Traveling with your kids as a single parent can feel like an impossible task; lucky for you, though – it’s not. Traveling with kids isn’t much different than taking the kids to the beach for the day. It requires careful planning, organization, communication, and the right attitude.
Developing those skills together as a family takes time and practice, like learning any new skill, but before you know it, those single-parent travel jitters will be old news. I’ve been traveling as a single parent for quite some time now, and the crew and I just wrapped up our 15th(!) trip of 2023.
We’ve learned a lot together this year, and we’re sharing our growing collection of our must-know family travel tips to give you the confidence boost you need for traveling with family this year. Trust us, Mama, you’ve got this.
Traveling With Kids: Everything You Need to Go
Traveling With Kids As A Single Parent for The First Time
Traveling with kids is a fun and emotionally rewarding experience. Exploring new lands and seeing those places through your children’s eyes is unlike anything else you’ll ever experience. It can also feel very scary the first time.
Preparing to Prepare
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made and that I’ve seen other single parents make is not being prepared enough. Preparations must happen long before departure day to ensure a smooth and stress-free trip. I call this preparing to prepare.
As single parents, we have many more moving pieces and much less time on hand. Investing just a little time to prepare ourselves before we prepare our children goes a long way.
Things to consider when you’re traveling as a single parent
- What type of vacation is right for your family? Are you beach lovers? Amusement park fans? History buffs? Plan for a vacation that allows everyone to participate and enjoy.
- Where can you enjoy that type of vacation experience? Disney fans can enjoy Disney experiences in Florida, California, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Paris.
- How long of a vacation can you take, and what’s your budget?
Answering these key questions will help you sift through the noise and let you focus your research only on the top contenders. Once you know what you’re working with, involve your children.
Involve Your Kids in Planning
Make your children part of the process! One of my biggest family travel tips is to get the kids involved as early as possible. They’ll feel more excited and invested in the chores to come (the packing, the luggage, the laundry…) if they’ve been involved from the start.
This is also a unique opportunity to learn more about what interests them as you plan what you’ll see and do for activities on your trip. They may even have some you wouldn’t have considered!
Picking A Family-Friendly Travel Destination
While you may share my dream of renting an over-ocean bungalow in the Maldives, you must remember that not every travel destination is kid-friendly. And not every destination has the amenities and infrastructure required when traveling as a single parent.
Family Travel Tips Rule #2: Prioritize Kid-Friendly Amenities
What are these kid-friendly amenities? While there are a million different kids programs and experiences that hotels have introduced to keep parents traveling with kids engaged and excited to visit, we’re more concerned with the essentials right now.
- Look for family-friendly hotels that offer kid menus, swimming pools, in-room kitchenettes when possible, and rooms large enough to hold you, your kiddos, and the luggage.
- Review the travel advisory website for any safety or travel concerns for your optional destinations.
- Research the available medical facilities in the area that you’re considering traveling to. Can you get help in the event of a medical issue?
- Investigate the pharmacy situation of the location you plan to visit. Children often get minor illnesses, fevers, rashes, you name its (I know you know).
Research Activities in Advance
Check out what child-friendly activities and attractions are available at your chosen destination. Whether it’s a local zoo, museum, amusement park, or nature hike, you want to ensure there’s enough to do to keep them entertained.
When researching activities, note the cost and include it in your budget tracker.
Budgeting for Your Family’s Vacation
Create a Detailed Budget For Family Travel
Travel costs can add up quickly, especially with kids. Include all possible expenses in your budget: flights, accommodation, meals, activities, souvenirs, and an emergency fund.
One of my top family travel tips for single parents is to work backward. Use your budget as a lens in the pre-preparation planning stage to further narrow down your vacation destination options.
I like to do a cost-benefit analysis when I’ve narrowed my destination options down to 3. If airfare is cheaper in option A, I might be able to get a nicer room or do more activities. If option B is one of my bucket list destinations, but airfare is high, and I would have to sacrifice activities, I might delay that trip for a better time.
Look for Deals
There are plenty of discounts available for single parents traveling with kids. Look for ‘kids eat free’ deals at restaurants, family discounts on activities, and off-peak travel deals.
All-inclusive resorts, especially those that work with travel partners to provide included airfare, are often a great value. I would classify most of the all-inclusive resorts I’ve stayed at as 3 – 4-star resorts. Clean rooms but maybe a little outdated, clean facilities, and decent food.
Have a Points Strategy
This is the most controversial family travel tip I will share with you. Have a strategy for amassing credit card points. Yes, my fellow personal finance friends are rolling over in their chairs right now, but it’s true: travel points can knock hundreds and thousands off of your vacations.
Look, I don’t like debt. I really don’t like high-interest “bad” debt, which is the world that we live in now, but traveling with kids is expensive. Kids. Are. So. Expensive.
We spend thousands of dollars monthly buying groceries, paying for streaming services, and dealing with life’s finances. What if I told you that you could earn a minimum of 1 point per dollar spent and up to 5 points per dollar spent each month that can be redeemed for everything from airfare to hotels and experiences?
