Most parents agree that the beginning of parenting with young kids is the most intense time in their life. Especially if you want to travel with young kids, it can be quite a challenge. Despite the challenge, many parents still opt to travel with their kids since it can help in kids’ development. Kids get exposure to different foods, cultures and experiences that help them to grow and understand the world. If you are a traveling family, knowing the right tips and tricks as well as having the right kids travel gears can make all the difference when traveling. In my blog Making traveling with kids child’s play, I mentioned some tips and tricks for traveling parents. In this blog, I will discuss the ten kids travel gears that we use to make travel with kids easier and more fun.

My family and I are travel addicts. Therefore, we have accumulated many kids travel gears. Some of these are costly and only worth the investment for parents who travel frequently, others are surprisingly cheap and worthy even for a single trip. If you are like us, you might accumulate many of these items. Depending on the specifics of your travel purpose and your life situation, it might come in handy to have at least some of these travel gears, which I will discuss below.

Ten kids travel gears to make travel child’s play:

1. Ergo baby carrier

The Ergo baby carrier allows parents to carry their baby or kids (from 3-36 months) in a more comfortable and more ergonomic way as compared to other carrier brands. The 360 degrees ergo baby carrier type allows the parents to carry their baby either facing backward or in front. This is quite convenient since when facing kids in front, they are easily entertained by all they see while facing to their parent is an easy position to fall asleep.  The nice thing with bringing the Ergo baby carrier during travel is that you can walk freely while ensuring your kids safety and comfort. For instance, having ergo baby carrier allows you to climb stairs on high or steep places without worry since your baby is protected on your body and your hands are free.

2. Baby cart

If you are traveling nearby and you want to do walking, having a baby cart is a good kid travel gear. Baby cart is also nice to bring if you travel by car or train. By car, you can simply fold the cart and stow it in the trunk. By train, you can allow your child to sleep in the cart during travel. Choosing the type of baby cart not only depends on the price, but also on the purpose of travel. If you and your family likes to visit city, mountains, or off-road places, off-road buggy could be good for you. If you and your family like to travel on cities, city type buggies are great especially for its mobility and light weight. However, city type buggies easily get stuck or damaged in nature areas. In our case, we chose the Dutch brand Koelstra buggy due to its good quality at a reasonable price and we travel on both cities and off-road places. In fact, we have brought this buggy in all of our travels to more than 10 countries, visiting city, mountains, or off-road places. We chose an offload model which is great for our traveling purpose, but unfortunately this model does not fit in the compartment (coupé) of some Dutch trains.

3. Kids travel luggage stroller

The kids travel luggage stroller does not only help little kids to feel like a little traveller. This invention, such as the Trunki brand, entertains kids and helps them to feel less burden with walking during travels. If they are tired, they can just simply ride on their luggage stroller and have fun. This also saves energy for us as parents since the kid is entertained and does not need to be carried all the time.

4. Maxi cosi baby seat

Maxi cosi is not only useful for transporting your baby by car. Maxi cosi’s are allowed to be brought on planes as long as you have reserved a seat for your baby. This is one of the most convenient kids travel gears to have especially if you are going to travel again by car from the airport. In addition, maxi cosi has a special mechanism that fits other cart, for instance, the Koelstra buggy.

5. Kids wagon or cart (bolderkar)

The kids wagon is one of the most favourite kids travel gears of my kids simply because it is cosy and comfortable as long as you put some pillows. A kids wagon can carry a number of kids with a total maximum weight of 70 kilos. This wagon is very good if you like strolling around the place. Especially when walking larger distances, kids have fun both with the ride while enjoying the view. This is very handy when you go on the zoo, city tours, beaches, or in the mountains.

6. Child bike seat

If you want to experience how to be a real Dutch momma, you have to ride your kids on your bike using a child bike seat. Amazingly in the Netherlands, it is possible that three kids are fit in one bike using bike seats placed both in front and at the back! Using a bike seat is a good option if you like to travel lightly while doing sight seeing with kids.

7. Yepp bicycle trailer

If you want to bike with your kids when there is a bad weather and when you want to bring some stuff, it is nice to use a bicycle trailer. Bicycle trailers are more comfortable for your kids since the trailer protects the kids from the rain and wind. Additionally, they are comfortable enough for sleeping. There is a compartment at the back of the trailer which serves as storage for things. The Dutch company Yepp has one of the most popular brand of bicycle trailer. We chose to use this brand since it has a model that fits in two kids. We normally use this travel gear whenever we go on a picnic and when I need to do shopping with my kids since the bicycle trailer has some space to put my groceries and other shopping items. Be warned though, bicycling with a bicycle trailer against the wind can be quite exhausting.

8. Cargo bike or Bakfiets

Bakfiets is another popular travel form in the Netherlands for couples with children. Just like the kids wagon or cart, it is very cosy for children to be in the bakfiets. Moreover, it is very useful when shopping and seeing together how your kids are doing when they travel.

9. Children walking bike (loopfiets)

Children walking bikes are very handy if you want your kids to walk with you using bike. Parents have less burden in carrying their kids and the kids get the exercise that they need. What is interesting is that in the Netherlands, there are so many variations of these bike at different age, until the kids can already bike by themselves.

10. GB pockit cart

The GB pockit is a light travel stroller that is very handy especially if you travel by plane. It is foldable, very light, and fits the cabin of a plane. Though a quite expensive item, having GB pockit is useful for parents who bring their kids on a travel by plane and who would like to use it for city strolls.