Tips - What worked for us |
Here are a few tips that might be helpful in your travel planning. We have four children, ages 8 - 17 who traveled with us to Europe in the Spring of 2000. We were pleasantly surprised during our three-week adventure how well things went. Fortunantly, no one complained about the food, or about occasionally sharing a hallway bathroom, no complaints about visiting too many churches, chateau's or museums, or about all the walking we did - but we did have a few tired feet! |
We started off with lots of preparation. Since our children would be missing three weeks of school, we spoke with their teachers about 2-3 months in advance. Each child had classes and subjects that would directly benefit by traveling throughout Europe. (History, French, Social Studies, Geography, Art etc) And as they studied these subjects the teachers were able to point out certain areas they should really pay attention to - Gothic architecture, Renaissance artists, converting miles to kilometers etc. We also mapped an uncertain itinerary fairly early on, and studied the countries and cities we would be visiting. We posted a 4x6 map of Europe on the wall so the kids knew where we would be visiting. We also talked about the kinds of hotels we would be staying in (in our case - small, inexpensive hotels), what kind of transportation to expect (trains, metros, buses), and safety issues. We didn't want to scare them, but wanted them to be prepared for pickpockets etc, and to know to watch their bags at all times. All of us wore neck pouches for our Eurail passes, passports and money. My husband wore a money belt for credit cards, return airline tickets etc. We kept these under our outer clothing almost all the time. |
We also packed the following items that were really nice to have - Febreze (for clothing - to get id of that smokey smell), baby wipes (handy for cleaning up on trains and in restrooms), small bicycle combo locks, small combo locks for the backpacks, assorted zipper baggies, water bottles (one per person - we kept refilling them), an electric tea pot for boiling water (hot chocolate, oatmeal packets, soup mixes etc), electric converter, a couple of lightweight mugs, plastic silverware, small pillows in stuff sacks, first aid kit, sewing kit (I actually repaired two backpack straps), journals, instant cameras for the kids, two gameboys, photo copies of important documents, and photocopies of pertinent parts of travel guides (mostly "Let's Go" & "Lonely Planet"), toilet paper, and antibacterial hand gel. The things we took and didn't use were - flashlights, locker style locks, decks of cards. We decided at the last minute to leave the personal CD players, and Walkmans at home, and to take the video camera. A good decision! We didn't miss the CD players. We packed the camera without all the accessories, just one new battery, the charger, and two extra tapes. |
Our Preparations |
What to bring? |
We decided with four children we would definitely be traveling light. I didn't want the kids taking any more than they could carry, because I certainly didn't want to carry it. We bought the girls (ages 8 & 11) backpacks with the roller wheels on the bottom. They were about twice the size of regular school size backpacks. The rest of us bought carry-on size (approx. 24 x 10 x 15) backpacks. We each had just one bag per person, knowing we would probably come home with more! Clothes - we brought something like: 2 long pants, one pair shorts, two T-shirts, two long sleeve shirts, pajamas (that were more like sweats), light jacket - and planned on adding layers for warmth. It was just about right, we did laundry three times during the trip. the girls brought skirts also. We limited ourselves to the shoes we were wearing plus one pair of sandals. We brought those small stretchy gloves, and most of our jackets had hoods on them, which was handy on cooler days. Don't forget an umbrella or two. The lightweight ones are really small and nice. |
Our four carry-on size backpacks, two with wheels (in front, left) and one daypack. |
A few more handy things - |
Thanks for coming! |
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Last updated on January 19, 2002
