Travelling with kids: one big thing a day
One anchor, one playground, one treat, and the afternoon left loose. How families come home with stories instead of a list of things nobody saw.
A city trip with children is not a smaller version of a trip without them. It is a different trip, and it works when the plan admits that.
One anchor
Pick one thing a day that is the reason for the day: the aquarium, the castle, the boat. Do it in the morning, when everyone is fresh and the queue is short. Everything else is a bonus, so nothing else can fail.
A playground within reach
Every city has them, and they are where your kids meet local kids. Find one near the anchor and near lunch, and let an hour go there. It is the hour your children will remember, and the hour you will rest.
Lunch is early, dinner is early
Children eat at 12 and 6 whatever the local custom. Markets and bakeries solve lunch anywhere; for dinner, the first sitting at 6 or 6:30 is calmer, and a restaurant that is full of local families at that hour is a good sign.
The afternoon is loose
Leave it open on purpose. A nap at the hotel, a swim, the park across the road. The second museum is where family trips go to die.
Walk less than you think
Two kilometres between stops is a stroll for you and a trek for a six-year-old. Keep stops close together, use a tram or a boat as the treat it is, and bring the stroller even for a child who claims to be too old for it.
Let them hold something
A child with a job, a map, the day's tickets, the camera, is a child who is on the trip rather than being carried through it. Ask at bedtime what the best bit was; the answer is tomorrow's plan.
How Travlyo does it
Put the children in Who's coming and the stay search asks for family rooms; Move and Skip are one tap each, so an afternoon can stay open without the plan arguing.
Do it in Travlyo
Pick a city, and the days, the bookings, the money and the packing list are one plan — free to start.
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