The credit card debt trap is real, and this shouldn’t be considered financial advice as I’m not a financial advisor, nor am I familiar with your spending habits. However, I’ve amassed more than 130,000 points this year alone. Where did it come from? Groceries, Netflix, and travel.
I don’t know about you, but I have 2 pre-teen boys, and they like to eat. I’m guessing that between now and the time they graduate, we will all have flown to Europe and back first class at least twice, for free, just because I moved these expenses to my credit card and not my debit card.
Yes, personal finance friends, I pay it off in full monthly.
Consider Travel Insurance
Travel insurance can cover trip cancellations, lost luggage, or medical emergencies. While it’s an additional expense, its peace of mind can be invaluable.
Since I was just on the topic, several credit cards, including Chase Preferred, offer travel insurance policies to their card holders. Sometimes, it’s free for the basics and sometimes a nominal fee, but having a good travel insurance policy before you depart for your trip will give you peace of mind.
Make sure you have and print at least 2 copies of your travel insurance documents. One should be kept with your primary travel documents and stored in your child’s luggage. Make sure they know the location.
Family Travel Tips: Ensuring a Smooth Journey
When you’ve finally decided on your family-friendly travel destination, the timeline for visiting, and which activities you’ll be participating in with your children, it’s time to think about packing, entertainment, and the launch.
When Traveling With Kids, Pack Light.
The fewer bags you have to juggle, the easier your journey will be. When traveling as a single parent with your kids, you’re the only pair of adult hands, which is why this is one of my all-time favorite family travel tips.
Family Travel Tips For Packing Light
- Research the different packing methods and products that are available on the market today. Find a system that works for your family and use it.
- Avoid large shoulder bags. When traveling with kids through a busy airport, I highly recommend using a cross-body purse and avoiding shoulder bags. Cross-body bags allow you to have two free hands when necessary (which is a lot) and prevent you from overpacking your carry-on.
- Get your child a travel backpack and make them responsible for it. One of the biggest mistakes I see single parents traveling with children make is making themselves responsible for all of the “stuff.” Children as young as 3 are capable of carrying their own travel backpack. You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders.
Here are 6 of our favorite children’s travel backpacks.
Make sure you do some advanced and real-time research into the weather conditions for your vacation. It’s helpful to know at a high level what to expect and, therefore, what to pack for a trip, but remember that the weather does change and doesn’t always cooperate. We recommend looking at the weather again somewhere between 2-7 days of your departure time.
Travel Documents
Keep your travel documents secure but accessible, and consider having copies stored separately. If you’re a single parent, you might need a consent letter from the other parent to travel with your child, especially for international travel.
I’m a huge fan of passports for children. It greatly reduces the number of documents I need to carry around when I’m traveling as a single parent. Still, there are a lot of nuances to getting the right travel documentation for traveling with kids.
Get our guide to children’s travel documentation to ensure you have your bases covered on your next family vacation.
Traveling With Kids
You’ve purchased your tickets, your reservation is set, and you’re officially traveling as a single parent. Let’s go! Hold on, sparky.
Traveling with kids isn’t like traveling solo. Most kids aren’t going to be content sitting in a car, train, or airplane for an extended amount of time without some form of entertainment, especially if you have younger children.
As we have prepared for our trip, we must also prepare our children. Teach them what to expect in the security line at the airport. Teach them about customs. Teach them about airplane bathrooms (I wish I had done this sooner) and how to store and access the items in their travel backpack.
Keep Kids Entertained
Whether traveling by plane, train, or automobile, keeping kids entertained during the journey can be challenging. Please help your child pack a travel backpack with various activities to entertain them throughout the journey.
This could include books they like to read together, coloring books, Legos, regular books or Kindle books, and even Nintendo Switch devices. Your goal is to help them create enough variety to avoid boredom and to provide enough creature comforts from home that they feel safe.
Staying Healthy
Take measures to stay healthy, like regular hand washing, eating well, and staying hydrated. If traveling to a destination with specific health risks, ensure you’re vaccinated and take the necessary precautions.
Reminder: Every country has different suggested vaccine requirements, and our biggest family travel tip here is to check early. Some vaccines require multiple visits at specific intervals to be considered fully vaccinated.
Ensure you have a list of emergency contacts for your destination, including the nearest hospital, your country’s embassy (if traveling internationally), and a reliable local taxi company.
Making Memories Together
Most importantly, remember to enjoy your time together. The trip’s goal is to create lasting memories with your children, so focus on having fun and exploring new things together. Also, don’t forget to capture the memories you’ve made together so they can be enjoyed for many more years to come.
One of my family’s favorite traditions is printing our favorite pictures from the tip and adding them to our travel journals. These 4×6 sized travel journals come with stickers and plenty of picture pages, note pages, and areas where children can draw some of the things they saw on our trips, and the boys love to look back at them several times a year with me.
Traveling as a single parent can be challenging, but with careful planning and a positive attitude, it can be an amazing experience. Remember, the goal is to enjoy this special time with your children. With these tips, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the world of family-friendly travel as a single parent.
We hope that your adventures are many and joyful. If you’ve been traveling as a single parent, what additional tips would you add to this list for a first-timer?