Toddler Travel Tips: How We Survive Flights, Road Trips, and Vacations
Traveling with a toddler isn’t exactly relaxing, but it can be meaningful, memorable, and surprisingly smooth with the right strategies. After plenty of flights, long road trips, and more snack emergencies than I can count, we’ve learned what truly helps and what’s just noise. In this post, I’m sharing the toddler-travel tips and tricks we rely on every single trip, so you can spend less time stressing and more time enjoying the adventure together.
Why Travel with a Baby (or Even Scarier… a Toddler)?
I know, when you first start thinking of traveling with young kids all you can picture is the baby screaming in the airplane, the overwhelming packing, the frantically searching for that darned pacifier lost in the car. It can be super intimidating!
But as a mom who has taken her now 2.5 year old on countless trips (whether in the car, train or plane!) I want to tell you this: It’s worth it. Every time we have returned from a vacation, no matter how small/low-key, my son has came home with new or further developed skills. Take our most recent trip for example, we went on a short cruise. He came home and has been non-stop talking in full sentences, and can do a somersault out of nowhere!
Now I am no scientist, but I do know that exposing children to new and exciting environments helps them grow in ways I can’t put into words.
Plus, if you follow some of my tried & true tips below, you may find traveling with young ones isn’t the nightmare fuel I talked about earlier 😅
The Prep Team:
The first airplane ride we took with our son was when he was 7 months old. So, naturally, we were very concerned about the germs on an airplane. These wipes were some of the first things we purchased when preparing for this trip. They are alcohol free, kill 99% of household germs, and are in slim packaging (perfect for that carry-on bag!). We wiped all surfaces my son would touch, and sighed a breath of relief knowing we wouldn’t be playing “no-don’t-grab-that!” for our 6 hour flight.
Another bit of preparation we did was food prep. Now this is totally dependent on how old your kiddo is when traveling but let’s all admit, no matter how old you are, we all love to snack! So prepping a variety of safe snacks is never a bad idea.
One of my sons favorite snacks are the Once Upon a Farm pouches. These are packed full of good fruits and veggies, but they need to be refrigerated (which is not so handy on long car rides). What we found though was a game-changer: a freezable pouch cooler. When frozen overnight, it keeps his pouches cold for hours. Now we don’t have to pack a backseat cooler for just a few snacks!
The Peacekeepers:
Depending on the length of your journey, the age of your travel companion, and the amount of money you’re willing to spend, a peacekeeping strategy will need to be implemented – aka something that keeps small humans calm and engaged longer than 11 seconds.
If you are on a tighter budget, then my tip for you is to hide a favorite toy a week or two before your trip.
A good one, a favorite of theirs. My criteria would be: enjoyment, independence, and noise level (no loud firetrucks on airplanes please). That way, you are the most magical parent on the planet for making this awesome toy appear before them, right before take off! They will be so excited and hopefully, entertained.
If you have a little extra vacation-cash to spend, find one new toy before the trip and don’t show it to them until you are traveling. We have done this on 2 separate occasions and both times were successes!
Here are some things I have used with success:
For ages under 2 years old:
We took this toy with us when our son was just short of a year old. Although I can see him loving it as early as 6 months! It was awesome to have different settings to learn different things (colors, numbers, and animals) and the sound level wasn’t too high for a crowded airplane. (My son also loved putting his little veggie puffs in the pop-it holes, an added bonus :P)
For ages over 2 years old:
This is what we took with us on our most recent trip, so my son was 2.5 at the time. He loved all the different animal-themed pages and the hidden pictures were age appropriate, while still being time-consuming enough to find! Plus, it’s slim enough to fit in a backpack easily without any added bulk.
The Big Ticket Items:
Okay, when I say big ticket, I more mean physically larger than the other things I have talked about 😅 But they are still very much needed and have been lifesavers when it came to traveling. Imagine… Two parents, a toddler, a checked bag, two carry-ons, cell phones, wallets, AND a stroller and car seat to throw on top?! Yeah I’ll pass, thank you!
Unless… you have compact gear. That changed everything for us. Plus, I have a super-secret tip about the car seat at the end!
The Most Compact Umbrella Stroller:
This stroller has been on 90% of our travels. It is so compact, lightweight, and easy to assemble. It handles pretty well on a variety of terrain, but I wouldn’t recommend taking any stroller on hikes through Yosemite 😅 My son has never complained about comfortability in it either. In fact, he has fallen asleep in it more times than I can count! My only complaint with this stroller is that due to its compact nature, the shade on it is very small. So pack a hat for your little ones!
The Foldable Car Seat of Your Dreams:
This was a recent find for us, as we just took our first toddler-needs-his-own-seat flight. I had no clue how we were going to carry his huge toddler car seat through the airport on top of all of our other luggage, but we knew he needed one for the airplane and any other car trips. Thankfully, my husband came to the rescue finding this extremely lightweight and easy to fold-up travel car seat. It fits in both planes and cars really well! My only complaints are that it has to be forward facing (not a problem if your kid is large enough) and lastly, the cost.
Which brings me to my super-secret travel car seat tip… we rented it! 🤫 Now this may not be available to everyone, but we found someone in a town over who rents out her WAYB Pico. We paid a holding price, and then upon return we got a majority of our money back. It was an awesome and convenient way to test it out, although if you are a frequent traveler I would recommend it for purchase too!
Notable Extras:
These aren’t must-haves for everyone, but they’re items we’ve personally used on trips and found surprisingly helpful. If you’ve got a little extra space, these might just save the day:
- Tushbaby / Baby Hip Carrier – Makes navigating, boarding, and quick in-and-out stops so much easier without wrestling with full carriers or strollers.
- Portable Baby Bathtub – Tiny tubs make hotel bath time feel familiar and way less stressful for everyone.
- Portable High Chair – Great for places away from home that don’t have high chairs, so your little one can focus on eating rather than playing.
- Sticky Placemats – Stick right to the table, peel off when you’re done, and no one has to scrub mac and cheese from a restaurant booth seat.
- Gummy Strings for Toys & Snack Cups – Secure anything so it doesn’t hit the airport floor for the twentieth time. 🙄
- Hangable Toiletries Bag – Keeps all bath items in one place and off the limited hotel counter space.
- Travel Changing Mat – Useful for airports, car seats, restaurants, attractions—anywhere you find yourself saying, “This surface is…questionable.”
- Story Collections (Multiple Tales in One Book) – Instead of packing five separate books, we like bringing one larger storybook that has multiple stories inside.
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Final Thoughts
Although traveling with young kids may seem daunting, I promise the memories are worth it! I have cherished all of the places my son has been able to explore and enjoy and learn from, and without taking that first leap into traveling, we would have never known how rewarding it can be. Hopefully these tips make your trips a little easier, and help you enjoy every moment ❤️ (Except for that moment in TSA when you don’t know if you’re supposed to take your shoes off or not, because who enjoys that. 🙄)
❤️ Until Next Time
