel with kids / 2 Comments

I’ve racked up a lot of flights with Cheese – we’ve done over 10 long haul flights with her (over 10 hours each), and a bunch of shorter ones too, so we have flying with a little one pretty much down pat. As she gets a bit older, I adjust what we pack for each flight to compensate for her growth and changes in interests, but the core items remain the same.

Snacks
I never take my preschooler ANYWHERE without snacks, and air travel is no exception. On long-haul flights, it really pays to have these Thermos containers to keep food and drink at the right temperature. My faves are the Thermos FUNtainer Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Food Jar for food like fruit and cheese (keeps food cold for up to 7 hours) and the Foogo and FUNtainer Stainless Steel Vacuum Drink Bottles with silicone straws – both of which keep contents cool for up to 12 hours (I use ours for milk and water). These containers are all leak-proof so I don’t have to worry about the contents spilling all through our bags. If you run out of milk, the airline staff will usually refill it for you. I also love these Tupperware snack cups and fill them with things like rice crackers.

Entertainment
I always pack a few new things that Cheese hasn’t seen before, plus a couple of favourites that I can count on to occupy her time. This trip, I’m relying heavily on magnets to keep Cheese busy, particularly these T.S. Sure Daisy Girls Mermaids, Alphabet and Numbers and Princess and Fairies Magnetic Tins from Bobble Art. What’s great about them is they have their own containers to keep everything together, and hey, they’re magnetic, so it’s harder to loose pieces. A little blank notebook, pens and stickers (these are from Pipsticks), some mess-free colouring books and a blind Palace Pets toy bag (top right of the picture) complete our pack of fun new things. My strategy is to take out one thing at a time when she starts getting particularly fussy, and to try and drag them out for as long as possible so the entertainment value lasts longer.

These are two of Cheese’s must-haves for basically leaving the house. The iPad (loaded up with brand new games for our trip) and a dolly for her to engage in imaginative play. The cute doll in the picture is a Tiger Tribe “Ava” Rag Doll. Cheese loves having a soft doll to take with her to be her little buddy and loves to play with her particularly on flights and in hotels. Along with the iPad we are taking these kid-friendly headphones by Nabi.

Comforts
I always pack my daughter’s favourite blanket, which is a Dream Blanket by aden + anais that she has had since birth. It keeps her warm on flights, isn’t covered in other people’s germs like the ones provided by airlines, and also gives her the familiarity of an item she loves from home when we are travelling.

Practical
We love the Trunki for travelling with Cheese – having her pull her own case and then sit on it while we pull her along is vastly easier than having to carry her now she is basically out of the stroller.

Now Cheese is almost four, I’m also packing on this trip a Trunki BoostApack, which is a backpack that turns into a car booster seat. Cheese JUST makes the height and weight requirements, which I’m thrilled about, as we no longer will have to book cars with car seats on our travels when we have this booster seat.

The Launch Of Qantas’ Joey Club With The Wiggles

May 3, 2015 / Travel, Travel With Kids News / 16 Comments

We had a very exciting Sunday when we celebrated Qantas’ launch of their new Joey Club program with a special concert by the Wiggles. The Wiggles are Cheese’s favourite group at the moment, so she was pretty over the moon to see the Wiggles live and up close.

Cheese met Emma Wiggle and was pretty much speechless.

The reason for the pop up concert at Sydney’s Qantas Club was to announce the launch of Qantas new program for their junior flyers, Joey Club.

According to Qantas, children are currently the fastest growing segment of the Qantas Frequent Flyer membership base, with some parents signing up their children from birth. (Cheese was signed up last year!).

The new Joey Club initiatives include:

A Qantas Joey Club novelty passport for new Australian-based Frequent Flyer members (aged 3-10 years old) where they can record details of their flight.
Special dedicated kids menus in domestic lounges, including made to order sandwiches in animal shapes, fresh fruit and snacks such as popcorn and sultanas.
Larger investment in the children’s inflight entertainment channels. There is a dedicated children’s movie channel with 21 hours of content (with latest releases screening on board shortly after their cinema release, as will happen with the upcoming Frozen 2) and a dedicated TV channel with 28 hours of TV shows, with The Wiggles and Peppa Pig.

Another piece of exciting news is that, from June 2015, all new Australian-based Frequent Flyer members between the age of three and ten years old will receive a special Joey Club kit when they join the program. To celebrate the launch of Joey Club, Qantas is waiving the normal join fee of $89.50 to offer a complimentary join for children at qantas.com/kids until 31 December 2015, so now is the time to sign up your kids!

