Adulting : Travel with Kids edition
March 28, 2023 5:37 PM Subscribe
Beloved family members recently visited - Adults are about 10 years younger than me, with 3 kids. Their travel sucked (the visit itself was great) but in talking to the trip-planner about it, he eventually said "Yeah, in hindsight, we saved some money by getting the cheapest flights and rental car, but really came out way behind".
Any tips on how to do this better?
Background:
They could have driven, which would have been about 1000 miles, so I don't think flying was a bad option...
However, their plans seemed not so great:
* drive 150 miles (away from a regional airport) to a major airport
* fly, on the last flight of the day (leaving 9pm, arriving about midnight)
* rent a car (cheapo rental car agency)
* drive to their hotel
Their flight was delayed, so they arrived about 2am, at which point the rental car desk had closed, so they ended up getting a hotel near the airport, and picking up the car the next day.
By flying, Door-to-door, it took over 24 hours, they paid over $2500 for airfare + rental car + extra hotel room.
Had they driven, it would have required 1 hotel room night extra (for the drive down), about 15 hours of driving, but zero airfare, no rental car, and perhaps cost about $500 to $1000.
Any tips?
For example, as I age I realized "sleep is really important" so I'm very reluctant to choose early-morning, late night / red-eye flights, even if they are much cheaper.
Background:
They could have driven, which would have been about 1000 miles, so I don't think flying was a bad option...
However, their plans seemed not so great:
* drive 150 miles (away from a regional airport) to a major airport
* fly, on the last flight of the day (leaving 9pm, arriving about midnight)
* rent a car (cheapo rental car agency)
* drive to their hotel
Their flight was delayed, so they arrived about 2am, at which point the rental car desk had closed, so they ended up getting a hotel near the airport, and picking up the car the next day.
By flying, Door-to-door, it took over 24 hours, they paid over $2500 for airfare + rental car + extra hotel room.
Had they driven, it would have required 1 hotel room night extra (for the drive down), about 15 hours of driving, but zero airfare, no rental car, and perhaps cost about $500 to $1000.
Any tips?
For example, as I age I realized "sleep is really important" so I'm very reluctant to choose early-morning, late night / red-eye flights, even if they are much cheaper.
Any tips?
Flying is fine, and three hour flights are really no big deal, but throwing dice on the last flight of the day with children and luggage in tow was the rookie mistake. If you have to use the major airport - and as shock muppet says, pricing out the regional one was a better idea - the power move there is to get the hotel room the evening before and then catch a morning flight,
posted by mhoye at 5:48 PM on March 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
Flying is fine, and three hour flights are really no big deal, but throwing dice on the last flight of the day with children and luggage in tow was the rookie mistake. If you have to use the major airport - and as shock muppet says, pricing out the regional one was a better idea - the power move there is to get the hotel room the evening before and then catch a morning flight,
posted by mhoye at 5:48 PM on March 28, 2023 [14 favorites]
Response by poster: Good point. I'm not a big Uber user, but this family is 2 adults + 3 kids + luggage, so I'm not sure if they would fit in the average Uber, but I think Uber XL exists?
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:49 PM on March 28, 2023
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:49 PM on March 28, 2023
Every family I know stays in a hotel near the airport the night before, and flies out in the morning.
it is generally very expensive to fly domestically right now. So they have to decide between time vs. money (unless they happen to find a good deal). Personally, I wouldn’t really mind going the driving route if I had kids and it was that much hassle to fly, AND I saved that much money.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:10 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
it is generally very expensive to fly domestically right now. So they have to decide between time vs. money (unless they happen to find a good deal). Personally, I wouldn’t really mind going the driving route if I had kids and it was that much hassle to fly, AND I saved that much money.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:10 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
I assume the reason they flew out of the major airport was because the flight was direct. Rookie mistake. Everyone assumes kids hate layovers, which is absolutely untrue (especially if the kids are old enough to know what an airport is). I’m not sure the smaller airport would have been cheaper, but the experience would have been better. Small and midsize airports are one of the best things about traveling. The TSA line is never long, and the agents themselves, with a correspondingly lower workload, are usually much friendlier. I’ve actually had prolonged fun conversations with TSA agents at small airports before. At Logan they just shout all the time.
Flying earlier in the day is good advice for anyone, not just people with kids. Early flights are rarely delayed, and on the rare occasions they are, they still usually depart that day.
Renting a car really depends on the kids and the location. If you’re in a sprawling city like Dallas or LA and you’ve got multiple car seats, a rental is a much more convenient option. For somewhere compact, with better public transportation, or with older kids, maybe not.
The feasibility of driving really depends on the kids, and, really on their moods that day. Last summer I took a 10-hour one way trip with my then 5- and 2-year olds. They behaved well and had a great time. The same summer, we took a long weekend an hour away and my 2-year-old spent the entire drive throwing whatever he could get his hands on at his sister.
TLDR I’ve travelled a lot with kids, both by car and by plane, and the only thing I would’ve done differently is to book an earlier flight from the closer airport.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Flying earlier in the day is good advice for anyone, not just people with kids. Early flights are rarely delayed, and on the rare occasions they are, they still usually depart that day.
Renting a car really depends on the kids and the location. If you’re in a sprawling city like Dallas or LA and you’ve got multiple car seats, a rental is a much more convenient option. For somewhere compact, with better public transportation, or with older kids, maybe not.
The feasibility of driving really depends on the kids, and, really on their moods that day. Last summer I took a 10-hour one way trip with my then 5- and 2-year olds. They behaved well and had a great time. The same summer, we took a long weekend an hour away and my 2-year-old spent the entire drive throwing whatever he could get his hands on at his sister.
