I started Ciao Bambino in 2004 to help take the fear out of traveling to Europe with young children. There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t take babies and toddlers overseas—I’m not going to tell you it’s easy, because it’s not ... but thoughtful planning makes these trips possible and worthwhile.
I’ve personally helped hundreds of parents plan trips to Europe—Ciao Bambino used to offer trip planning services—and not once did a family return and tell me that they’d “never do that again.” In fact, the vast majority of parents came back and said that despite the hardship of flights, time changes, travel snafus—all are inevitable at some point—that they had a blast and couldn’t wait to go back.
What you need to know ...
You’ll be traveling seven to twelve hours on airplanes (excluding connections). This is an eternity with kids. Don’t bother going unless you can spend ten to fourteen days on the ground. Time change adjustments are tough for everyone. Know that the first few days may be spent doing just that ... adjusting. Create a schedule with plenty of time to enjoy your destination once everyone has settled into the new place and routine.
Uber-travelers like nothing better than seeing as much as possible in a short period of time. That works well for adult-only trips. Keep the itinerary simple with as few accommodation changes as possible. One of the challenges of traveling with young kids is that they need so much stuff—don’t exacerbate the issue by having to repack and move all time.
Stay at kid-friendly accommodations. This may seem painfully obvious, but do the research required to know that where you are staying is in fact kid-friendly. This is a subject that that deserves a dedicated article, but here are a few main points to consider:
Separate sleeping areas: Do you need this? Consider if your child can go to sleep when you are in the room. City hotels rooms in Europe are small and this may mean that you need a suite or connecting rooms. Unappealing for many families given the expense of larger room configurations. When you are traveling with just one child, a workaround is to ask the hotel to confirm if the hallway in the room or even the closet is big enough for a crib. We stayed at a hotel in Florence where we turned our huge walk-in closet into the “nursery”... it was dark and quiet (we kept the door cracked for plenty of air circulation). It worked perfectly!
