(Photo Credit: Kimona Paramour Photography)

Like the trip to your destination, once you arrive, there are some things you can’t control. There may be days where the unfamiliar food is a thrill to everyone in your family…except one very unhappy person. Maybe everyone is ready to sleep except for the ones who need it the most.

As an adventure-loving homebody, I need a certain amount of familiarity to feel comfortable, and try to provide the same thing for the rest of the fam while we are away from home.

In our family, we do that with a calm sleep environment, easing up on dietary variety for the little ones, and providing extra emotional support.

At home, we have dark curtains in our bedrooms to block outside light. I have my own feelings about bright lights at night disrupting the sleep cycle and go as far as amber nightlights (they no longer sell my favorite kind, but this is my second favorite, and not an affiliate link) instead of the bluish lights that are so common.

On trips, I usually travel with clothespins and a tapestry. I drape it over the biggest or brightest window to create a cave and hopefully offset the extra early wake ups and middle of the night issues that often come with traveling with kids. If possible, I make sure the closest bathroom has a nightlight to ease confusion.

Fans are great for white noise. If the weather doesn’t call for a fan, I will still use it, or bring along the white noise machine we use at home. Especially when visiting extended family, a loud movie or adults laughing and visiting into the night can disrupt a little person’s sleep and make for a long night.

I don’t give up our afternoon quiet time, either. Especially when our routine is different, often when they don’t see it themselves, the kids need down time to process everything and let their minds wander, and the littles need their sleep. I need the time to recharge as well.

By now, my older kids have been traveling to the Caribbean and to different parts of the States to see family since they were small. They get that the food will be different, and they look forward to favorite meals and drinks they can only get while we are away.

The littles aren’t so accommodating. Letting them eat peanut butter and jelly for every meal, while still offering them the new foods whenever there is an opportunity, saves us some fights and keeps everyone’s blood sugar on an even keel while we are traveling.

In terms of emotional support, I don’t see myself as a touchy-feely mom, but I recognize there are times when my kids need me to fill that role. Especially when you are traveling as a family, situations that would be met with a time-out at home (or are caused by the traveling, i.e. upset routine or not getting a favorite comfort food), need to be met with a little extra understanding.

Travel can be overwhelming at times. You are dealing with unfamiliar situations, and being tired makes everything feel like it’s too much. It could just be with the busy schedule that you aren’t eating regularly and get hangry.

When I notice one of the kids is having trouble coping, I do my best to pull them aside and help them get centered again whether by giving them a pep talk, or working out what they are feeling with them so they can come up with a plan for coping as gracefully as possible.

This is hard! Being overstimulated myself causes me to start to shut down – I don’t want to talk to anyone, and I’ll seek alone time to get myself in a better place. With so many kids in a travel situation, withdrawing isn’t always possible (heck, it isn’t even possible at home half the time), and it takes real effort to be emotionally available to the kids when we are all feeling a little overwrought.

Of all the efforts I make to help trips go smoothly, the purposeful availability is possibly the hardest thing I do, but carries the reward of giving me special moments of connecting with the kids that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Sometimes, none of these tricks work. Maybe the ways I make travel work for my family don’t line up with your priorities for yours. If you keep doing it – keep taking your kids out in the world, and figure out what works for you – there is no reason to wait till the kids are out of the house to start working on your travel bucket list.