TLDR I’ve travelled a lot with kids, both by car and by plane, and the only thing I would’ve done differently is to book an earlier flight from the closer airport.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
You didn't mention locations, but would taking a train have been an option? I find it's by far the best and most relaxing way to travel, especially with kids. Rooms in a train can get expensive but I paid about half of what your visitors paid to travel about twice the distance on Amtrak in a roomette.
posted by mezzanayne at 6:30 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mezzanayne at 6:30 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
The answer is you fly to them :)
Barring that, I would take the connecting flight from the regional airport.
posted by haptic_avenger at 6:30 PM on March 28, 2023
Barring that, I would take the connecting flight from the regional airport.
posted by haptic_avenger at 6:30 PM on March 28, 2023
Fly early in the day, the earliest ones are as cheap as the late night ones. If it's a connecting flight, use the same airline for both legs, book directly with the airline's website not Expedia. Both legs on the same airline means they will transfer your checked bags but it's better just to confine each person to a carry-on. They're staying with you and hopefully you have a washer and dryer.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:52 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:52 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I would say that I almost always plan for something to go wrong and if it were to, go with the easier / significantly cheaper option. Car kind of old and the mechanic said it can still get another 10,000 miles out of X part? It will inevitably break on the road trip requiring dealing with getting it fixed while away from home. Cheap flight is the last of the day and might get delayed? Eh, then I might as well drive (or, flying the next morning isn’t that bad because I’m just one person, whatever).
Or as some have alluded to above- trying to deal with travel and several kids in tow? I’ll just pay for my friend’s ticket to come visit me.
Also some of it really depends locally. I used to fly to Kalamazoo MI for college and it meant connecting in Chicago, Detroit or Cincinnati (Cleveland? I can’t remember). Getting stuck in Chicago meant I would take the train to Kalamazoo if I had to- or there were flights the next day and not that big of a deal and I didn’t mind being in Chicago for a night, getting stuck in Detroit meant I could probably call a college buddy to come pick me up and we could drive back to school together. Getting stuck in Cincinnati (or Cleveland?) meant not a ton of flight options to get home, a crappier airport and a flight out was the only way out.
Obviously this experience came from flying to/from multiple times a year which isn’t the case for a trip to see family and friends. But maybe it’s asking for advice from the friend at the other end of the location or checking flight routes or if Frontier/Spirit will even have another flight out the next day or if you’ll be stuck flying 2 days later.
posted by raccoon409 at 7:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Or as some have alluded to above- trying to deal with travel and several kids in tow? I’ll just pay for my friend’s ticket to come visit me.
Also some of it really depends locally. I used to fly to Kalamazoo MI for college and it meant connecting in Chicago, Detroit or Cincinnati (Cleveland? I can’t remember). Getting stuck in Chicago meant I would take the train to Kalamazoo if I had to- or there were flights the next day and not that big of a deal and I didn’t mind being in Chicago for a night, getting stuck in Detroit meant I could probably call a college buddy to come pick me up and we could drive back to school together. Getting stuck in Cincinnati (or Cleveland?) meant not a ton of flight options to get home, a crappier airport and a flight out was the only way out.
Obviously this experience came from flying to/from multiple times a year which isn’t the case for a trip to see family and friends. But maybe it’s asking for advice from the friend at the other end of the location or checking flight routes or if Frontier/Spirit will even have another flight out the next day or if you’ll be stuck flying 2 days later.
posted by raccoon409 at 7:25 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Absolutely the question of whether renting a car or taking a cab/Uber is easier depends entirely on local car seat laws and the parents' appetite for risk. There is no bigger fucking hassle in the universe than installing a convertible car seat in a taxi.
Agree that the last flight of the day with kids is a rookie mistake. It seems doable when you book it but when you're there at 11pm after hours of delays realizing you're not sure you can even GET your rental car at this ungodly hour and all three kids are melting down in various age appropriate ways you always vow never to do it again. Then of course you forget and do it again lol
posted by potrzebie at 7:26 PM on March 28, 2023
Agree that the last flight of the day with kids is a rookie mistake. It seems doable when you book it but when you're there at 11pm after hours of delays realizing you're not sure you can even GET your rental car at this ungodly hour and all three kids are melting down in various age appropriate ways you always vow never to do it again. Then of course you forget and do it again lol
posted by potrzebie at 7:26 PM on March 28, 2023
would taking a train have been an option?
I once took a train from NC to TX and the delays were unbelievable. You can spend a lot of time just sitting on the tracks. It was interesting but I wouldn’t do it again and definitely not with kids.
posted by jeoc at 7:41 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I once took a train from NC to TX and the delays were unbelievable. You can spend a lot of time just sitting on the tracks. It was interesting but I wouldn’t do it again and definitely not with kids.
posted by jeoc at 7:41 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
Choosing flights based on their schedule instead of their price is super important. This means that maybe you do still drive to the larger airport if it works for you. But maybe you go to the local airport if the schedules are better for you. Consider all options.
posted by hydra77 at 8:51 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hydra77 at 8:51 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is a trade-off between schedule and cost. The last flight of the day is always extra problematic - you've got to have a plan for serious delays or cancellations. Both are more likely at the end of the day than the morning. And if a flight is cancelled early in the day there is a good chance you can be rebooked/rerouted to still get where you need to go that day. On one memorable occasion I was also diverted from one major airport in the destination city to another because they couldn't land the plane at the original airport due to strong cross winds. That was last flight of day and fairly problematic in terms of onward travel. So especially when travelling with children and with significant onward travel, airport hotel and first flight of the day is the way to go.
And yes, driving can be a lot less stressful even if the distances are longer. I live in Switzerland and have family in the UK, about 100 miles north east of London. The last time I tried to fly, I was faced with a complete meltdown of proceedings at Heathrow airport which resulted in my arriving at my aunt's house at gone 3 am instead of around midnight. On paper, flying should take me 8 hrs door to door including picking up a rental and driving 2 hrs in the UK. But I can drive door to door in my own car in 12/13 hrs. And realistically, on the return leg, I have to allow a lot more than 8 hrs to fly because traffic around London is unpredictable. I only stop to get fuel/use the bathroom when I drive so a family would take longer but if people travel well in a car it would probably still be a lot less stressful overall.
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:17 PM on March 28, 2023
And yes, driving can be a lot less stressful even if the distances are longer. I live in Switzerland and have family in the UK, about 100 miles north east of London. The last time I tried to fly, I was faced with a complete meltdown of proceedings at Heathrow airport which resulted in my arriving at my aunt's house at gone 3 am instead of around midnight. On paper, flying should take me 8 hrs door to door including picking up a rental and driving 2 hrs in the UK. But I can drive door to door in my own car in 12/13 hrs. And realistically, on the return leg, I have to allow a lot more than 8 hrs to fly because traffic around London is unpredictable. I only stop to get fuel/use the bathroom when I drive so a family would take longer but if people travel well in a car it would probably still be a lot less stressful overall.
