Stroller advice for travelling twins

October 12, 2024 4:52 PM

My wife and I will be travelling to Europe soon with our nearly two-year-old twins, and we're really uncertain about our stroller strategy. Would you go with a regular two-seater or two travel-oriented single strollers?

Our daily driver is the side-by-side Mountain Buggy Duet. It's 32 lbs and we're very happy with it for getting around our neighborhood. We're wondering, though, if it would be the better two use two light, compact single strollers like the GB Pockit, which can fit in an overhead bin, or even two cheap umbrella strollers.

Riding the Paris Metro with a double stroller sounds challenging, and so does climbing multiple flights with one to get to an apartment. But taking travel strollers with their little wheels on cobblestone streets also sounds like a lot to deal with. I'm just not sure if two little strollers would actually be more convenient, or less.

We already have the double, and it's always nice not to have to buy more stuff, but then again it would be a shame if it were to get damaged in transit.

As you can see, there are a lot of variables to consider. I'm hoping someone with experience along these lines might be able to offer some advice. Thanks!

posted by Phatty Lumpkin to Travel & Transportation (12 answers total)

As a twin parent, go with the cheap umbrella strollers. For the reasons you mention, and because airlines will treat your expensive double stroller like crap. Better to end up w a broken cheapy one.
posted by atomicstone at 5:13 PM on October 12 [4 favorites]

Not certain about the twins aspect, but we spent a few weeks in Northern Europe on cobbled streets and buses and trains a year ago with a Summer 3Dlite Convenience Stroller. The wheels seemed to do fine on the cobbles, and definitely a step up from the super cheap umbrella strollers, though not as nice as our BOB daily driver.
posted by gregr at 5:25 PM on October 12

Make sure your cheap singles are tall enough for you. Cobbles and hunching = sadness and despair.
posted by Ftsqg at 5:27 PM on October 12 [3 favorites]

(somehow ended up with a double comment!? So deleting one)
posted by samthemander at 7:31 PM on October 12

we just went to Amsterdam (from Los Angeles) with a hates-to-walk 4yo and a 2yo. We brought a compact double stroller (a Zoe Twin). Our takeaways:

1) the double stroller was 100% worth it within the airport (one person does kids + a backpack while the other does bags), but we were also happy to gate check it and didn’t want it within the plane - no advantage to us to have it in the overhead bin.
1a) the double stroller (vs two separate strollers) was worth it generally. One person could easily take both kids while the other went into the shop full of breakable items.
2) the double side-by-side stroller was also generally worth it for longer walks but it made it hard to navigate tight sidewalk pedestrian areas.
3) most people we saw with two young kids had a singlewide double stroller, probably due to the above issue.
4) we had cheapie wheels when we went, which was fine but annoying on some cobblestones streets. We later upgraded our Zoe to all-terrain wheels and I 100% wish we had just done that before the trip - it would have been dramatically easier.

Personally I’d look into a cheapie single-wide double stroller if I were in your shoes. I would be annoyed if BOTH of us were stuck with a kid 100% of the time, which is how it works with umbrella strollers.
posted by samthemander at 7:32 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]

Also, I don't know how old your twins are, but if they're at an age where you can gate check car seats (if you're bringing), I highly recommend the Kids Fly Safe CARES seatbelt. They're super easy to set up, don't bother the passenger behind at all, except to ask them to put their tray table down while you "install", and fits in a purse. My newly 5s are small and can slither out of the installed seatbelt.
posted by atomicstone at 1:59 AM on October 13

The issue with the Paris metro is there is a mixture of stairs and fewer elevators, and the occasional lift. There is roughly three sets of stairs per stop. How comfortable are you with the double stroller on these, will your wife (or you) ever travel alone with the kids somewhere?
posted by ellieBOA at 5:07 AM on October 13

There is no perfect solution. If you lived in Paris you would probably have the same stroller you currently have, it's widely recommended for twins in urban situations. You could try and work out how much time you are going to spend pushing on cobbles (lots of parts of Paris have regular paved streets) and how much time you are going to be lifting a stroller up and down stairs, and then make a decision. Or you could toss a coin. The key really is which decision making process will help you least regret the imperfectness of the solution you pick.

Whatever you take with you, there's a non-zero chance that the airline will break it. When that happened to my sister with a double stroller (and a 1yr old and 3yr old) in Spain, she bought two identical cheapest umbrella strollers and the holiday was absolutely fine.
posted by plonkee at 5:58 AM on October 13

The Zoe double stroller is pretty good and I very much agree that the upgraded wheels are a must! The lower weight is huge improvement in usability over the Mountain Buggy, we have the Thule Urban Gilder Double and it is a bear to carry folded (and my partner basically can’t because it’s so bulky). My biggest complaint is that it’s hard to pop up and down off curbs. The other thing we’ve used are ergobaby carriers which are fun because it’s so easy to talk to your kid. They require some level of fitness because you’re hauling 20#-30# on your body.

We’ve traveled some in Europe without a car with almost two-year-old twins (Tallinn and Copenhagen) and while the strollers are a lifesaver in the airport, places where you have decent sidewalks, and when one parent wants to do something else, we found that the ergos were also indispensable because you can get in and out of places things as easily as if you didn’t have kids with you. The Zoe was able to navigate buses and such but it was a two-person operation to get it on!
posted by Brassica oleracea at 6:01 AM on October 13

My suggestion is that you only take the double, because otherwise when there is only one of you, you will be left unable to maneuver two children around at once. You really don't want to be stuck in the hotel, or to be stuck attempting to cross a plaza by pushing one stroller four feet forward before going back to the second one because your partner had to be somewhere else. Nor do you want to miss getting into that interesting building with the narrow stone steps because there is no way to get a stroller inside, and that means your partner would be stuck bored waiting for you to come back because being in charge of two strollers means that they can't drift over as far as the park or the fountain.

But once you are in Europe, you buy a nice light, TALL, inexpensive folding umbrella stroller, and most of the time you go around doing touristy things pushing one kid each, swapping who pushes the heavier stroller. If you need to split up the party halfway through a day, the two kids go in the big stroller and the adult who is not pushing it walks off with the umbrella stroller hooked over their arm. Abandon the umbrella stroller before you come home. It's a worthwhile investment to just get one for the trip, and will be cheaper to donate it as you leave than to pay baggage fees to bring one across the Atlantic twice.

Traveling with kids is wonderful. I've done it and loved it. But you should still plan for each one of you get get at least a morning off from being around the kids where they get to do a solo expedition. You'll enjoy the kids much more if you can take a break from them without feeling that you have trapped your partner in the hotel room. Bringing the twin stroller and buying an umbrella stroller will make so much more possible.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:24 AM on October 13

There are little doodads that let you connect two umbrella strollers, so that could be the best of both worlds - I haven't ever used them but I see them on Amazon; if they're easy to undo, you could split off in the old divide and conquer maneuver when necessary.
posted by lemniskate at 9:33 AM on October 13 [1 favorite]

Could you rent a double stroller in Paris? We also have twins and have rented but not in Paris. The company brought the stroller to our hotel so it was really convenient. I wouldn’t trust the stroller not to get damaged by the airlines.
posted by jraz at 1:46 PM on October 13