Europe with Small Children: It can be done!

When my husband and I broke the news to our extended family and friends of our plans to take our three young children and my husband’s parents with us on a trip to Europe, the responses we received were varied, to say the least. Most, however, contained one common element: "Have you lost your minds?" This lack of appreciation (even comprehension) on their parts could have stemmed from their acquaintance with our children, their knowledge of our relationship with my husband’s parents, or from a general school of thought that traveling anywhere with young children can be a trial, so why subject yourself to Europe (or subject Europeans to your small children, for that matter?)

For us, it was a matter of timing. My mother-in-law is from Germany, and we dearly wanted our children to be able to see her hometown with her before age and infirmity made it impossible. As for me, I had been dreaming of Paris for years (throwing Paris in as a bribe for me was a very shrewd move on my husband’s part). We couldn’t really wait until our children were "the right age", so we decided to just go ahead and do it. What we discovered was that foreign travel with small children is indeed a trial, but with extra planning, measured expectations, and a great deal of patience, any age is the right age for a trip full of memories to last a lifetime.

Do your research. The first step to planning any trip is to research all of the details. We started by looking up everything we could find about traveling to France and Germany with small children. What we discovered is that most of the books out there seemed to have been written for people whose children will eat anything you put in front of them, who have attention spans greater than five minutes, and who really enjoy sitting still for long stretches of time—in short, children nothing like our own. One of our children has an aversion to sauces of any kind, one of them refuses to use public bathrooms, and all of them have in common the average attention span of a gnat. In short, we knew we could not rely on most travel books out there to give us ways to manage a trip of this sort. The books did give some very basic ideas which we found helpful, such as hours and admission prices for various attractions, less crowded times and entrances for museums and so forth, but the rest of the information we needed, we realized, would require much more diligent research than simply picking up a travel guide.

Research your airline, the airport, the taxis, the hotel, every museum, every monument, and every store that you think you may be visiting from the moment you leave your home on the journey. Keep your children’s ages, temperaments, and individual quirks in mind as you do your research. Visit websites, request brochures, scour the Internet, talk to friends or family members who have gone before you. Find out what average wait times are, see if you can get menus in advance, have specific directions (or a handheld GPS device, if you feel more comfortable) to and from each of your destinations. Ask where the bathrooms are, find out if the closest ones are pay toilets or free (and make sure you always have sufficient euros to access them if they are pay toilets!) Find out which of the places you plan to visit have stroller rentals and where those are located, as well as what you need to rent them. (For example, Euro Disney charges for stroller rental, but the Louvre asks only to hold your passport or driver’s license). Consider every possible contingency, imagine how you would wish to respond to it, and make sure that you know where the necessary resources for those responses would be. Take detailed notes, keep them organized in a folder or notebook, and study them often as your trip approaches.

Be prepared to wait. It starts with applying for your passports (use a facility where you can get an appointment to apply for them.) At the airport (check-in lines, security lines, terminal waiting areas), through the long flight overseas, for taxis, for entry into monuments and museums, for food—you will spend a great deal of time waiting, which is difficult even for children with normal attention spans. Make sure you have a bag full of things that you can use to help get through the waits, such as travel-sized card games, portable chess or checkers, handheld gaming systems, stories on CD or MP3 players, books, crayons, paper, snacks, special treats. Don't share these things with your children before they are needed—the surprise of a new game or coloring book can really help break up a long wait. Be sure to tailor your "surprises" to your child’s interests, however: if your child does not like to color, bringing along a new coloring book and crayons will not help you.

Set realistic expectations for your time in a country. We were only in Paris for three days, and we could have attempted to drag our children to everything we wanted to see, but it would have been horrible for all of us. We chose the top three or four things we really wanted to see (the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, l’Arc de Triomphe, and Euro Disney—remember, we were traveling with small children!) and accepted ahead of time that we would not be seeing as much as we would have liked to. This allowed us a taste of Parisian wonders, but still allowed us to take our children’s interests and needs into consideration, which brings me to my next point.

Plan some down time each day. None of my children are young enough to nap regularly any longer, but each one of them wound up napping for two or more hours a day while we were in Europe. The jet lag, the excitement, the later dinners and bedtimes really wiped them out. We did our tourist bits in the morning when we were all rested, and came back to the hotel to let them rest, nap, play board games, or watch a DVD on our portable player. Take advantage of their down time to catch up on some rest or reading yourself—you will all be better off for it later in the day.

Adjust your nutritional expectations for your child. In Paris, all three of my children lived on chocolate croissants and watermelon from the hotel buffet; in Ulm, Germany, their diet consisted mainly of spaetzle and Sprite. That is not their normal bill of fare at home, but it was only for a short time and at least they ate something. Even McDonald’s will taste slightly different in Paris than it does in the U.S., so be flexible about your child’s diet while traveling. In addition, scout out the nearest local grocery store upon your arrival to look for some of your child’s favorite snack foods or breakfast cereals. Encourage them to try new foods, but don’t try to force them to become gourmets: it won’t work, and you’ll both end up frustrated (and hungry to boot).

Don’t forget to pack the most important thing: your sense of humor! Try to remember why you’re making the trip in the first place: to show your children how big and wonderful the world outside their back yard is; to introduce them to new cultures and languages; to remind them that people are people the whole world over. Someday, the memory of your child pointing at the Venus de Milo (in the Louvre) and shouting "She’s naked!" or asking loudly at the Place de la Concorde, "Did they really chop people’s heads off here? Cool!" will make you laugh instead of cringe (all right, maybe you’ll still cringe, but you may eventually laugh as well). The important thing is that your child’s world will have expanded and you will have had the opportunity to share that experience together. Bon voyage!