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:17 PM on March 28, 2023
It’s really hard for folks who are trying to optimize prize to realize that the mid-day flight might be a better choice over all. Flights for 5 people can add up to a lot! But it sounds like they planned the trip based on their experiences of one or two healthy adults traveling alone. That just doesn’t work with kids. Price can’t be the primary consideration.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:45 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by bluedaisy at 10:45 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
As people have alluded to, there are a lot of variables.
- How old are the kids
- Do they need to nap, run around, eat, etc.
- Does weather increase the odds of missed connections
- Do both adults drive
- If using a taxi/ride service, are the correct car seats available so you don't have to cart yours to the airport
- Is there a default parent who is going to bear the brunt when things go sideways. That person is essentially not taking a vacation, or can't assume they are.
I've traveled a lot with kids -- planes, trains, automobiles cross country and internationally, and as a single parent. If the kids are little but you're not outnumbered, trains are amazing in and of themselves. But unless they get you virtually door-to-door, you still have to account for some driving. It's not until the kids are older (tween, teen), that you can safely play zone defense on a train if you're outnumbered. Multi-day car trips, where the goal is mileage, can be terribly wearing on everyone. I used to plan an overnight for every 2.5-3 hours. This allowed us all to chill out a little and usually we were all happy about pools at a Holiday Inn or similar. I'm lucky to live near a major airport and within an hour of a regional airport, so that was really helpful when playing flight duration and cost off against each other. When using layovers and connecting flights as a respite, it helps to lean into the respite aspect and not just feel confident you can make the connection. Build in time for a meal, a walk around the terminal, time at the terminal playground if there is one. Trade parenting responsibilities on the layover: while one parent gets some rest and time alone, the other watches all the kids. Then switch. This allows you to board the connecting flight all feeling fresh.
posted by cocoagirl at 2:44 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
- How old are the kids
- Do they need to nap, run around, eat, etc.
- Does weather increase the odds of missed connections
- Do both adults drive
- If using a taxi/ride service, are the correct car seats available so you don't have to cart yours to the airport
- Is there a default parent who is going to bear the brunt when things go sideways. That person is essentially not taking a vacation, or can't assume they are.
I've traveled a lot with kids -- planes, trains, automobiles cross country and internationally, and as a single parent. If the kids are little but you're not outnumbered, trains are amazing in and of themselves. But unless they get you virtually door-to-door, you still have to account for some driving. It's not until the kids are older (tween, teen), that you can safely play zone defense on a train if you're outnumbered. Multi-day car trips, where the goal is mileage, can be terribly wearing on everyone. I used to plan an overnight for every 2.5-3 hours. This allowed us all to chill out a little and usually we were all happy about pools at a Holiday Inn or similar. I'm lucky to live near a major airport and within an hour of a regional airport, so that was really helpful when playing flight duration and cost off against each other. When using layovers and connecting flights as a respite, it helps to lean into the respite aspect and not just feel confident you can make the connection. Build in time for a meal, a walk around the terminal, time at the terminal playground if there is one. Trade parenting responsibilities on the layover: while one parent gets some rest and time alone, the other watches all the kids. Then switch. This allows you to board the connecting flight all feeling fresh.
posted by cocoagirl at 2:44 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
15 hours of driving, but zero airfare, no rental car
Is that 15 hours one way? (I assume so, since you mention that breaking the journey.) Even with two adults switching off driving vs kid-wrangling every 4-5 hours, that feels just awful. Last summer I did a road trip with 3 other adults (no children), 10 hours, and we were all exhausted and angry with each other at the end of the day.
You are also forgetting the wear and tear and fuel on a car from a ~2000 miles round trip. At the IRS rate, that's an additional $1300, on top of your $500-1000 estimate. So, kind of a wash. Honestly, $2500 for airfare and rental car and hotel for 5 people sounds very reasonable right now.
The only thing I would have done differently is avoid the last flight of the day.
posted by basalganglia at 5:34 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is that 15 hours one way? (I assume so, since you mention that breaking the journey.) Even with two adults switching off driving vs kid-wrangling every 4-5 hours, that feels just awful. Last summer I did a road trip with 3 other adults (no children), 10 hours, and we were all exhausted and angry with each other at the end of the day.
You are also forgetting the wear and tear and fuel on a car from a ~2000 miles round trip. At the IRS rate, that's an additional $1300, on top of your $500-1000 estimate. So, kind of a wash. Honestly, $2500 for airfare and rental car and hotel for 5 people sounds very reasonable right now.
The only thing I would have done differently is avoid the last flight of the day.
posted by basalganglia at 5:34 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Local airport can sometimes be problematic-if something goes sideways with a flight there, the delays/next flight offering can be very long. If it’s a routine flight or a carrier that can flex well to get you to the next hub, it’s better. Back when we had regular flights to get to southern Maine, the Portland airport options were limited, especially on short notice, so we would fly to Manchester NH and drive a rental car for well below the cost of that local option, and we’d need to rent the car anyway.
The other experience I’ve had since travel reopened after Covid is that it’s a different experience than the Before Times. Staffing is thin, people’s social graces seem to be in flux, I hope the rental car shortage has improved, and everything is more expensive, so often driving might win the day if we have the time (with a stop for driver sleep). I have had to examine my expectations a few times and speak up when things could be better. Complain to the airline in writing about the flight delay and hotel room expense (one room for how many ticketed passengers?)
posted by childofTethys at 6:33 AM on March 29, 2023
The other experience I’ve had since travel reopened after Covid is that it’s a different experience than the Before Times. Staffing is thin, people’s social graces seem to be in flux, I hope the rental car shortage has improved, and everything is more expensive, so often driving might win the day if we have the time (with a stop for driver sleep). I have had to examine my expectations a few times and speak up when things could be better. Complain to the airline in writing about the flight delay and hotel room expense (one room for how many ticketed passengers?)
posted by childofTethys at 6:33 AM on March 29, 2023
I'm gonna expand on my answer about layovers, and then extrapolate that to some other observations about traveling with children.
