Packing for Travel with Younger Kids

Our daughter went on her first international trip at 6 months old and usually asks where we're going next when we walk in the door after a trip. We've learned a lot of tricks along the way to help her love travel and to keep us sane. Here are a few of the standard things we pack to help on long flights or to make sure she gets time on our trips to just be a kid. 

The links below are attached to an Amazon Associate account but you can just use these as suggestions to help you pack your own kid survival gear: 

Melatonin - I usually throw some melatonin gummies in a Ziploc baggie for easy packing. We use them to help our daughter sleep on the plane and to adjust to new time zones. We don't rely on them at home but they really have made a big difference for her when our travel takes us through a big time zone change. 

Elderberry Gummies - It's not unusual for one of us to pick up the sniffles after a long plane ride. I always travel with these and really feel like they've helped us recover faster so we can enjoy the trip. There's also a kid version. Another bonus is that they taste great and pack well.

Travel art kits -  We tend to cover a lot of ground in each place we visit so our daughter spends a lot of time in the car. We pack art kits that fit in our carry-on luggage and won't cause issues with airport security. She loves these travel size watercolor kits and this reusable drawing book. I've also packed these wax craft sticks that we can break out when she's restless. She has fun crafting and I love that she doesn't spend big chunks of time glued to a screen in the car.

Travel Pillows - We travel with this kid-sized, fuzzy neck pillow and with an inflatable seat extender. The seat extender especially is easy to pack and gives her a way to stretch out and sleep on overnight plane rides in the cramped coach seats. If we have a row of 3 seats the adults can sometimes stretch our legs out on it too and we're all a lot more comfortable. We don't always remember the neck pillow but the seat extender is always in our carry-on bag.

Over-the-ear headphones with airplane adapter - There were originally my headphones but we quickly found that having a comfortable set of headphones with a cable to connect to the in-seat entertainment was a game changer. The free headphones don't work for little ears and I think the noise canceling feature in this pair also helps her sleep on long flights.

Waterproof Shoes - My daughter is on her third pair of these shoes. We've been some pretty wet places (like Iceland, Ireland, and Scotland) and we always pack a version of this shoe. They are light and comfortable and break in quickly. My daughter loves them. Keeping her feet warm and dry has really helped us keep going when the weather is less than ideal.

Outlet Extender - on our last trip to Europe, we packed one of these outlet extenders. We tend to travel with phones, computers, iPads and an Apple Watch. We brought one European converter and used this as our charging bank. I think it ultimately saved space and was really convenient for us to charge all of our devices every night.