Hey friends, Lindsey here. If you didn’t know, last month for the first half of November, my family and I took a trip to Spain for 10 days. We had a blast and had wanted to make a trip to Europe with the girls for a while now, and I’m just so happy we were able to make it happen when we did. And since then, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the logistics of our trip – especially about traveling overseas with multiple kids.
So that’s what I’m going to be diving into in today’s episode. Today you’ll hear me break down why we went, why we chose Spain, our itinerary, how we traveled with little kids, tips I recommend when traveling with littles, and what I would change if I could go back and redo the trip over again.
WHY WE WENT
It was a last-minute trip in a way but we wanted to go international as a family since Eloise was born. The reason we wanted to travel with our kids so young, giving our children experience and life in different cultures and the world. We wanted to do a sabbatical trip in May but we wisely could not afford it, so we decided not to.
We’ve had passports for the girls since they were born and covid has prevented an international trip. When we sold our Kansas trip and moved to Florida, we made a pretty good profit on that house, so we wanted to take most of that money towards investments, but we decided to take 10k aside and do a family trip.
WHY SPAIN
November was pretty much the only time we could make it work before the year was over and I was too pregnant to travel. We looked for the cheapest flights in Europe or South America and the warmest place and where the sun did NOT set at 3 pm.
We researched and Spain is SUPER family and kid-friendly. The culture of waking up late, having breakfast at 10-11, lunch at 2 pm, and going down for a nap around 4 pm. Waking up at 7 pm and going out for a late dinner at 8 pm worked SO well with kids.
OUR ITINERARY (10 days total, no more than 3 cities were recommended to me)
HOW WE DID IT WITH KIDS
The flight there was overnight to Madrid. Our kids are incredible crib sleepers cause we sleep-trained them early on, but because of that, they don’t fall asleep anywhere super easily. So we were nervous about the flight over. When we boarded our flight from Philadelphia to Madrid we tried to do all our normal bedtime routines to get them to go to sleep. Eloise slept the entire flight! Andrew is the baby whisperer, and he was holding Anna and trying to rock her and help her fall asleep. Eventually, that worked but there was a good 30-40 minutes of crying.
Once we landed in Madrid we put our luggage in lockers near our Airbnb. That first day after the red eye we had to push through. When we did get into our Airbnb at 3 pm we all took a nap, but the key is to wake yourself up and then go out to dinner. Then that first full evening in Spain in a bed we let everyone sleep as long as possible.
We made sure to book Airbnbs with pack and plays so we didn’t have to bring one with us to pack lighter. We did bring a stroller, but probably wouldn’t next time since we primarily used a carrier. To help the kids keep a daily routine we made sure that they get a crib nap every day if possible.
No rental car: We didn’t have to bother with bringing car seats and in Spain, you don’t need car seats in Uber, taxis, or buses. So because of that, we used public transportation. But because we didn’t rent a car it kind of meant no hiking or nature/national park/mountain exploration and instead, we explored the cities.
WHAT WOULD I CHANGE
We visited three places, the main reason we chose Alicante was there was an island an hour away that had a lighthouse, and Alice (Andrew’s mom) loves lighthouses so we wanted to try and visit a lighthouse in Spain. However, we should have done more research beforehand and since it was a semi-last-minute trip we didn’t do as much. The brief research Andrew had done beforehand saw that we could go on a Monday or Wednesday, but we got there on a Tuesday and that was when the Taylor Swift concert tickets went live so we had to be at the Airbnb. Wednesday morning Andrew is trying to book the tickets and realizes they didn’t update the website and since it’s off-season the only days they do the boat ride was Tuesdays and Thursdays. So overall do more research beforehand because we probably wouldn’t have gone to Alicante.
Communicate expectations BEFORE the trip so you don’t feel the pressure to see EVERYTHING when you’re spending money to go across the ocean. Before any trip has a sit-down conversation about what every day will look like and what each other’s expectations are.
Show notes
Productivity Freebie: www.theheartuniversity.com/productivity
Contracts: www.theheartcontracts.com
Use the link above for 10% off!
The Heart Shop Apparrel: www.theheartuniversity.com/apparrel
Good travel toys to keep kids company on flights/restaurants:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1601692706?tag=onamzmrslinds-20&linkCode=ssc&creativeASIN=1601692706&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.131UZBAVO1BCT&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ofs_mixed_m_asin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F39DDMX?tag=onamzmrslinds-20&linkCode=ssc&creativeASIN=B07F39DDMX&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.131UZBAVO1BCT&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ofs_mixed_m_asin
If you want to connect with us and other listeners in the Heart and Hustle community join our Facebook group here.
PODCAST10 for 10% off anything from The Shop!
www.theheartuniversity.com/shop
Follow along:
www.instagram.com/mrslindseyroman
www.instagram.com/evierupp
www.instagram.com/theheartuniversity
Be the first to comment