Adults assume that children hate layovers, because adults hate layovers. Children are not adults. Children love being in the airport, because, if you think about it, airports are pretty great for children. There are fast food restaurants, gift stores selling stuffed animals, candy everywhere. Tons of open space to run around, things to climb on. A lot of airports have playgrounds, even. You can watch planes taking off and landing. There are kindly grandmothers all over the place who will give them a lollipop or an origami crane or read them a story. And the environment isn't terrible either. There are copious family restrooms, so everyone can potty together instead of going in some cold, sterile stall with a bunch of adult strangers watching. (And even if you do have to take them in a men's room, all the men's rooms have changing tables, which is rare elsewhere.) All the potential egresses are secured, so parents don't have to worry about them getting lost when they're running around. And security officers are omnipresent, making any sort of abduction extremely unlikely. Kind of the perfect place for kids, actually.
What's not a great place for kids is any small, confined space for long periods of time. That includes cars, trains, and, yes, airplanes. If you think about it, this is the hard part of air travel with kids. They never melt down at the gate waiting to take off. They melt down on the plane itself. This sucks for them: they (understandably) want to do something other than sitting in a chair with restraints. This sucks for the parents: they have to spend most of the flight trying to calm the unhappy children down. And this sucks for the other passengers: they have to listen to children crying and deal with them kicking the backs of their seats for the duration of the flight. It's also pretty hard to deal with the business of small children on a plane. The lav is too small to change a diaper, so you have to try to do it either in the seat or on your tray table, neither of which is designed for baby changing, and either way, they'll eventually catch strays, meaning you'll have to spend the rest of the flight with either a tray table or seat covered in baby feces. And you can't just open the emergency exit and chuck the diaper; it either goes in the aft trash (sorry to the other passengers and crew in the back) or in your personal item (yeah really - if you're smart you at least brought some plastic grocery bags).
So yeah, speaking as someone who takes multiple flights every year with small children (I've even done it solo when my wife had to work and our kids were both under 5), the key is to maximize the ratio of airport time to on-plane time, and the best way to do that is layovers. Short flights, at least two hours in between.
This of course has implications for other modes of travel. Cars and trains (and buses, if anyone dares to take their kids on the Dog) are both confined spaces, just like planes, and you should be trying to minimize time in either. All the negative parts of flying are there, except, because both are slower forms of transportation, they take longer. So you're actually maximizing the worst part of the experience for both the kids and for everybody else. With cars, at least, you can make periodic stops to let the kids get out and run around a bit. But rest stops are not ideal. You have to keep the kids safe from the traffic, for one thing. The bathrooms are often substandard - nothing like changing a diaper in a bathroom with no changing table and puddles of urine all over the floor. And, unless you have a really unusually large amount of time budgeted to make the trip, the stops can't be very long. If you try to make a two hour stop every hour or two of travel (approximately the ratio for airport layovers), your 15 hour drive quickly balloons to 40 hours. That's an entire week's worth of work. And, of course, it's more than 24 hours, which means you'll need to get a hotel room, which means both more money and at least 8-10 hours of downtime, making your 15 hour drive now more like 50, which is now over 48 hours, so you'll need another hotel room and another 8-10 hours of downtime. Now you're at 60 hours of travel time, with two separate hotel stays, each way. Is that in any way better or cheaper than two hour and a half flights with a two hour layover and two hours to get through TSA and hang out at your gate (seven hours total)? There are only 168 hours in a week. If you spend 120 hours round trip, you're only getting a day and a half at your actual destination.
The adult solution is to stop less, to just keep on driving until you can't keep your eyes open anymore. Maybe your kids fall asleep and this works out for you. But if they don't, they'll be miserable, and by extension, you'll be miserable. (Not great if you're already exhausted from 12 hours of actual driving.) That's not to say you can't road trip with kids. Like I said in my first comment, I've done 10+ hour trips with mine. You just have to keep in mind that they're not adults, and they won't enjoy driving for hours at a time. Not many adults like driving that much either; they just put up with it because they understand why they have to. Kids don't.
There's a lot of advice out there about traveling with kids from people who either don't have kids, or who treat their kids as sentient luggage. Not surprisingly, most of this advice is bad. The best advice for traveling with kids is to think like a kid. In other words, be empathetic. And really, that's the best advice for any topic.
---
One other thing about smaller, closer airports vs larger airports: When you're booking the flight from the big busy airport, you're probably thinking mostly about the flight out: how it'll be easier to get to your destination. Maybe you think that it'll also be easier to get from the place you're going back to the big airport. But remember: the big airport is not your destination. Your destination is your home, which, when you're at an airport 150 miles away, is still a 2+ hour drive away when you (and more importantly, the kids) are exhausted, sad about the end of the vacation, and dreading going back to work/school/whatever "the real world" is the next day. Fly out of the airport closest to your home, so that your drive from the airport home is as quick as possible.
Oh, and always check your bags. If you're traveling with small children, who need multiple changes of clothes, special food, diapers, etc., that's not going to fit in a single carry-on. You'll need at least three: one for the adults (you'll have to travel light to fit both your stuff in one bag, though), one for the kids (kids clothes are smaller and you can get 2-3 kids in one bag), and one for the diapers and food and stuff. Who's going to lug those around the airport? I'll tell you who's not: the kids. My six-year-old has a Frozen suitcase, and every time we check it she begs to carry it on instead. We check it anyway, and then ten minutes later she's sad because her arms are tired from holding a stuffed animal. If your kid can't carry a teddy bear for more than a few minutes, how are they going to carry a suitcase? Carry-on luggage is adult travel advice. (Even then, I still don't love it, unless you're flying on an airline that charges for checked bags. If someone else is offering to carry your stuff for no extra charge, why would you insist on doing it yourself?)
posted by kevinbelt at 6:56 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Adults assume that children hate layovers, because adults hate layovers. Children are not adults. Children love being in the airport, because, if you think about it, airports are pretty great for children. There are fast food restaurants, gift stores selling stuffed animals, candy everywhere. Tons of open space to run around, things to climb on. A lot of airports have playgrounds, even. You can watch planes taking off and landing. There are kindly grandmothers all over the place who will give them a lollipop or an origami crane or read them a story. And the environment isn't terrible either. There are copious family restrooms, so everyone can potty together instead of going in some cold, sterile stall with a bunch of adult strangers watching. (And even if you do have to take them in a men's room, all the men's rooms have changing tables, which is rare elsewhere.) All the potential egresses are secured, so parents don't have to worry about them getting lost when they're running around. And security officers are omnipresent, making any sort of abduction extremely unlikely. Kind of the perfect place for kids, actually.
