Three ways bringing an infant has changed our approach to travel

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything here so, dear non-existent reader, let’s get you caught up.

When we last spoke we were in Malta. Here’s the Coles notes version of how that ended: We had a great time. It wasn’t our favourite country, but we’re glad we went. The highlight was definitely our trip to St. Peter’s Pool. If you’re interested I’ll write more about that another time. Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

After Malta? Well, we went home… yada, yada, yada…had a baby and now it’s time for our next trip.

Yes, we’re still travelling

It was interesting how many people there were who’s first reaction upon learning that Katy was pregnant was to say, “I guess that means you won’t be traveling any more”. What!? Not at all. Really it just means that we now have to consider doing a bunch of countries for a second time because Ella is WAY behind!

Now, that isn’t to say that Ella’s arrival hasn’t changed our approach to travel, at least in the near term. Here are three ways that Ella has changed our travel approach so far:

Destination selection is way more complex

When we started planning our first with-baby trip, we quickly discovered that things that used to be positives (high altitudes, the need for shots to prevent exotic diseases, etc.) were suddenly reasons to scratch somewhere off the list.

It turns out that human babies aren’t like those giraffes you see on tv. They don’t drop out one day while you’re walking along minding your own business and then immediately start staggering along behind you, like a friend who’s had too much to drink and needs an escort home. No, they’re really quite useless and fragile. Loveable, don’t get me wrong, but complete freeloaders.

When you start trying to find a destination that’s interesting AND baby friendly, the list gets much shorter in a hurry. That, along with learning to care for the aforementioned freeloader explains why we’ve gone 7 months between trips… Ok, that’s really nothing to complain about but Malta does feel like a lifetime ago.

Thankfully the Internet is full of information and we eventually figured out that Turkey seems to have been baby-proofed.

We don’t pack nearly as lightly

Fortunately for me, Katy is far more organized (some would go so far as to say anal) than me so she started compiling a list of Ella’s needs long before we had start to packing. As with most people who travel with any regularity, I like to think that we’ve learned the value of packing lightly. Let’s just say it was evident that Ella is definitely a rookie. By the time we had all our stuff packed, her bag was more than twice the size of mine. As a point of comparison I am approximately 15.416 times bigger than Ella.

We cheer when we see other babies on the plane

It used to be that when we saw a baby get on the plane we groaned fearing that they would keep us up all night. If you do this, stop. It won’t help. Besides, chances are the parents of the kid are already plenty worried about you being disturbed. That’s why we were so happy to see the other babies. Suddenly we just wanted our baby to be less annoying than all the other babies.

We were even able to get the bulkhead seats with a bassinet where Ella managed to get a few hours sleep. The bassinet doesn’t work for everyone, but for us it was a godsend.

So now we find ourselves in Turkey… with a baby! Something tells me there are more than a few lessons to be learned along the way. Stay tuned.