Traveling With Kids This Holiday Season? Check Out This Olympian’s Tips
By Movieguide® Contributor
Not looking forward to traveling with your kids this holiday season?
Former Olympian Shawn Johnson East and her husband Andrew recently shared some of their tips for traveling with young kids that will make the experience so much better.
“Why are we talking about this? Well, you may have noticed that the holidays are right around the corner,” the couple explained on an episode of their podcast. “…But inevitably, with holidays usually comes travel of some sort. So, we’ve done some traveling with our kids, we’ve done a lot of traveling with our kids. We’ve taken them near and far and here and there.”
The Easts — who are parents to daughter Drew, 5, and sons Jett, 2, and Bear, almost 1 — want to encourage families to travel with kids because even though it takes more preparation and is tiring, “it also enhances the experiences so much.”
“I have always said that when you set your expectations at traveling with kids is work, it usually goes really well,” Shawn told Travel + Leisure earlier this year. “I think people have a hard time traveling with kids when they’re like, ‘oh, I couldn’t relax on the plane.’ That’s not going to happen with kids!”
But they have some suggestions to make traveling with littles better. Their first tip? “A red-eye flight for a young child is not a good idea,” according to Andrew.
They took their family to Paris this summer for the 2024 Olympics.
“Bear, our youngest, was 7 months old when we took the trip. We took a 9 p.m. flight from Nashville to London,” Andrew said.
“A red-eye overnight,” Shawn interjected.
“We thought, ‘This is going to be perfect. Bear’s going to be tired.’ He usually goes to bed at about 7. This is a 9 o’clock flight. We’ll show up to the airport at 7:30 and go through security. Hopefully, he’ll fall asleep in his stroller and then be asleep the whole entire flight,” Andrew continued as Shawn added, “We literally thought he was the easy one.”
As it turns out, Bear did not sleep at all.
READ MORE: OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST SAYS MOTHERHOOD STRENGTHENED FAITH
They also have some tips for how to pack with kids.
“I do not — and I highly recommend this, you guys — I do not let our kids carry their own backpacks through the airport. Why? Because kids don’t carry their own backpacks through the airport. If they do, it’s for like 10 minutes. Great, but other than that, you’re now carrying two extra backpacks,” Shawn explained.
“Also, kids’ backpacks are small and don’t hold a lot, so I always have one big backpack and then one rolling carry-on in addition to my bag, which is a backpack that is mostly my stuff, some kid’s stuff. So, I’d say for the most part, especially if we’re taking an overseas flight or if we’re going on like a long trip, will take two rolling carry-ons and two backpacks that Mom and Dad carry,” she added.
Finally, the couple suggests bringing a stroller might speed up time at the airport.
“We also sometimes bring a stroller through the airport. You can usually move faster. That is, though, one more thing that you have to fold up and gate check,” Shawn said. Andrew added that having one with an undercarriage “where you can put something like a backpack” is helpful.
READ MORE: ‘GREATEST TIME OF MY LIFE’: SHAWN JOHNSON AND HUSBAND ANDREW EAST TALK PARENTING