What's not a great place for kids is any small, confined space for long periods of time. That includes cars, trains, and, yes, airplanes. If you think about it, this is the hard part of air travel with kids. They never melt down at the gate waiting to take off. They melt down on the plane itself. This sucks for them: they (understandably) want to do something other than sitting in a chair with restraints. This sucks for the parents: they have to spend most of the flight trying to calm the unhappy children down. And this sucks for the other passengers: they have to listen to children crying and deal with them kicking the backs of their seats for the duration of the flight. It's also pretty hard to deal with the business of small children on a plane. The lav is too small to change a diaper, so you have to try to do it either in the seat or on your tray table, neither of which is designed for baby changing, and either way, they'll eventually catch strays, meaning you'll have to spend the rest of the flight with either a tray table or seat covered in baby feces. And you can't just open the emergency exit and chuck the diaper; it either goes in the aft trash (sorry to the other passengers and crew in the back) or in your personal item (yeah really - if you're smart you at least brought some plastic grocery bags).
So yeah, speaking as someone who takes multiple flights every year with small children (I've even done it solo when my wife had to work and our kids were both under 5), the key is to maximize the ratio of airport time to on-plane time, and the best way to do that is layovers. Short flights, at least two hours in between.
This of course has implications for other modes of travel. Cars and trains (and buses, if anyone dares to take their kids on the Dog) are both confined spaces, just like planes, and you should be trying to minimize time in either. All the negative parts of flying are there, except, because both are slower forms of transportation, they take longer. So you're actually maximizing the worst part of the experience for both the kids and for everybody else. With cars, at least, you can make periodic stops to let the kids get out and run around a bit. But rest stops are not ideal. You have to keep the kids safe from the traffic, for one thing. The bathrooms are often substandard - nothing like changing a diaper in a bathroom with no changing table and puddles of urine all over the floor. And, unless you have a really unusually large amount of time budgeted to make the trip, the stops can't be very long. If you try to make a two hour stop every hour or two of travel (approximately the ratio for airport layovers), your 15 hour drive quickly balloons to 40 hours. That's an entire week's worth of work. And, of course, it's more than 24 hours, which means you'll need to get a hotel room, which means both more money and at least 8-10 hours of downtime, making your 15 hour drive now more like 50, which is now over 48 hours, so you'll need another hotel room and another 8-10 hours of downtime. Now you're at 60 hours of travel time, with two separate hotel stays, each way. Is that in any way better or cheaper than two hour and a half flights with a two hour layover and two hours to get through TSA and hang out at your gate (seven hours total)? There are only 168 hours in a week. If you spend 120 hours round trip, you're only getting a day and a half at your actual destination.
The adult solution is to stop less, to just keep on driving until you can't keep your eyes open anymore. Maybe your kids fall asleep and this works out for you. But if they don't, they'll be miserable, and by extension, you'll be miserable. (Not great if you're already exhausted from 12 hours of actual driving.) That's not to say you can't road trip with kids. Like I said in my first comment, I've done 10+ hour trips with mine. You just have to keep in mind that they're not adults, and they won't enjoy driving for hours at a time. Not many adults like driving that much either; they just put up with it because they understand why they have to. Kids don't.
There's a lot of advice out there about traveling with kids from people who either don't have kids, or who treat their kids as sentient luggage. Not surprisingly, most of this advice is bad. The best advice for traveling with kids is to think like a kid. In other words, be empathetic. And really, that's the best advice for any topic.
---
One other thing about smaller, closer airports vs larger airports: When you're booking the flight from the big busy airport, you're probably thinking mostly about the flight out: how it'll be easier to get to your destination. Maybe you think that it'll also be easier to get from the place you're going back to the big airport. But remember: the big airport is not your destination. Your destination is your home, which, when you're at an airport 150 miles away, is still a 2+ hour drive away when you (and more importantly, the kids) are exhausted, sad about the end of the vacation, and dreading going back to work/school/whatever "the real world" is the next day. Fly out of the airport closest to your home, so that your drive from the airport home is as quick as possible.
Oh, and always check your bags. If you're traveling with small children, who need multiple changes of clothes, special food, diapers, etc., that's not going to fit in a single carry-on. You'll need at least three: one for the adults (you'll have to travel light to fit both your stuff in one bag, though), one for the kids (kids clothes are smaller and you can get 2-3 kids in one bag), and one for the diapers and food and stuff. Who's going to lug those around the airport? I'll tell you who's not: the kids. My six-year-old has a Frozen suitcase, and every time we check it she begs to carry it on instead. We check it anyway, and then ten minutes later she's sad because her arms are tired from holding a stuffed animal. If your kid can't carry a teddy bear for more than a few minutes, how are they going to carry a suitcase? Carry-on luggage is adult travel advice. (Even then, I still don't love it, unless you're flying on an airline that charges for checked bags. If someone else is offering to carry your stuff for no extra charge, why would you insist on doing it yourself?)
posted by kevinbelt at 6:56 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Wow, this is some fascinating YMMV stuff. My experiences on air travel are pretty much exactly opposite kevinbelt's (except for flying early in the day, of course; that's basically the gospel truth of how to improve travel):
- Maybe kids love layovers, but I don't want to buy lots of fast food or stuffed animals or candy (or constantly deal with requests/demands). The friction and disappointment make this a big drawback for me.
- Yes lots of space to run around but that means lots of space to risk running into people; bad enough when everyone is frazzled from travel but even more challenging when your kid nearly crashes into someone using a cane ASK ME HOW I KNOW
- "Kindly grandmothers all over the place" --> this has not been my experience. (Although now that I think about it, I would like to be that kindly grandperson some day. #goals!)
- Better experience at smaller airports: maybe the staff are friendlier but the smaller volume of flights makes it much much more likely that you'll be way delayed or even stranded overnight. Last time I had to spend the night at BWI there were no hotels, no compensation, and every shop had closed by the time I got out of the line to reschedule, so I couldn't get anything to eat --> would not want to deal with this with kid/s!
