How to Travel Abroad for a Long Trip with the Family: Seven Steps to Be Ready

The idea of traveling abroad for over a month with your entire family can be overwhelming. However, if you have a large family and are going to spend a significant amount of cash on airline tickets, it often can be well worth the time and money to stay abroad for longer than a month.

I have packed up myself, my husband, and my three kids for extended trips abroad on at least a half a dozen occasions. In this post, I explain how we do it.

My daughters at the park during our trip to Guatemala

At the moment, we are about to embark on a 7-week stay in Barcelona. Thus, it’s a good time for me to provide some tips on how one goes about this.

Step 1: Passport and visa check.

At least three months before you leave, pull out everyone’s passports and make sure they are not about to expire. Do some online searching to make sure no one needs a visa. This simple step could potentially save you a lot of trouble and frustration later.

Step 2: Buy the airline tickets.

Because I have to purchase five tickets for my family, I always want to ensure I get the best deal possible. At the same time, I know that I can easily spend hours and hours online trying to get a good deal. To strike a balance, I keep an eye on the price of the tickets for about a month. That allows me to have an idea as to how much I should spend and what a good deal would be. Then, I dedicate one afternoon to researching all of the online options and purchasing the tickets. Two tips for getting cheaper tickets: 1) If you don’t live in a major city, it can often be cheaper to purchase one ticket to a major city and another from that city to your overseas destination. If you do this, it is advisable to have a very long layover or to purchase your overseas tickets for the next day. This year, we are flying to Washington, DC on Friday, and out to Barcelona on Sunday. 2) The more flexible you are with the dates, the better chance you have of getting a bargain.

Step 3: Look for housing.

If you are traveling abroad and plan to stay in one place for more than a week, you often can find furnished apartments to rent. Furnished apartments usually cost the same or less than hotels, and have the dual advantages of being larger than a hotel room and the possibility for doing your own food preparation. A little online searching – via craigslist.com – for example, can often lead to many possibilities. With Google maps and forums such as the Lonely Planet thorntree and tripadvisor.com, you can get a pretty good idea about the area before you choose a place to stay.

Step 4: Pack lightly.

For our family of five, we can fit all we need into two large suitcases and three smaller carry-on rollies. Packing lightly makes traveling much easier. If you arrive in a city with six or ten suitcases, you need all kinds of special transportation just to get you and your bags where you need to go. If you travel with just a few suitcases, getting around and getting settled is much easier.

Here is what we pack:

• One suitcase full of my and my husband’s clothes and shoes: For myself, I pack no more than 30 items of clothing – including dresses, slacks, shorts, and shirts. That is more than enough to have plenty of variety at least for one season. My husband fills the remainder of the suitcase with his clothes. I usually pack a couple of towels and maybe a sheet, depending on where we are going.
• One suitcase full of the kids’ clothes. For the kids, I pack seven to ten outfits each. That will last them at least a week before it’s time to do laundry. We minimalize the number of toiletries we pack, as you usually can get what you need wherever you go, and split the toiletries between our and the kids’ suitcases.
• One carry-on rollie with my books and computer. This is my work suitcase, and I fit in there whatever I need to get work done: my laptop, kindle, digital recorder, books, papers, flash drives, and writing utensils.
• One carry-on rollie with the kids’ toys and electronic distractors. I finally relented and let the kids get Nintendo DS’s when I realized that they are a great, compact way to keep the children entertained while we are traveling. My 10-year olds also got iPod touches for Christmas, and these are also great and compact for traveling. We also pack a portable DVD player, blank papers, crayons, markers, and books to keep the kids entertained.
• One carry-on rollie with my husband’s jewelry-making supplies and books. My husband is a musician and a jeweler, so he packs up his rollie with whatever he needs to keep himself occupied while we are abroad.
• Then, each of us gets one backpack into which we put whatever we want. I pack reading materials for the plane. My kids pack their favorite toys. My husband packs snacks and his instruments.

Step 5: Get everything ready well in advance.

It alleviates a lot of last-minute stress if you can be packed and ready to go the night before you leave, or several hours before you go. After you pack, you can relax and have lunch or dinner out. Leaving everything to the last minute is guaranteed to produce lots of stress.

Step 6: Gather the troops and head to the airport.

Double check that you have the passports, tickets, cash and credit cards. With those things in order, everything else will be fine.

Step 7: Bon Voyage.

You are ready, and have what you need. Enjoy the great time with your family.