Overseas Travel & Safety Essentials when Traveling as a Family w/ Astrid

Get to know Family Travel Blogger, Astrid an expert in both flying while pregnant and overseas travel as a Family. This week I got he chance to interview Astrid about her extensive overseas travel experiences that started as a child. When it comes to traveling while pregnant Astrid from the family travel blog The Wandering Daughter. I first “met” Astrid three years ago when searching the internet for examples of traveling mothers of color and hitting the jackpot with her thorough roundup. Astrid experienced overseas travel while pregnant with both of her daughters and has learned many travel hacks along the way.

How much did you travel before kids? Where had you been? I traveled a lot before kids. My parents exposed my siblings and me to travel at a young age, and since then I have always enjoyed traveling to new places. Throughout the course of my childhood, I traveled to 13 countries. When I became an adult, I continued to travel, sometimes with friends, but also sometimes alone. By the time I became a mother, I had already visited 24 countries throughout Asia, Africa, North America, Europe, and Australia.
When did you get your first passport? I think I was probably four or five when I got my first passport. At that time, I was living in Indonesia, and my mom had just married an American man who ended up adopting my sister and me. We flew to the United States to become naturalized American citizens. That was my first memory of traveling overseas.

Travel Mama | Astrid, Overseas Travel and Safety Essentials when Traveling as a Family

Did you travel pregnant? Any tips for flying while pregnant? I traveled both times when I was pregnant. The first time I traveled while I was pregnant, I was traveling to Kosovo for a grad school project. I was probably 13 weeks pregnant, so I was just finishing up my first trimester of pregnancy. I remember feeling nauseous a lot, so I packed along some dried crystalized ginger that I would put into my tea every morning. That really helped to calm down my morning sickness. I was also really careful not to eat any fish while I was traveling, due to the risk of mercury poisoning.
The second time I traveled while I was pregnant was when I traveled to Paraguay with my husband and two year old daughter. We were visiting a friend who was living there at the time, in a small rural village. I think I was about 16 to 18 weeks pregnant, so I was already starting to show. I didn’t have any morning sickness then, but traveling while pregnant AND with a toddler was quite challenging. Because we were visiting rural places, we didn’t bring a stroller with us. So when we walked, my daughter would get tired and insist on getting carried. My biggest tip for traveling while pregnant is to take it slow. You don’t have to be go, go, go all the time. This also will help prepare you for traveling with kids.
How old was your baby the first time you traveled? For my oldest, she was only two months old when we decided to take a road trip from Washington, DC to Vermont. A month later, we did a much bigger five week road trip from Washington, DC to Seattle, WA, traveling down the east coast, along the southern states, and up along the west coast. Her first international trip was when she was a year and a half, when our family took a three week trip to Southeast Asia, visiting Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan.
For my youngest son, I think our first trip with him was a road trip from Seattle, WA to Spokane, WA, which is only a five or six hour drive. Our first big trip was when he was almost two years old. We spent three weeks in Indonesia.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned about your kids traveling? My kids are very adaptable to all kinds of situations. It’s almost like nothing fazes them. We could be walking around in a big busy city, or hiking through a jungle in Asia, and they just go along with it. I love that about them! They’re also really close with each other, and I think that’s been helped in part by the traveling that we do as a family.
How has traveling as a mother changed you? I’m a lot less adventurous as a traveler when I travel with my kids. I think that’s a good thing, though. When I traveled by myself, I used to take a lot of chances and hope that things work out (they almost always did). But now that I’m traveling with my kids, I calculate the risks more. I take a lot more precautions, like making sure my kids have the recommended vaccines for travel, or purchasing travel insurance. I didn’t used to worry about that stuff when I was a solo traveler.
What are the best tips for traveling with kids you’d give a mom who was Anxiety about traveling with kids? Start small. Travel doesn’t have to be a big epic trip. It can be a small road trip to a nearby city. When you’re just starting out with traveling, choose something that’s just a bit outside your comfort zone, whether that means a new destination, or a new type of accommodation, or a new mode of travel. That gives you a chance to challenge yourself with something new, but still provide a bit of comfort and familiarity.

Out of all the benefits of family travel, what is one thing you hope your children take out it? The world is full of so many interesting things to learn, and so many fascinating people to meet. I hope that our travels around the world help to instill a love for exploration in our kids, and an ability for them to open-minded and empathetic to people of different backgrounds. I want my kids to realize that there is so much more to the world than what’s within their immediate vicinity.

