Family Travel: |
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| Feeding Time -Family Travel Tips |
Wherever you roam, it's a fact of life that, at least three times a day, you'll have to feed little mouths somehow.
Feeding kids on a trip has two distinct elements:
- No Fridge, No Cupboard: you're a dis-empowered parent
- Restaurant Torture: eating out can be a trying and wasteful experience
No Fridge, No Cupboard
| Tactic 1: stay where there's a kitchen. | Often it's possible to stay in condo's or hotel/motel units with functional kitchens. Or you can rent a vacation home. |
Even with just a plug-in kettle, you can make instant soups when a snack is needed urgently.
| Tactic 2: be your own fast-food restaurant. | Whether you're going 50 miles or 1000, pack fruit leather; peanut butter; juiceboxes; crackers, etc., and always have a few snacks instantly available. |
Younger kids tend to not deal well with food/drink delays of more than thirty seconds: so have your own at the ready; you'll save a small fortune, too.
Also: pack cereals and plastic bowls and spoons: a DIY breakfast gets you on the road an hour earlier, saves money, and gives the kids what they're used to. Bring powdered milk to use in a pinch.
| With infants, even if you're breastfeeding, it can be handy to bring along small long-shelf-life packages of ready-made formula, and also a ziplock bag with powdered formula. | Other useful equipment on trips: plastic cups (for sharing large-size drinks; a cutting knife; plastic storage containers, for leftovers; and ziplock bags. | |
Family Travel Tips: Restaurants
| Tactic 1: avoidance. |
Restaurants can be avoided by staying at places with kitchenettes; eating breakfast cereals in your room; and creating picnics with take-away food from restaurants or deli's. |
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| Tactic 2: feed kids first. |
If you want to try a certain restaurant but think your kids won't like the food, feed them first and then, in the restaurant, let them order a dessert while you have your own meal. |
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| Tactic 3: choose kid-friendly places. |
Though childless friends will be appalled that you ate at MacDonald's in Paris, most parents can see the attraction: the familiar food; the informality (--nobody cares if your kid is under the table); and, if you're lucky, a ballroom where they can burn off some energy. |
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| Tactic 4: bring plastic food containers. |
Perhaps your child sits nicely in a restaurant and eats every bite... but some of us feel lucky if -- at any point during the meal-- all kids are at one time seated on their chairs. |
Sometimes nothing on their plates gets touched. But voila! Pop the uneaten servings into tupperware, or some sort of plastic container. The meal is saved for later.
More Family Travel Tips
Little kids are messy, so it makes sense to leave bigger tips (in proportion to the mess.)
It's important, too, to train kids in good eating-out manners: but this is probably best addressed when you're not actually on a trip. Kids may be tired, or overexcited; also, you don't have the option of taking them home if they behave badly.
Food
As A Health Risk
In exotic locales, take these precautions:
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Kids and Scheduled Meals
If you're eating
on "all-inclusive"
plans, check if snacks are available between meals. This is
typically the case at all-inclusive resorts, but may not be so in smaller places,
or dude ranches or lodges with meal plans. You may find that a dinner is served
at 6:30, and that's it, foodwise, for the night. And guess whose kids aren't the
least bit hungry, at dinner-time? (See tip above, about bringing plastic
food containers, above.)
