Nothing instills dread in a parent like traveling with a young child. As if long lines, delays, and lost luggage weren’t enough of headache—add a whiny toddler to the mix and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm. I was fortunate enough to experience this first hand last week as I returned from vacation. I have to give little T credit for taking all the waiting in stride. In fact, I’d say he did a better job keeping it together than his father at times—at least up until Dada took his “happy flying pills” (after which he becomes a much better traveler).
A bit extreme perhaps…
One thing I learned on this trip is you can never have too many books on hand. Books are a great distraction on planes, trains, cars, waiting in lines… The problem is books for young kids aren’t very long so you kind of need a lot to fill up the time. Then you run into issues of packing and lugging around all these books. I suppose this is why many parents resort to ipads and other electronic distractions for their kids, but I have yet to go down that road. I’m scared that once I let little T play on the ipad that he’ll be clamoring for it all the time, and I want to nurture his unadulterated love of books for as long as I can. I know I can’t keep Pandora’s box shut forever, but for now I’m holding strong.
Whether you care to stick with just books or just want to supplement your child’s electronic diet, here’s a few tips on traveling with a budding bookworm:
- Paperbacks, obviously, are the way to go. Most people tend to have hardcovers at home when it comes to kids books, but this is why the library exists people!
- While you’re at the library, check out some age-appropriate books about your vacation destination or the types of activities you’ll be doing. There are plenty of books out there about camping, the seaside, artifacts in museums, and destinations around the world (If you’d like help tracking down books for your next trip, give me a holler, I’d love to help).
- If it’s your youngsters’ first time on a plane/train/boat I highly recommended getting some relevant books about your mode of travel so they can get excited ahead of time about the trip. Getting there is half the fun after all (likely story).
- Pack books with multiple stories. This is where you can break the paperback rule. Bringing a hard cover treasury of Curious George stories might just be worth the room in your suitcase. For my toddler, I discovered that some Easy Reader books are also great options. For example, Frog and Toad and Little Bear are compact lightweight books that each contain several stories. More bang for your buck.
- For kids who are reading on their own, get them hooked on series books and they’ll gladly while away the hours reading about what their favorite characters are up to. I remember spending a summer vacation in Belgium happily racing through the entire Anne of Green Gables series. That was quite a while ago, take a look at the NYTimes bestselling children’s series list to see what’s popular these days.
Little T’s cousin helps him kill time in the car.