Qantas already has a number of family-friendly initiatives in place, such as dedicated kids zones across the Qantas domestic and international lounge network with iMac computers, children’s furniture, toys and books.

Qantas Joey Club Launch With The #Wiggles via christineknight.me

Other existing family-friendly initiatives include:

Infant meals (up to 2 years of age) – provide a range of top brand baby food, milk, baby bottles, cereals and rusks.
Kids meals in-flight (over 2 years of age).
Priority family boarding (staff on hand at the boarding gate ready to collect the stroller and to further assist with pre-boarding the aircraft).
Additional Baggage Allowance* (include a collapsible stroller or push-chair, collapsible cot or bassinet; or car seat or baby capsule.

For more information on Qantas’ programs for kids, see qantas.com/kids.
*May vary according to destination – see qantas.com.

Adventure, Baby! was a guest of Qantas.

Family Travel Essentials: Making Travel With Kids Easier

December 23, 2014 / Travel / 0 comment

I was asked recently when we started travelling with Cheese. I didn’t think we’d travelled much with her, since she was such a tough baby and crazy active toddler, but when I added up the trips we’d done, it turns out our little lady is a pretty experienced world traveller already. In her three short years she’s flown from Sydney to New York three times, and has also been on trips to Hawaii, San Francisco, Canada and Mexico. Huh. Guess we travel more than I’d thought.

We’ve been on so many big long flights now that I feel like I’ve got travel with a little one down to a fine art – as much as that’s possible. While there will always be times when they won’t nap on the plane, or they’re bored and have a meltdown (and don’t get me started on the jetlag), travel with a little kid has gotten less stressful with the right tools. I’m sharing them below in case you’d like to try them too.

Kids’ Suitcase
We acquired an insanely cute Sunny Trunki kids’ suitcase for Cheese before our recent Queensland trip. The Trunki is a hand-luggage sized ride-on suitcase that is the perfect size to pack with everything you might need to entertain a kid on a flight.

Made from lightweight, durable plastic, the Trunki has a removable shoulder strap and can be used in three ways: The kid pulls it along themselves, then when said kid gets tired they can ride on it while you pull them along, and, finally, when it’s time to board the plane, the shoulder strap clips onto both sides so it can be thrown over your shoulder. While Trunkis are easy to find in the US, in Australia, you can get them from David Jones. Seriously, this ride-on suitcase made our last trip so much easier.

Carry-on luggage
I take a backpack that does double duty as a day bag when we’re out and about on our trips. I’m currently using a really cute backpack from Smiggle that has a laptop sleeve in the back, two pouches on either side for mine and Cheese’s water bottles and a front pocket where I shove anything needed urgently, like nappies, wipes, change mat.

Umbrella stroller
We still take the stroller with us as we walk a lot and if we don’t take it, someone always ends up carrying the Cheese. We love our stroller, the UppaBaby G-Luxe. We bought it in the US, but they’re also available in Australia. The G-Luxe is the lightest reclining stroller in its class (Cheese will still occasionally nap in it!). It’s so light that I can easily collapse it and carry it over one shoulder when I’m navigating public transport and chasing Cheese at the same time. I always check the stroller at check-in, and try to get one of the big plastic protectors for it from the flight desk so it doesn’t come out the other end totally destroyed.

Baby carrier
I can still carry Cheese on my back in the Ergo (avail in the US and Australia), so I throw it in if we’re traveling somewhere that’s going to involve a lot of walking and isn’t stroller friendly.

Flight necessities
For long flights in particular, several changes of clothing (something about flying makes babies especially poop A LOT), and as many nappies as you can squeeze in if you’re child still needs them. I used to pack lots of fruit pouches and I still pack lots of snacks and a sandwich. Staff on the flight will give you plenty more snacks and also refill milk bottles as requested. I always take one of Cheese’s old muslin swaddles (it still doubles as a shade from the sun and a light blanket) and her favourite blanket and lovie that she still sleeps with to help her nap on planes. The blanket Cheese is attached to is an old aden + anais Dream Blanket (available in the US and Australia) that is made from the same breathable muslin as their swaddles – it washes up really well and adds just the right level of warmth needed.

To amuse the kid
I always bring the iPad stocked with new games, movies and TV episodes and kids’ headphones (if we forget them, we use Alec’s wireless headphones in a pinch). I also throw in a few new toys like stickers, a magnetic travel kit, small colouring book, crayons, and figurines (Cheese’s favourites). I whip out anything new in moments of meltdowns. Her absolute favourite toy right now is her set of princess magic clips. They occupy her for literally an hour at a time, so we always bring them on flights and to cafes too.

What do you find makes travel with kids easier?