Travel stuff, What are 3 things you never travel without for yourself? For your kids It’s hard to narrow it down to just three, but for us, the three things we never travel without are comfortable shoes, packing cubes, and a carbon monoxide detector. Because we do a lot of walking, good shoes are very important. They need to be able to support our feet and not give us blisters at the end of the day. For me, it’s a toss up between my mary-jane style Danskos (which are great for city and cold weather trips), and my Chacos (which I like using when I go somewhere hot). Packing cubes are important for us because it helps to keep our clothes organized. We have one packing cube for each member of the family, and that’s all we take to carry all our clothes. We recently started traveling with a carbon monoxide detector, and it’s literally saved our lives recently. We were staying at an Airbnb in Mexico City, and it turned out that the water heater was pumping our room with carbon monoxide gas. Since carbon monoxide is colorless and odorless, we wouldn’t have known what a dangerous situation we were in had it not been for the carbon monoxide detector going off.

Long layover or direct flights? Why? Long layovers are a great way to explore a city, so if I see a flight that offers it, I usually take it. I’ve used long layovers to explore cities like Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Sacramento, CA. When we do long haul flights, we usually prefer to break up our flights into smaller chunks (less than eight hours), rather than do a nineteen hour direct flight. It gives our kids a chance to run around between flights and get some blood circulating through their bodies. There are a lot of health risks associated with taking long flights where you don’t really get a chance to move around, especially with deep vein thrombosis.
Why is it important to you to travel, mama? I think I’m just a wanderer at heart, and I get restless when I am in one place for too long. I am also a curious person, and I love the discovery that comes with travel. You have a chance to learn about a culture, or see a different place, or meet someone new. At the very least, travel helps me learn more about myself and what I am capable of achieving.
What is something you do without at home, to travel more? I try to be as frugal as possible, to free up funds for travel. I love books, but one of the decisions I consciously made was to stop buying books and utilize the local public library. Now that we’re traveling full-time, my library membership has come in really handy as I have access to so many ebooks. Another thing that my family and I tried to limit when we were at home was eating out at restaurants. We cooked a lot of our meals at home, and that really helped.
Airport uniform? I get cold when I fly on planes, so I usually dress in long pants and layers. My ankles swell up a lot when I fly (I blame my age!), so I’ve recently been wearing compression socks on days that we fly.

Travel mama hack? One of my favorite hacks, especially if you’re going to be traveling to a lot of American cities throughout the course of the year, is to buy a museum membership before you travel. That way you can take advantage of the museum reciprocal programs and get free admission to museums in the cities that you’re visiting. There are three museum programs that operate in the United States: ASTC, NARM, and ROAM. The best bang for your buck is if you can get a membership to a museum that participates in all three programs. Then you have a larger selection of museums to choose from. This past summer, we took a trip around the United States, and right before we left, I bought a $100 membership to a science museum in Seattle. During our trip, we visited about ten museums, which ended up saving us a little over $250. (Here’s a link to a post about my travel hacks if you want to include in your post: )
Do you /How do you practice responsible tourism as a family? This may be a bit controversial, but I am a big supporter of Airbnb. In my mind, it’s actually a lot more beneficial to the local economy than hotels. When we travel, we like to book apartments with Airbnbs, rather than hotel rooms, because it’s much easier to find places for families. We try and choose properties that are owned by locals, so that we know the money is going to a local person rather than an expat. And since the Airbnb properties are self-serviced, we end up supporting local stores to buy food and supplies, and local public transportation to get around.
Another way we practice responsible tourism is by being choosy about the tours we take. We try and make sure the tours are locally owned, and that it’s not exploiting the local community in any way.

The most sticky experience you’ve had traveling with kids. We recently had a scary experience while visiting friends near Puerto Escondido, Mexico. It was the middle of the night, and my daughter fell down a flight of stairs when she was trying to walk from her bedroom to our bedroom. She ended up with a large gash in her head. We took her to the closest hospital, and thankfully, the doctors were able to stitch her up without any trouble. We’re glad that the injury wasn’t worse. And we were also really impressed by the quality of care we received from the doctors here in Mexico.

Where have you been as a family? As a family, we’ve been to about ten countries throughout Asia, North America, and South America (Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Paraguay, Canada, United States, India, and Mexico).

Secretly there are 9 million benefits to traveling with kids what’s the best perk you’ve experience led going with a tiny traveler in tow? What I love about traveling with kids is that people are so much friendlier to you. Even in the United States. Children have a way of softening people up. I found this especially to be the case when we’ve traveled in Asia. They love kids over there!

Where can we follow along with your family travel, mama? You can follow along with our family’s travels on my blog, The Wandering Daughter. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
How many children are in your travel tribe? what are their ages?Right now, we travel with our two younger kids, who are eight and five. We also have an older son who lives on his own in New York City. Occasionally he’ll meet up with us during our travels.
Where are you guys off to next?We’re currently in Mexico, and plan to be here for the first quarter of the year, with a couple weeks break in Costa Rica. In the summer months, we’ll head to Italy for a month and France for a month. And then we’ll spend a few days in Singapore, before finishing off the year in Indonesia.