Skip to content 
This past year, as we traveled, I received all sorts of comments from both Americans and Chinese about how “brave” I was for taking two young (2 and 4 years old) kids to China and Japan for a month. My mom was with me the entire time, plus a sick husband in Japan, so I wasn’t alone. But yeah, I kind of felt like a hero. I mean, I was a hero, seriously.
A lot of friends asked me whether I thought our Asia trip was “worth it.” It’s hard to answer that for others because people have different concepts of worth. My goal for the trip was for the kids to have fun in China (check), for them to meet their extended family for the first time (check), for me to pay my respects to my grandparents’ tombs (check), and spend time with family (check).
I ate a lot of takeout meals quietly in the hotel while irritable/sick kids slept, and I also had to remove screaming children from restaurants multiple times. I didn’t go to the same restaurants I used to haunt as a child-free person and didn’t get to see many of the friends I would have wanted to see. But it was still “worth it ” because my goal was met.
As an experienced parent of young kids, I know goal setting is critical to managing expectations. I don’t expect to travel at the same pace and intensity as pre-kids. I know my kids are a handful at home and they will be even more of a handful on vacation at this age.
It was hard at times — really hard, both physically and mentally. But nothing really surprised me because I expected it to be challenging and held no expectations as to achieving anything other than the goals I stated earlier.
I’d like my girls to have a positive experience in China so that they will continue to regard trips to China as fun and exciting rather than burdensome. I don’t have much family in the US, and hope that they can develop a relationship with their cousins in China. For me, it wasn’t just a vacation; it was the start of building their relationship with a culture and family that meant so much to me. It was worth it.
As for Japan, it’s harder to comment because my poor husband was sick nearly the entire time. Even though it was pretty rough, I’d say that it was a good exercise in dealing with travel challenges while in a still familiar environment (we’d been to Japan several times).
Physicians and pharmacists, Register with Incrowd for the opportunity to earn easy money with quick "microsurveys" tailored to your specialty.
The one unexpected but logical outcome of this trip that made it really worth it was that the girls’ bond deepened. Usually, they spend Monday through Friday at separate school campuses.
On this trip, they spent nearly every waking moment together for a month; even our babysitter could tell that they had a stronger sisterly bond after the trip.
What’s The Best Age?
There are many opinions about the best age to take your kids on vacation domestically or abroad. TLDR: there isn’t one and no, I’m not copping out. Factors can be highly subjective.
These factors include:
Financial situation
Can you afford to vacation in a way that is comfortable for you and not stressful? For example, I wouldn’t have gone with my younger daughter to Paris when she was six months old if I couldn’t afford to buy an extra seat for her.
Many people travel with a baby on their laps for 10 hours, but I knew that I could not handle such a journey alone and still feel good on my trip.
Child support
Do you have adequate child support during travel? I would not have taken both girls at their current age to China if my mom hadn’t been able to accompany us the entire way.
One mom I follow on Instagram regularly takes her two similarly aged daughters to the Philippines to visit family. Do I wish I could manage that? Of course, but I know I cannot, and there is no shame. I will feel more confident when the girls are older, but not at ages 2 and 4.
Children’s personality
What are your children’s energy levels, attachment/need, and ability to adjust to new environments? What’s your energy level?
My kids are both extremely energetic, loud, and talkative. They constantly need mental and external stimulation and fight a lot with each other. My younger daughter is still very much attached to me, and even her dad has a hard time prying her away from me (normal for two-year-olds).
My kids have never been and are not chill. On the other hand, I tend to run out of energy very quickly and become snappish, which means that my energy level is not a good fit for my kids’ energy levels.
I need another adult to back me up so I don’t burn out and yell at my kids. Since the younger one is constantly stuck to me like a limpet, I need an adult that my older one is strongly attached to, such as my husband or my mom. Even with my mom around, there were many bouts of jealousy from my older daughter because her younger sister hogged me all the time.
Being away from routine and in a different environment can cause kids to feel more irritable or have bouts of seemingly unusual meltdowns (but that’s normal; they don’t always know how to express their feelings at this age). You’re not parenting two kids at home; you’re parenting two kids abroad in a (possibly) new-to-them environment and a (perhaps) new to you environment.