- Checking bags: Ever since we had to wait an hour+ for United baggage claim at Denver, never again! Note that the exits at baggage claim are NOT secured and it's definitely possible for kids to wander / run off while you're trying to get your luggage.
So, to answer the question: it depends? Or put another way: there are lots of different ways that travel can be marginally better or worse, depending on the individuals involved.
Thanks OP for trying to help out your friends and I hope they have better luck next time!
posted by Signed Sealed Delivered at 8:58 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
- Maybe kids love layovers, but I don't want to buy lots of fast food or stuffed animals or candy (or constantly deal with requests/demands). The friction and disappointment make this a big drawback for me.
- Yes lots of space to run around but that means lots of space to risk running into people; bad enough when everyone is frazzled from travel but even more challenging when your kid nearly crashes into someone using a cane ASK ME HOW I KNOW
- "Kindly grandmothers all over the place" --> this has not been my experience. (Although now that I think about it, I would like to be that kindly grandperson some day. #goals!)
- Better experience at smaller airports: maybe the staff are friendlier but the smaller volume of flights makes it much much more likely that you'll be way delayed or even stranded overnight. Last time I had to spend the night at BWI there were no hotels, no compensation, and every shop had closed by the time I got out of the line to reschedule, so I couldn't get anything to eat --> would not want to deal with this with kid/s!
- Checking bags: Ever since we had to wait an hour+ for United baggage claim at Denver, never again! Note that the exits at baggage claim are NOT secured and it's definitely possible for kids to wander / run off while you're trying to get your luggage.
So, to answer the question: it depends? Or put another way: there are lots of different ways that travel can be marginally better or worse, depending on the individuals involved.
Thanks OP for trying to help out your friends and I hope they have better luck next time!
posted by Signed Sealed Delivered at 8:58 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't want to buy lots of fast food or stuffed animals or candy
lots of space to risk running into people
I never said it would be easy for the parents. :)
posted by kevinbelt at 9:13 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
lots of space to risk running into people
I never said it would be easy for the parents. :)
posted by kevinbelt at 9:13 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
My experience is also opposite of Kevinbelt. Keep in mind I have two young ones under 5. The first child travelled extensively (8 return flights spaced over two years, in 3 different continents before he turned two).
1) No layovers, flight or train. Layovers are dreadful with young children. The hassle of packing them up, buckling them in, going to toilets but only at the certain times, making sure no luggage gets lost along the way, getting space for luggage. Once we took a train ride in which we had to transfer three times, and that was horrendous, even though a train was more forgiving than a flight (no buckling). Always direct flights. Yes it’s longer but you can corral them in. No luggage and missing toys to hunt down. You can use the toilet on the flight pretty much throughout except take off and landing (try telling your child that no, they CANT use the toilet because we are boarding the plane now).
2) If we did do layovers, we make sure it’s very generous transfer time. No sprinting for a 40 minute transfer. Minimum transfer time: 2 hours.
3) We pay extra extra money to travel late morning for short flights (sub 5 hours). Late flights get delayed, and flying at night is recipe for meltdowns. Flying at 9pm as your family member did is a recipe for disaster.
4) Long haul, we pay extra money for overnight flights. Kids sleep.
5) In your scenario, I would have booked an airport hotel AFTER we landed. Trying to get a rental car at night is horrendous. Plus you are competing with everyone getting off the flight. Get a luxury hotel room at the airport when you land. In the morning, have a lazy morning sorting out rental car keys. We have done this a number of times and it’s lovely.
In short, time time time. Lots of buffer time. Rushing is like poison to children.
posted by moiraine at 9:40 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
1) No layovers, flight or train. Layovers are dreadful with young children. The hassle of packing them up, buckling them in, going to toilets but only at the certain times, making sure no luggage gets lost along the way, getting space for luggage. Once we took a train ride in which we had to transfer three times, and that was horrendous, even though a train was more forgiving than a flight (no buckling). Always direct flights. Yes it’s longer but you can corral them in. No luggage and missing toys to hunt down. You can use the toilet on the flight pretty much throughout except take off and landing (try telling your child that no, they CANT use the toilet because we are boarding the plane now).
2) If we did do layovers, we make sure it’s very generous transfer time. No sprinting for a 40 minute transfer. Minimum transfer time: 2 hours.
3) We pay extra extra money to travel late morning for short flights (sub 5 hours). Late flights get delayed, and flying at night is recipe for meltdowns. Flying at 9pm as your family member did is a recipe for disaster.
4) Long haul, we pay extra money for overnight flights. Kids sleep.
5) In your scenario, I would have booked an airport hotel AFTER we landed. Trying to get a rental car at night is horrendous. Plus you are competing with everyone getting off the flight. Get a luxury hotel room at the airport when you land. In the morning, have a lazy morning sorting out rental car keys. We have done this a number of times and it’s lovely.
In short, time time time. Lots of buffer time. Rushing is like poison to children.
posted by moiraine at 9:40 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh yes, and for my young kids, I would not do long car trips. Kids are not like adults, who can sit for 15 hours in a car with few toilet breaks. Mine last 2 hours at best before they melt down from the lack of physical activity. My older child is getting better at sitting but it will be a long while before they get to adult-levels of sitting. YMMV.
posted by moiraine at 9:44 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by moiraine at 9:44 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I can't imagine driving 1000 miles on my own let alone with children in the car (but Americans are weird idk). I'm of the opinion that if God wanted us to drive that far She wouldn't have made airplanes.
And while I agree with kevinbelt that kids love layovers and airports, it makes no sense to choose what's fun for the kids at the expense of our own sanity! Like if kids are miserable and cranky in an airplane, that's really nbd. Indeed I can't think of easier conditions in which to be a soothing parent than on an airplane, where children are strapped into to a 24"x24" space severely limiting their blast radius, and you're not only allowed but socially obligated to let them zonk out watching videos for hours, and it's someone else's job to bring them snacks and water. It's positively luxurious to be able to simply soothe a child and not have to worry about literally anything else.
