First Family Overseas Trip: Why I’m Already Stressed (And What I’m Doing To Prepare)
It’s 9:17 a.m. I’m sitting at my chipped kitchen table, coffee gone lukewarm, a crumpled dinosaur sticker from my 4-year-old Jasper stuck to my laptop trackpad, and I’m 12 days out from our first family overseas trip and already this close to hitting “cancel” on the whole thing. I’ve checked the passport processing website three times in the last hour. My Google Doc packing list is 17 items long and growing, half of them different variations of children’s pain reliever and motion sickness tablets. I used to teach preschool, so I know better than to overplan for kids, but that knowledge doesn’t calm the tightness in my chest when I think about all the things that could go wrong over 10 days away from home.
Last night, I was scrolling through airport security rules when my 7-year-old Mia leaned over my shoulder and asked why she couldn’t bring her entire rock collection in her carry-on. When I explained that it would be way too heavy and set off the scanner, she crossed her arms, stomped to her room, and yelled that she wasn’t going at all. That’s when the what-ifs really hit. What if she pulls that same stunt at check-in, holding up the whole line of annoyed business travelers? What if Jasper refuses to walk through the metal detector and I have to carry him kicking and screaming? What if neither of them will eat anything but french fries for 10 days, we go through our entire food budget in three days, and everyone goes home hangry and sick of each other? I’ve seen all the reels online of perfect families smiling in front of iconic landmarks, eating croissants with their well-behaved kids, and I can’t help but compare my messy what-if list to that polished version of family travel.
A few days ago, I vented to my neighbor who has two kids close in age to mine, and she pointed out something obvious I’d missed: I’m stressed because I’m expecting this trip to be a magical milestone, not just a regular trip with regular kids. That hit me. As someone who spent years working with young kids and their behavior, I know that most parental stress comes from expecting developmentally inappropriate things from our children. We see curated travel content online, and we start to think that’s the standard, instead of the exception. A 4-year-old doesn’t care about exploring a historic castle; he cares that he gets a snack when he’s hungry and his stuffed rabbit is within arm’s reach at bedtime. A 7-year-old doesn’t need a new enriching experience every single hour; she needs time to run around and do nothing every now and then.
Once I named that stress, I started making small, concrete changes to our plan that have already taken the edge off, no fancy life hacks required. First, I cut my packed 10-day itinerary back to just one scheduled activity per day, max. I originally had us at a castle by 9 a.m., a museum by 1 p.m., and a coastal hike by 4 p.m. every day. Now I block off two full hours of unstructured time every single afternoon, usually at a park or back at my sister’s house where we’re staying, for screen time, napping, or digging in the backyard. I don’t have to see everything to have a good trip.
Second, I involved the kids in planning in small, specific ways instead of leaving it open-ended. I didn’t ask them “what do you want to do on vacation,” which would have led to demands to go to Disney World. Instead, I showed Mia photos of three different playgrounds near my sister’s house and let her pick which one we visit first. I let Jasper pick out a new $5 water bottle for the plane, and he picked one with a T-Rex that leaks a little when it’s tipped over, but that’s his problem to deal with, and he’s so proud of it he carries it around the house every day. I also put together a tiny calm-down kit for each kid for the plane: a small dollar-store pencil case with three new coloring books, one pack of their favorite fruit snacks they only get on the plane, a cheap fidget, and their go-to stuffed animal. No fancy new tablets or expensive toys that will get lost under a seat.
Last week, we did a low-stakes practice run: we stayed overnight at a motel an hour from home, just to test how they handle sleeping in a new space. Jasper didn’t sleep through the night, Mia got out of bed three times for extra water, and my husband and I got four hours of sleep total between us. Instead of getting discouraged, that test run told me exactly what I needed to add to the plan: a cheap portable white noise machine for their room at my sister’s, and a pre-planned agreement that we’ll take turns getting up with kids in the night so one of us can always nap the next morning.
I still check the passport status every morning when I wake up. I still have 10 minutes a day where I wonder why we didn’t just go to the lake two hours away like we usually do. Last night, Mia drew a picture of our plane trip that shows all four of us (plus our dog, who’s staying at my parents’ house) sitting on a cloud eating lollipops, and I taped it to the fridge. I don’t know if this trip will be the magical memory everyone talks about. There’s a good chance we’ll have multiple meltdowns, someone will lose a favorite toy, and we’ll spend more time in airports than we expected. But right now, that’s okay. I’m not trying for perfect anymore. I’m just trying to get there, one packing list item at a time.
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