Children’s needs
Does your child/children have specific needs that might make travel more complicated? Sometimes, the parents have particular needs for their kids that might complicate travel.
My older was born right at the beginning of the COVID lockdown, so we didn’t go anywhere with her till she was 11 months old, and at the time, she was primarily bottle fed. I hated having to lug around my breast-pumping equipment and bottles.
It’s even more cumbersome with younger infants as they require more frequent feeding. I was also obsessed with creating the perfect sleep environment for her, so we lugged a blackout tent, pack-n-play, sound machine, and baby monitor with us to Hawaii. It was a lot.
My younger was exclusively nursed, and it was easy to take her to Paris when she was six months old because I could just nurse her when she was hungry versus having to pump, bottle feed, and clean up.
Since we co-slept, I didn’t bring anything special for her, just a portable sound machine. She was much easier to travel with, logistically, for reasons related to her (nursing) and me.
Some people are okay with lugging around all this equipment to Asia. A mom influencer I follow on Instagram literally did take a pack-n-play, blackout tent, etc. with her from Los Angeles to Kyoto and then Seoul.
I would have hated to travel with all of those things on top of the essentials that I packed (see my previous post). But hey, everyone’s different, so you decide what you can live with!
How flexible are you?
This is a very important question especially when traveling to countries where certain niceties or practices aren’t as readily available as in your home country. I mentioned this in my previous post about car seats – I opted to bring the Ride Safer vests with me instead of full car seats, and I eventually was okay with the girls not wearing the vests for short taxi rides in China and Japan.
I could have forced them to wear the vests each time, even when they were having tantrums (a frequent occurrence), but I decided to just relax on that aspect. I am not saying you should; I am just sharing what I let go of. Similarly, nap schedules, bedtimes, and wake times.
It’s good to maintain some sort of schedule and routine, but if you’re going to get really upset about a missed nap or insist on sticking to an exact schedule, traveling to another time zone is going to be hard.
I can speak to this because I was that mom – the first-time mom who had postpartum anxiety and was extremely controlling of nap schedules.
There’s no right age. My younger daughter doesn’t remember anything about her Paris trip, but that wasn’t my intent. I had fun, I remember it, that’s enough for me.
Where Should We Go?
Consider the five factors I mentioned to determine where you should go for your international trip.
My considerations are:
Somewhere you’ve already been
For younger kids, I would prefer to go somewhere I have already been to as an adult without kids and/or places where I have close family and friends who can take me around.
Because of their behavioral and material needs, younger kids just require more time and attention from parents. I don’t want to feel stressed out trying to explore a new place/culture/language and manage young kids at the same time. But that’s just me!
China was great because my mom and dad helped arrange our stay, we had friends and family to visit and I’ve lived in Beijing, Chengdu, and Ya’an and know each place extremely well.
I didn’t feel the FOMO that might come with visiting a place for the first time with kids because you might not be able to do what you want. I’d already done everything and now I could do it with kids.
Consider a resort
I know, I know. Nirav and I were very anti-resort pre-kids because we were excellent, fun travelers (aren’t we all as childless adults), but we have recognized the benefits of resorts with kids.
Safety, containment, entertainment, and convenience all in one location. We haven’t done a resort vacation yet, but friends have raved about it to us regarding how much easier it is on them with young kids.
Don’t try to make yourself feel better with the logic “it supports the local economy” – just admit that you’re doing it because it’s the easy option. No shame in it at all!
Cultural Value
Language, friendliness to tourism/children, culture, availability of what you’re used to with kids. China is actually very kid-friendly because nobody is going to glare at you for having loud lively children and there is entertainment everywhere for them.
However, it’s not tourism friendly if you don’t have Alipay or WeChat pay, which are the primary modes of payment (nobody takes cash, only major businesses take credit card, and while you can link your non-Chinese card to these payment methods, there’s a hefty fee per transaction).