But if parents get miserable and cranky during travel that's downright catastrophic! Successful travel depends entirely on us keeping our shit together, but navigating airports and being in time for connections and finding the gates and schlepping the luggage and managing overstimulated children who RUN AWAY into crowds of people just for fun - or at minimum lose their winter jacket somewhere, forcing us to run up and down the terminal looking for it before our gate is called.... phew. If ever a set of conditions was designed to grind us down to our last remaining nerve, this is it.
Travel should be easy on *parents.* Kids can have fun at the destination.
posted by MiraK at 11:36 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
And while I agree with kevinbelt that kids love layovers and airports, it makes no sense to choose what's fun for the kids at the expense of our own sanity! Like if kids are miserable and cranky in an airplane, that's really nbd. Indeed I can't think of easier conditions in which to be a soothing parent than on an airplane, where children are strapped into to a 24"x24" space severely limiting their blast radius, and you're not only allowed but socially obligated to let them zonk out watching videos for hours, and it's someone else's job to bring them snacks and water. It's positively luxurious to be able to simply soothe a child and not have to worry about literally anything else.
But if parents get miserable and cranky during travel that's downright catastrophic! Successful travel depends entirely on us keeping our shit together, but navigating airports and being in time for connections and finding the gates and schlepping the luggage and managing overstimulated children who RUN AWAY into crowds of people just for fun - or at minimum lose their winter jacket somewhere, forcing us to run up and down the terminal looking for it before our gate is called.... phew. If ever a set of conditions was designed to grind us down to our last remaining nerve, this is it.
Travel should be easy on *parents.* Kids can have fun at the destination.
posted by MiraK at 11:36 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
it would have required 1 hotel room night extra (for the drive down)
One thing I realized with my kids and long car rides is that all my 70s memories of non-screaming roadtrips involved my sister and I climbing over seats into the 'far back' of the station wagon or curling up on pillows or or lying down on pillows on the floor of the car.
Modern car seats are so important for safety, but also drove my children 100% bonkers in being strapped in with only certain positions available, and even when we propped pillows and bags for their legs, their legs eventually went numb from the car seat 'edge.'
Which is to say I would not have turned this trip into a road trip, especially given it would be 15 hours going back, unless I had like an extra 6 days (3 5 hour days each way) to do short stints + playground/hotels with pools. In an emergency I would drive at night while they were sleeping, and have (2am starts kinda work too).
So I hope your friends take heart. I agree that an airport hotel room (with a free 24 hr shuttle service, or else connected to the airport) either before an early flight or after a late flight is a game changer, especially if you save more than its cost on the flights.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:16 PM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
One thing I realized with my kids and long car rides is that all my 70s memories of non-screaming roadtrips involved my sister and I climbing over seats into the 'far back' of the station wagon or curling up on pillows or or lying down on pillows on the floor of the car.
Modern car seats are so important for safety, but also drove my children 100% bonkers in being strapped in with only certain positions available, and even when we propped pillows and bags for their legs, their legs eventually went numb from the car seat 'edge.'
Which is to say I would not have turned this trip into a road trip, especially given it would be 15 hours going back, unless I had like an extra 6 days (3 5 hour days each way) to do short stints + playground/hotels with pools. In an emergency I would drive at night while they were sleeping, and have (2am starts kinda work too).
So I hope your friends take heart. I agree that an airport hotel room (with a free 24 hr shuttle service, or else connected to the airport) either before an early flight or after a late flight is a game changer, especially if you save more than its cost on the flights.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:16 PM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
It has been a while, so I can't speak to the flying with kids thing other than to note that benadryl was invented for a reason, but my rule when driving with kids is five hours in the car, max, unless it's overnight and they are sleeping. Then you have exhausted parents in the morning, which is not good, so I always went for five hours, then motel, then five hours the next day and if it's going to be any longer than that, you fly or don't go.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:49 PM on March 29, 2023
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:49 PM on March 29, 2023
We live ~1100 miles from family and have made that drive, alone or with 2-5 adults, and also with 1-4 kids, more times than I can count. We've also flown a number of times. And I recently took Amtrak on same trip; Mrs Flug did it with 3 kids a couple years back.
So . . . all those methods are at least possible in some sense of the word.
I generally consider flying to be faster but more expensive (especially when taking 5-ish people and all of their luggage etc etc) and driving to be slower and more tiring but also more convenient in a few ways and much cheaper, especially if you play it that way. (Yes, you have to keep in mind the total cost of ownership of an automobile - the IRS rate of 65.5 cents per mile is a good approximation of that. But one of the traps of car ownership is that you are already paying a whole bunch of that cost. Whether you take take the car on a trip or not, you're paying the same monthly car payment and car insurance. So out of pocket for the purposes of that month's budget the automobile drive is almost always the cheaper option, especially if you're taking 2-3 people or more. And if you own cars for the last half of their useful life, that overall cost is dramatically reduced. Also: No (exorbitant) rental car expense or hassle.)
But, I recently flew and here is how the time worked out:
.75 hr travel to airport; arrive 1.5 hr before flight; 6.5 hr flight (no direct flight available for whatever reason); 1 hr to disembark, collect luggage, wait for ride, 0.75 hr travel to destination. And oh yeah: 1.5 hr on each end for someone to drop me off/pick me up at the airport (you can use transit at each end instead, but how it's taking you more like 2.5 hr on each end, and someone STILL has to spend 20-30 mins to come and pick up you at the transit stop, with all that luggage).
Total time spent: ~ 14 hours. I left home early in the morning and arrived late at night, exhausted. Hanging out on airplanes and in airports ain't fun.
From experience, if you drive straight through you can do it it 18 hours. I don't know if you are any more or less exhausted - honestly it's about the same.
Point is, for a mode of transportation that goes really, really fast, flying doesn't have as much of a time advantage as you might imagine, at this distance.
And that's if everything goes right: Flug Jr. recently flew to Texas, and things went very wrong. Upshot: 24 hours travel time for her, 5-6 days for her luggage, no sleep and completely exhausted.
Same car trip is 9.5 hours. (Of course, cars can break down, too. You get a hotel room and enjoy your unplanned vacation in some random place, rather than spending an equal amount of time stuck in some godforsaken airport.)
TL;DR: For this specific distance, all the travel options kinda suck and none has a overwhelmingly huge advantage over the others. They all just have plusses and minuses.
