These travelers just had a baby! And not just any baby – but the cutest, sweetest, strongest and poopiest baby around. We’re biased. 🙂
This blog won’t become all baby all the time… but it will become much more focused on family travel. We have a new jetsetter with us now and can’t wait to introduce her to the world!
Our travel has been on our terms in the past few years. We go where we want to go, when we want to go, we eat on our schedule and book accommodations that fit our needs.
Looking forward a lot will change. We are on her schedule now. Every decision we make in our travel planning will evolve around her – and we are OK with that! It’s a new adventure that we can’t wait to take!
OK Caroline your kid is cute…But what REALLY happens when travelers have a baby?
Did You instantly buy a mini-van?
We bought a Nissan Altima.
We hadn’t owned a car in 6 years, but knew we’d need a way to get her around. We had been saving up for the car so it wouldn’t be a burden and we could buy it with cash.
Do you lose your wanderlust?
We traveled up until the day my doctor grounded me in my third trimester and already have baby’s first beach trip planned in a few months.
Our travel will change. We plan on traveling slower and for longer periods in each location. For example, we might rent a villa in Italy for a month and take day trips, instead of jumping to a new city every week for that same month. Also, we want to see the U.S. I still haven’t been to the Grand Canyon. There are a lot of beautiful National Parks that have been on our travel list for a while and we plan on seeing as many as we can over the next few years. You might see us renting a camper van and road-tripping across the US…
Does Your travel fund become a future kids college fund?
We have both. We still have our travel fund, but are also starting a savings fund for Lottie.
Our priority has always been travel, so when reallocating our money and savings for baby we are more willing to cut our date nights, meals out and Starbucks runs for baby instead of travel. Saving money is all about where your priorities are. You will be amazed how easy it is to save if you set goals and really look at where your money is currently being spent and make changes.
Will your travel style change?
Ours will.
Of course. Josh and I can’t just show up in a city with no place to sleep or go all day without a break. We are on her schedule now and that’s OK. We are excited to slow down our travel and stay longer in places instead of hop from city to city which we found ourselves doing at times. We are planning on renting an apartment or villa for a month and committing to one city for longer instead of a week or two here and there. This way we can settle down more in one city and keep up somewhat of a routine with Lottie when we travel.
Are you a traveler? What happened when you had babies? How did your life change?
Hi guys! Great post! We started our major travel plans when we were having trouble having a baby and realized that anything could still happen – for that reason we chose to plan on slower travel. When we found out we were having a kid, we adjusted our travel date a bit, but stuck to the plan with minor adjustments.
After 3.5 months, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed traveling with our baby, and it’s been an enriching experience for us all. There are of course some places we’d love to go and some things we’d love to do that just aren’t reasonable, but for the most part we’re feeling that our travels with Carter are just as experiential as it would be without – if not more.
You’re right, she is super cute 🙂
We’ve kind of done things the other way round. We travelled a lot (though we didn’t blog) before we had kids, and then took a bit of a sabbatical. We’ve missed it so much though, and this year it’s dawned on us that our children are of an age where not only will they travel more easily, but they will actually start to share and enhance our enjoyment – so we’re off again! The only worry is that they too might get the travel bug – then we’re in for a life of negotiating finances with them 🙂
great to see the latest pics of my traveling, cute little Lottie. love, Papa
I have worked for an airline since high school and traveled like crazy for 13 years with nothing holding me back. It was amazing, it was adventure, it was my heart and soul. Then our lil boy came along and my heart and soul’s need changed. The hardest and biggest adventure to ever happen. Our travel came to an abrupt halt, and all for good reason. We still “travel” but it is camping, beach trips, and small things. He was a hard baby but he is rockin this toddler age. Our first real trip was a cruise for his 2nd birthday and it was a BLAST!! We will be planning longer and farther trips at this point and he even sees places on TV or books and says “can we go there one day?” And my answer is always “yes we can!”
Enjoy and good luck.
Congrats Caroline and Josh. Me and my wife had a baby too, the little Daniel. He’s 9 months now and we are still planning how we’re make our first trip with him. For now we have visited our parents twice in Natal and he behaved nicely in airplanes.
Enjoy the moment!
Fernando
What a cutie – congratulations! :-)I’m really looking forward to reading about your future travels!
Congrats to you both! Enjoy the time, but also get some rest. Before you know it she’ll just want you to pick destinations that have Cartoon Network in the hotel. Or maybe that’s just us since we don’t have cable and it’s the only way our son can watch his favorite cartoons now is when we travel.