Japan, on the other hand, can feel less young-kid friendly (or maybe just loud kid-friendly), especially in Kyoto, where I was on tenterhooks with my rambunctious kids running around $100 handcrafted fans.
Tokyo felt more kid-friendly, and there were more children there, compared to Kyoto, which is an aging city. However, what’s great about Japan for tourists is that it’s very easy to navigate without speaking Japanese.
Japanese hospitality is incredibly polite and helpful, even when the person doesn’t speak English.
Other countries/cities that I have traveled to personally whose locals I found to be friendly to tourists are: Istanbul, Seoul, Bangkok/Thailand, Mumbai, Portugal, Accra, Nairobi, Belgium, Bali.
In the end of course, it all comes down to personal choice and what works for you as a family, but taking kids along with you, especially once they can actually reminisce on the experience can be a valuable bonding experience.
5 thoughts on “Is Traveling With Young Kids Worth It?”
Dr. Obvious here to tell you that it does get easier. We’ve got teenagers now, and we’ve traveled quite a bit with our kids over the last ten years or so.
Under the age of 3 or 4, it’s tough. Nap times are hard to come by, diapers are awful to deal with in airplanes and airports, and picky eaters are difficult to please away from home. We traveled some with our kids at those ages, but primarily on road trips to visit family.
When they’re old enough to pee and poop on their own, eschew naps, and are willing to eat most of what’s offered on a kids’ menu, travel becomes easier and more enjoyable for everyone. We’ve now visited 20-some countries with our children with most of that coming after they were 8-10 years old. Travel is something they look forward to, as do we, obviously. Now, it’s hard to imagine traveling extensively without them! I know that time is coming, too, but for now, we’re stuck with a school schedule and make the most of the time we do get to travel together.
Cheers!
Leif
Please it’s my humble request to safeguard yourself. I’m one of the millions victims who has lost all his money on Fiatvisions scams. The 6months contract, 2% monthly withdrawals on free margin account everything is a scam. I borrowed money from banks after trusting them. I’m not in the position to write more about my experience. I’m at the verge of bankruptcy. Please it’s a humble request to read more about them and other legit websites and resources. I personally invested $350k into it and never be able to do any withdrawals. But fortunately enough i discovered a legitimate recovery channel who helped me recover 70% of all my lost crypto funds within 120 hours called/whatsapp
joanhopkins104 (at) mail . Com.+84, 39,74, 78182
@Dr. McFrugal
I usually like traveling in business class (when I can afford it) because it usually means a quiet, peaceful flight with no kids. Generally speaking, noise-cancelling headphones are no match for a screaming kid. Most families can’t afford to buy those tickets for toddlers (thank God). I am always disappointed when I see people buying business class for their kids. I’m pretty sure the kids aren’t ‘business’ partners, which is the whole point of that section. I would love to see the airlines put an adults-only restriction on that class. While I’m sure your kids are quiet and polite, extra leg room for most two-year-olds will usually just leave more room for running through the aisles, screaming, and being disruptive.
@DC
That’s why I bring my kids with me in business class. Kids are happy with all the space and are calm. All of the other passengers in business class are unbothered because they have seats that are a good distance away and they have noise cancelling head phones (but that’s a moot point anyway since my kids never scream and are better behaved than many adults). Flight attendants and other passengers are delighted to see my kids and how well behaved they are; it brings a smile to everyone’s face. Just my two cents.
Sorry, I don’t mean to offend, but is there any consideration for your fellow travelers who are stuck on an airplane with your screaming kids? Those ear-splitting cries are not just awful for you, but it’s just as bad (or worse) for everyone else around you. I suppose that’s easy for me to say as an older adult with no kids, but every time I’ve been subjected to noisy bickering kids, I’ve always said to myself, “Jeez, if I had young kids like that, out of consideration for my fellow air travelers, I would delay traveling by air until they are old enough to be calm, quiet, polite travelers.” For emergency travel, such as for a funeral, I get it, and I sympathize with those poor parents who have no choice but to bring their obnoxious kids on an airplane. But if there is any choice in the matter, young kids should not be traveling. Just my opinion.