But: After 30 years of this, and traveling it at least 100 times, I finally lit on a way that I actually LIKE to travel this kind of distance.
Instead of driving it all in one day, or "taking it easy" and breaking the drive up over two days, what I like to do is stretch the trip out to more like 3-5 days.
Also, you get off the freeway and make a point to travel to interesting destinations all along the way.
Just for example, two years ago, I took about 4 days and drove the Pony Express route all the way. That was an absolutely amazing trip and I could easily have spent 8 or 10 days exploring the same route.
Last year I took the Santa Fe Trail route, and likewise wished I had budgeted 3-4 more days to really enjoy it.
You drive for an hour or two, stop for two or three, and repeat this throughout the day. Stop and read every historical marker you see (often these lead you to the really interesting destinations - ones that don't show up on TripAdvisor for some reason). Once it gets dark you push on to 10pm or so and make some mileage, but don't drive too late into the night - the whole point is to get a good night's sleep so you can enjoy the next day.
With kids your itinerary might be a little different - lots of playgrounds and stops for ice cream cones, or whatever it is they like to do. We also make a point of searching out any relatives or friends who live anywhere along the general route - those stops are often the best. Point is, traveling this way has literally never failed to provide all sorts of interest and entertainment, whatever particular things you might be interested in. But you have to get off the freeway and find real places filled with real people.
When you travel this way, instead of "extremely rushed and pressured trip to Grandma's" the trip becomes an amazing, pretty relaxed, trans-America road trip with an extended visit at Grandma's just one feature of it.
I realize that not everyone has the time to make the kind of a trip, and probably no one is able to do it every time - I sure can't.
But you asked how to "do it better" and that is the only way I have ever found of doing this kind of trip and actually enjoying it. And arriving rested and happy instead of exhausted and miserable - whether traveling with kids or not.
posted by flug at 5:05 PM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
So . . . all those methods are at least possible in some sense of the word.
I generally consider flying to be faster but more expensive (especially when taking 5-ish people and all of their luggage etc etc) and driving to be slower and more tiring but also more convenient in a few ways and much cheaper, especially if you play it that way. (Yes, you have to keep in mind the total cost of ownership of an automobile - the IRS rate of 65.5 cents per mile is a good approximation of that. But one of the traps of car ownership is that you are already paying a whole bunch of that cost. Whether you take take the car on a trip or not, you're paying the same monthly car payment and car insurance. So out of pocket for the purposes of that month's budget the automobile drive is almost always the cheaper option, especially if you're taking 2-3 people or more. And if you own cars for the last half of their useful life, that overall cost is dramatically reduced. Also: No (exorbitant) rental car expense or hassle.)
But, I recently flew and here is how the time worked out:
.75 hr travel to airport; arrive 1.5 hr before flight; 6.5 hr flight (no direct flight available for whatever reason); 1 hr to disembark, collect luggage, wait for ride, 0.75 hr travel to destination. And oh yeah: 1.5 hr on each end for someone to drop me off/pick me up at the airport (you can use transit at each end instead, but how it's taking you more like 2.5 hr on each end, and someone STILL has to spend 20-30 mins to come and pick up you at the transit stop, with all that luggage).
Total time spent: ~ 14 hours. I left home early in the morning and arrived late at night, exhausted. Hanging out on airplanes and in airports ain't fun.
From experience, if you drive straight through you can do it it 18 hours. I don't know if you are any more or less exhausted - honestly it's about the same.
Point is, for a mode of transportation that goes really, really fast, flying doesn't have as much of a time advantage as you might imagine, at this distance.
And that's if everything goes right: Flug Jr. recently flew to Texas, and things went very wrong. Upshot: 24 hours travel time for her, 5-6 days for her luggage, no sleep and completely exhausted.
Same car trip is 9.5 hours. (Of course, cars can break down, too. You get a hotel room and enjoy your unplanned vacation in some random place, rather than spending an equal amount of time stuck in some godforsaken airport.)
TL;DR: For this specific distance, all the travel options kinda suck and none has a overwhelmingly huge advantage over the others. They all just have plusses and minuses.
But: After 30 years of this, and traveling it at least 100 times, I finally lit on a way that I actually LIKE to travel this kind of distance.
Instead of driving it all in one day, or "taking it easy" and breaking the drive up over two days, what I like to do is stretch the trip out to more like 3-5 days.
Also, you get off the freeway and make a point to travel to interesting destinations all along the way.
Just for example, two years ago, I took about 4 days and drove the Pony Express route all the way. That was an absolutely amazing trip and I could easily have spent 8 or 10 days exploring the same route.
Last year I took the Santa Fe Trail route, and likewise wished I had budgeted 3-4 more days to really enjoy it.
You drive for an hour or two, stop for two or three, and repeat this throughout the day. Stop and read every historical marker you see (often these lead you to the really interesting destinations - ones that don't show up on TripAdvisor for some reason). Once it gets dark you push on to 10pm or so and make some mileage, but don't drive too late into the night - the whole point is to get a good night's sleep so you can enjoy the next day.
With kids your itinerary might be a little different - lots of playgrounds and stops for ice cream cones, or whatever it is they like to do. We also make a point of searching out any relatives or friends who live anywhere along the general route - those stops are often the best. Point is, traveling this way has literally never failed to provide all sorts of interest and entertainment, whatever particular things you might be interested in. But you have to get off the freeway and find real places filled with real people.
When you travel this way, instead of "extremely rushed and pressured trip to Grandma's" the trip becomes an amazing, pretty relaxed, trans-America road trip with an extended visit at Grandma's just one feature of it.
I realize that not everyone has the time to make the kind of a trip, and probably no one is able to do it every time - I sure can't.
But you asked how to "do it better" and that is the only way I have ever found of doing this kind of trip and actually enjoying it. And arriving rested and happy instead of exhausted and miserable - whether traveling with kids or not.
posted by flug at 5:05 PM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you all, so many great answers, and I appreciated the "rookie mistake" comments (but will probably not share those with my in-laws). I'll mark this as "solved", at least until the next travel disaster.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 7:58 PM on March 31, 2023
posted by soylent00FF00 at 7:58 PM on March 31, 2023
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posted by shock muppet at 5:46 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]