Bethany Vana

I’m Bethany, mom of two little girls. My husband and I have made traveling with our kids a priority because a) we love to travel, b) my husband needs to travel often for work and we like to be together and c) we think it’s good for kids to travel even when they’re very young. Our toddler has been on countless flights and road trips and we just took our infant on her first cross-country flight. Each age comes with its own challenges, but we feel confident and comfortable now when we set out on trips.

Before my first long-haul flight with our first baby, I scoured the internet looking for reliable sources for family travel advice and was surprised by the somewhat meager offering from the web. Where were all my mommy bloggers when I needed them most? I did come across articles written for parenting magazines that made me want to scream/laugh… “buy a seat for your infant” (we’re not made of money), “consider only taking cruises…etc.” I didn’t come across many resources that resonated with me, my family’s financial situation, or the kind of travel we want to do with our kids. Eventually, as with everything in parenthood, we figured things out on our own and after many trips my husband and I have become comfortable traveling with kids. I don’t claim to be an expert traveler and I am not a seasoned parent by anyone’s definition. But we’ve traveled a lot with our babies, have planned and researched quite a bit for each trip, and we hope our experiences can help those planning to travel with their own children.

Friends often ask us for family travel advice; hopefully this space will impart the wisdom we’ve accumulated via trial and error and to hopefully add sage advice from other traveling families who have even more experience. Traveling with kids can be challenging, but for us it has always been worth it!