How to Travel with Young Kids (Save Money and Stay Sane)

One of my family’s favorite pastimes is traveling.

Our kids are young (9 and 4) so “vacations” are not really restful. But we still try to travel as often as possible. (We’re older parents and don’t have time to wait for our kids to get easier before we start taking trips!)

Here are our favorite tips to minimize cost and maximize sanity:

Food

This is a biggie.

I don’t know about you but I feel like my kids spend all day eating, with activities sprinkled in between.

Shell out to cook

When we travel, we try our best to get a kitchen. At the very least, we can eat breakfast in the room rather than having to schlep everyone into the car to get to a restaurant three times a day. Going out is exhausting and it feels like we spend our whole day foraging for food.

Plus, my husband cooks 95% of our vacation meals so I’m completely happy to get a kitchen.

Best appliance to pack

When we don’t have a kitchen, one of our best experiences has involved bringing our toaster oven.

My friends have brought Instant Pots or rice cookers on their trips (steaming rice with a protein and vegetable in on top).

We’re not as healthy.

We like to make cheese bread, ham and cheese quesadillas, frozen pizzas etc., so the toaster oven suits us. It’s my favorite appliance but for some reason, my husband is too embarrassed to bring one with us to fancy hotels.

Food destinations with the best variety and affordability

When we travel, we love grocery stores. It’s not sexy but when you have kids and every one wants to eat something different, it gets the job done.

Whole Foods is our home base. It may be known as Whole Paycheck but it’s still more affordable than most restaurants. Plus there are pre-made options for everyone, from sandwiches to sushi. We stock up on fruit, bread, cookies, junk food, and our favorite: pre-cooked family meals (we love the $20 meatball and spaghetti dish that is at least 8 servings and just goes in the oven to be reheated.)

Our other favorite grocery stores on vacation are Grocery Outlet, Costco and anywhere that sells hot pre-made food.

Another tip: when you’re traveling abroad, it’s fun to go to grocery stores and see what’s available. In New Zealand, we found the most delicious — and inexpensive — chocolate ever, Whitaker’s. I’m a chocolate snob but I loved the taste (dark and complex) and texture (a bit gritty). It was only about $4 USD for half a pound. My husband also discovered items like Hokey Pokey ice cream (a honey-like candy mixed into vanilla ice cream, very sweet) and lamb burgers, which were so affordable because sheep outnumber people by 5:1 in NZ.

And although everything is expensive in Hawaii, we found local farmer’s markets to be more affordable in comparison to grocery stores. The fruit is perfectly ripe and we were able to try new types of fruit, like cream apples (a bit bland.) We also ate at local fish markets like Konohoki Seafoods that had poke galore, and don’t laugh but we ate many, many meals at the ABC store, an amped up grocery / gift shop / deli which has surprisingly good burgers, coconut shrimp and pitaya bowls. (Did I mention Hawaii is expensive?)

Best value at the hotel

We’ve discovered that the kids menu at mid- to upper-range hotels often offers the best value.

For example, at an upscale resort in northern California, a kid’s burger had the same Kobe beef patty as the adult burger, but it was on a different bun, without cheese, and was 25% less expensive. Likewise with the kid’s french toast - same size as the adult dish, but with no sauce and a similarly sized discount.

In Kauai, the kid’s menu at our resort was affordable and offered very large portions, big enough to feed an adult (I wouldn’t know of course… )

Eat with the Locals

When we were in Costa Rica, our resort charged American prices, but if you went a few hundred feet down the street, you could get local food for around half the price.

In Kauai we searched Yelp and found inexpensive homestyle restaurants like Waipouli Delicatessen and Restaurant which literally felt like my aunt was cooking for me.

Sleep

Since we have a family of 4, we always get at least two queen beds. But even that’s not enough space (who likes to share a queen?!)

When our kids were little, we always packed camping mats and sleeping bags, and had our kids sleep on the floor.

