How to manage your luggage when traveling with kids

Kids are lovely to have on trips, with all the love and excitement they bring. A very true fact, until you face your fears of having to know how exactly to pack for the trip. Managing your luggage when travelling with kids and the need to send all bags to your destination like St Barts Villas without missing out anything can be a very daunting task. But it could also be less stressful when you know the right steps to take, and the right things to carry.

Below are a few tips you could find very useful.

Know Your Baggage Limits

Once it is certain that you are travelling with kids, it is very important to find out your luggage limit before you even embark on the journey at all. The different means of transportation that exist usually have regulations for passengers’ ‘carry-on’ during travels.

For example, for aeroplanes, it is good that you check-in beforehand to find out about baggage regulations at the departure airports and even the airlines’ baggage and weight limit. In the process, you get to find about necessary things kids need that you can carry but you have to pay extra for.

You do not want to go through the stress of finding out you have overweight luggage, your flight might be delayed, that you might have to return some things home, while your baby is already making a fuss or the older kids are starting to get restless.

Know You Have To Carry Less For Yourself

Here’s another tip. The earlier you resort to knowing that you have to pack less than the kids, the better. Generally, kids tend to need a lot more for trips than adults. More clothes, more footwear, books, toys, etc. Let us not even speak of babies. So, if you know you are travelling with kids, make the resolution that you would have to pack less for yourself.

Only essential things you can afford to buy later, or things you can borrow for the period you would be at your destination. Packing less for yourself is so much sacrifice on your part, but also helps you to manage your luggage well enough and on the brighter side, little or no regret on things you wished you had carried.

Create A Checklist

Even without travelling, checklists are very important before you take a trip. It is just making a list of things you need for a trip. Your checklist can even include things you do not need as well. Once created, tick off the necessary as you pack. You need to create a checklist when you have to travel with kids if you intend to manage your luggage. It keeps you in check of excessive packing and ensures you pack adequately as well.

Store Essentials Together

This is another way to manage your luggage when travelling with kids. You need not have your things scattered abroad. Put all your essentials together in one pack, including that of your kids. Essentials like:

  • Passports, tickets, transportation details and reservation numbers,
  • Wallet, cell phones, chargers, sunglasses, medications,
  • Stuffed animals, iPods, kid’s tablets, neck pillows and eye masks, etc.

Essentials also may include certain things that you know would be difficult or too expensive to replace while on the trip. You should use a light pack because you would have to carry around every time throughout the journey. You do not want to make it too heavy for yourself.  Your checklist can also be of so much help here. Ensure to make final checks before you set out.

Your Kids Can Pack As Well

This might sound funny, but it is one of your gateways to managing your luggage when you are travelling with kids. Of course, this does not apply to you if you are travelling with an infant(s). However, if your kids are old enough, you can pack for them as well. These days, there are backpacks kids carry around to relieve their parents of having to pack heavily for family trips.

It can contain stuff like their toys, books, activities they like to engage in while on the road and even first-aid kits such as inhalers, in case they have to be separated from you upon arrival at the destination. However, this is also to be managed as well, because kids wouldn’t mind carrying their beds or any other not-so-necessary things along. As long as it is probably a favourite thing or what they intend to show it off to their friends. Simply put, learn to say no sometimes if your luggage is to be managed.

Written By: Bright Elemeje