8 Must Have items When Traveling Internationally with Kids

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When the idea of an international trip with stops in two foreign countries first came up at our house, I’ll have to admit I was a bit nervous and overwhelmed with the idea of taking our 4 boys internationally. Let’s face it, boys are rowdy, and the customs officials wouldn’t like that a whole lot. The more Andy and I discussed the trip, the more I researched ways to make it work! After realizing that it was possible to do this trip, the excitement came! The only way it would work in my mind was if we were organized and had everything figured out ahead of time. Andy and I work really well as a travel team, we each just have certain things we take care of and count on the other to figure it out. Andy is in charge of all things electronic and booking hotel rooms/transportation. I am in charge of everything else.

Our trip this summer started in Houston, stopped in Hawaii for three days (including family pictures), stopped in Tokyo for three days (Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea), biggest portion of the trip in the Philippines- 10 days, then back through Tokyo for 2 days, 4 more days in Hawaii, and then back home for a total of 3.5 weeks gone. Let’s just say it was quite the trip. We only checked one bag, each of us carried a backpack and a carry-on to save money. I did tons of research on bringing only the most critical items as well as enough items to keep everyone happy on the long flights and waiting for the long flights. In total, we spent 40 hours in an airplane!

Passport/Important Information Holder

One of the most important things for me to figure out was how to keep all the passports, calendars, and flight information together. I happened to stumble upon this Cable/cord/plug Holder

When you bring two cell phones, 5 ipads, extra battery packs, and one laptop you will need lots of cords and cables. Being the organized/everything has it’s place person that I am, I found this handy case to hold all of our cables. It has been one of the best travel purchases we’ve made! They come in all shapes and sizes depending on your cord storage needs and if you want your electronics in it. We chose Google Translate

Google Translate is an app to download in the app store. I had no idea such a thing existed until we took our big trip! It can translate into over 100 different languages! Not only does it translate text, but it can also translate from conversation and handwriting! The most useful one for us was the photo translation since we were in Japan. We used it most in the train stations trying to read train routes. All we had to do was set the language to change from Japanese to English, click on the camera option, then hover the camera over whatever symbol we wanted translated. For the most part, this app worked perfectly for our needs and we were able to get around and communicate with it!

Water Bottle

When we travel, we always bring water from home since it seems someone is always thirsty. Traveling by airplane makes bringing water a tad more difficult since we can’t bring water through security. We have just made it a habit to pack an empty water bottle and then fill it with water from the filling stations after we pass through security. Sometimes, ok most times, we pack too much stuff and don’t have much space for a water bottle or the water bottle falls out of the side pocket on the backpack. When we were sent these Vapur Kids water bottles, I knew they would be perfect for all our traveling! They first very nicely in the side pocket or they can clip anywhere on the backpack if there isn’t room! Check out our full review of this water bottle here.

Entertainment

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When flying internationally, you know that one of the biggest things to pack is your patience! There are going to be long waits for transportation or customs. We packed so many things for our kids to do. Electronics, by far, was the best thing we packed. We don’t always allow a lot of Ipad time at home, but my kids were very excited to play there Ipads in the airport and on the long flights. Luckily most international flights come with in-flight entertainment which my kids enjoyed when they got bored of their Ipads.

We also packed activity book such as maze books and reusable sticker books. We recently had the chance to review some amazing activity books by Clever Publishing. If I had known about these books before our trip, I would have bought everyone they offered! Not only are they great entertainment, but they ask questions to make kids use their brains a little. They are also very affordable! This is the Christmas collection here, but they have more than just Christmas books. Scratch art paper was also a hit with our boys.

If your kids are anything like one of mine you know they want to bring their lovies with them when traveling. I always hesitate for fear it will get left behind and we end up with a very sad little boy. A GOPAL plush is the perfect solution to this! They are the sweetest tiny plush animals that have a elastic strap to attach them to anything including a backpack, stroller, or carseat! Check it out here!

Food

Since we were flying to both Japan and the Philippines, places with more unusual food for my picky eater, I packed a good amount of snacky type foods in their backpacks. I wanted my boys to try the unique foods we would be encountering, but I also didn’t want them to starve for three weeks. It also helps for those times when it takes longer to find a place to eat than planned or for those in between times when you can’t stop to eat. There was a couple times that this came in very handy for us to have food already packed with us!

Change of Clothes

This is a must have item packed in a carry-on. Of course we will have a change of clothes in our suitcase UNDER the airplane! Our littlest, Adler, had a couple accidents on the many airplane rides we took. Having a change of clothes for both him and I in our backpacks was a lifesaver! If you have really young kids, I would maybe even suggest a couple outfits to change into.

Medicine/Emergency Kit

Normally when we travel, I have the usual tiny, quick emergency kit with us. Since we were leaving the country and the opportunity to find a CVS or Walgreens wasn’t going to be easy, I decided it was probably very important to come fully prepared for any emergency we might encounter. I bought this cute emergency kit bag at Target to contain everything I packed the regular bandaids, triple anti-biotic, hydrocortisone cream, tylenol/motrin, inhalers, nebulizer meds, pepto, allergy meds, extras of our regular daily medicine in case we were detained for some reason, and so many more things went into this bag!

Overall, I feel like our 3.5 week international trip with four boys went so smoothly and was so much fun! Have you traveled internationally with kids? Did you find trips that worked for your family? Please share in the comments!