As our kids have gotten older, it’s getting harder to convince them to sleep on the floor. So, we request rollaway beds whenever possible, or book units that have pullout coaches, etc.

Location

One of the most challenging parts of the day with young kids is convincing everyone to go everywhere at the same time. If it involves a car and getting strapped into a carseat, that’s even trickier. Also, back in the day when my kids were napping, it was nice for one adult to be able to go out solo without having to drive somewhere.

For all of those reasons, we love staying in hotels that are walkable. It makes a huge difference not to drive everywhere. Our days are so much more relaxed.

We also love staying in resorts for the same reason. They’re generally pricer than your standard hotel but I think the amenities (pool, onsite food, kids club, beach access, etc.) are worth it because you can’t put a price on relaxation.

Transport

When we were in Costa Rica (pre-kids), if our hotel called a cab for us to shuttle us to the next town a few miles away, it cost $30 USD. When we walked half a block from the hotel and took the local bus that hotel employees rode to work, it cost 50 cents. Sure we were squeezed in tight, had to speak Spanish and had to transfer halfway through the journey, but it was so worth it to experience local culture and not feel like we were getting gouged.

We also found a cab driver to take us home. He charged less than the hotel cabbies, and we got his phone number for future trips.

A bus probably won’t work if you have a lot of gear (strollers, diaper bags, etc.) but with older kids I think it would be totally feasible and a great way to get immersed into a host country.

Child charm

People are enthralled by my daughters. They get freebies (stuffed animals, candy, etc.) from hotels on a regular basis.

Once my daughter charmed a front desk staffer so much he gave her a gourmet chocolate treat, enough for our whole family to share.

If my child wants something extra from the hotel, I always have her do the asking. She typically gets a “yes” and people spoil her to boot. (Plus, it teaches assertiveness.)

Compensation

A smokey room.

Construction trucks that started at 5:30a and last all day, right outside of our hotel room while we were traveling with a newborn.

A missing reservation that required us to switch rooms.

All of these things have happened to us while traveling.

And when they do, I ask for a dining credit, waiver of parking fee and resort fee, and other amenities.

It works every time.

Deals

If I’m booking a package, I’ve found the best deals, most flexibility and best return policies (all important in this Covid era) through Costco Travel. I normally book the flight, car and hotel all together.

If I’m just booking a hotel, I normally check Travelzoo for deals. I also scour Tripadvisor, Yelp and sites like Orbitz to see what’s available. When I find a hotel I like, I always check the hotel website for deals that aren’t found anywhere else. I also typically do the advance pre-pay or AAA discount rate.

Quiet and clean

We almost never book AirBnbs/VRBOs or independently-owned motels.

I place a high premium sleep so I need to know the bed is of good quality and the walls are soundproof. I haven’t always found that to be the case with independently-owned motels, but I find that large hotel chains are more consistent in terms of quality control.

We always ask to be put in a quiet room, away from elevators and interior stairwells (doors bang and people clang up and down the stairs at all hours). If I remember, I pack a sound machine for extra insurance.

And sometimes our AirBnbs/VRBOs have not been clean, so we typically only book those if we know the room is at a reputable hotel (it’s a timeshare or it’s a hotel composed of independently owned condos, etc.)

Timing

One of my best tips is traveling off peak, especially when there are no school breaks.

Pre-Covid we went to San Diego the week after Thanksgiving. It was completely dead.

Also, one of our favorite resorts in South Lake Tahoe can be $400+ per night during Christmas and New Year’s break, but can cost $100 per night in the fall, when it’s nippy and skiing has not opened up yet.

Shoulder season is still a gorgeous time to visit Tahoe because the leaves are changing, it’s not so hot (or cold) and you can do things like rent bikes or go horseback riding.

—-

Traveling with young kids is not easy but we’ve found if we lower our expectations and don’t spend exorbitant amounts of money just to be woken 3 times at night and sleep all day, we can really enjoy it.

What are your best tips for traveling? What about on a budget? And how do you make things enjoyable when you have young kids?