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Easing the Single Parent Travel Burden (part I)

This article discusses additional ways to hand over travel responsibilities to your kid(s) so that you, the single parent, do not have to carry the entire “responsibility burden.” In a previous article, I discussed ways for your older kids, age nine or ten and above, to become skillful map readers and navigators, freeing you to focus on your driving or just enjoy the sights as you stroll around town. What about the younger children, age eight or nine and younger? What can they do to ease your single parent travel…

Air Travel with Kids and Pets – 17 Tips to Keep Your Sanity

Air travel is challenging under the best of circumstances, but when you add children and/or pets, things can get downright hairy. Not to mention smelly, messy, and noisy! While I do not make a habit of traveling with my dog or cat, I have, but I have a lot of experience with my kids—who can be equally as smelly, messy and noisy. So how do I do it? Actually it is pretty simple Be Well Rested. Get enough sleep the night before. If you’re like me and time always slips…

Vacationing out of the box

I do a good deal of generic travel. Actually, the bulk of my travel business is generic. Vacation packages to the Caribbean and cruises are routine bookings at my agency. As vacations go, these choices offer clients a great bang for their travel buck and give a great experience. But the trips I love to plan really kick it up a notch. When it comes to travel, there are very few travel dreams that a qualified travel agent cannot arrange for you. So this week I went to some colleagues…

Traveling with Infants – Health Concerns

The upcoming holiday season is a popular time to fly across country to visit family. In response to several e-mails about traveling by air with infants, I contacted my children’s former pediatrician who offered some answers to those questions: Q: How old does my baby have to be before he/she can travel by plane? A full term healthy baby can travel electively at a few days of age. As long as the baby is stable and feeding well airplane travel is OK at a week of age. Q: What about…

How to Find Other Single Parent Families

Single Parent Groups are great ways to meet other families whether you are interested in a travel buddy or new friends. The mother of them all is the international organization, Parents Without Partners. Other smaller organizations or specific to one gender are listed below. If you have any to add, please email us! Montgomery County, MD: SPARK (Single Parents Raising Kids) A wonderful group of single parent professionals. They hosted a booksigning for GlobalBrenda in the spring of `02. Cleveland, OH: A Cup of Joy Run by Sheryl…

9 Great Tips for Single Parent Families

Involve your children in your research and decisions. Talk to them about what you are planning to do. Try to spend a third of the time on a trip doing things you like, a third on activities you and your child or children like, and a third doing things you both enjoy. Plan on visiting places that each child is interested in. A school is always a good choice. Type up an itinerary for each vacation you take. This will this prevent some arguments en route about what to do…

Travel Survival Kits – Then & Now

TRAVEL SURVIVAL KITS – YESTERDAY AND TODAY Did you ever think what it was like to be a traveler in the mid 1800’s? Travel survival kits of yesteryear were certainly a lot different than they are today. As single moms and dads, we sometimes heave a series of sighs as we pack the accoutrements for ourselves and our young child or children in readiness for a road or airplane trip. Thanks to technology, travelers today have a far easier and more comfortable travel experience. To appreciate this, I did a…

When Travel Arrangements Go Bad

Every year, I hear more horror stories of travel arrangements gone bad. Look at any of the online blogs and you will see what I mean. Our own favorite travel ombudsman, Christopher Elliott, is busier than ever, and my colleague Anita Dunham-Potter recently told a travel horror story about a group of 73 would-be cruise vacationers who were left stranded when their so-called “travel agent” abandoned ship. Bad travel arrangements don’t have to happen to you. Just keep these four pointers in mind as you plan your next trip. The …

Tips for Traveling with Teens

Three tips from K.K., a single mom, who travels regularly with her daughter: 1) I try not to schedule anything for too early in the morning. Teens stay up late at night and they are not their best early in the AM so if possible we don’t do anything before 9 AM. 2) We have done cruising, which relieves me of having to find something for her to do 24/7. Because I am a single mom the only requirement I have is that she joins me for dinner every evening…