Posted by Miss Maccy on Jun 15, 2009 in
Travel with kids SGM has told me I *need* to blog about Swine Flu and it’s impact on travel for families, so here we go!
First of all, Swine Flu has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. “Pandemic” sounds like a very scary word but what does this really mean?
“A Phase Six pandemic declaration is based on the sustained worldwide spread of H1N1, not the severity of illness caused by the virus.”
That explanation is provided by Pandemicflu.gov According to WHO themselves,
“At this time, WHO considers the overall severity of the influenza pandemic to be moderate.”
In practical terms in Australia, that means that Swine Flu has so far had less serious consequences than the normal, seasonal flu that does the rounds. In fact, if you check out Centers for Disease Control page for Travellers you will see that there is in fact a huge outbreak of Pertussis (whooping cough) in Australia. NSW has had over 5,000 cases reported with one baby reported to have died from it. Compare that with 1,111 reported cases of Swine Flu in VIC with no reported deaths. And yet, the media is full of Swine Flu and nothing about whooping cough!!!! The Lonely Planet Blog recommends that the swine flu pandemic should not change your travel plans.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a great page with links to countries for travellers to see what is happening in each country. I checked Italy and discovered they have had an outbreak of measles. Sounds dreadful until I click on the information about measles and discover there is an outbreak currently in VIC, Australia as well. Quite frankly it is sounding safer to travel than stay home at the moment! Actually what I like best about CDC is that it includes the warning that car crashes are the leading cause of injury. CDC also publish “The Yellow Book” which although aimed at health professionals may be of interest to especially paranoid travellers or travellers requiring more in depth information. You can search the 2008 edition online.
Pandemic Preparedness has a table of countries with recommendations for travellers in regards to the Swine Flu.
Closer to home, the Australian Government has health and travel advice for travellers.
They have information on dealing with the flu pandemic for individuals and businesses here.
Every Australian who is travelling should also visit the Smart Traveller website. And as the recent “Bar Mat Mum” case has shown, being aware of travel advice for each country is important not just for health reasons. Even just transferring planes in a different country it is important to be aware of local laws, for example “Shoplifting and theft are considered serious offences in Singapore. Australians visiting Singapore and transiting Changi airport have received jail sentences for such offences. Shopping centres, including at Changi airport, have sophisticated surveillance equipment to prevent shoplifting.”
The Smart Traveller site has a page specifically about travelling with children and you can also register with the DFO. “All Australians travelling overseas, whether for tourism or business or for short or long stays, are encouraged to register with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade before travel.”
The NZ government has a similar website called Safetravel. Again NZers can register before travelling, there are travel advisories by country and health warnings (including stay away from nasty Australia where we have Dengue fever as well *sigh* perhaps it’s just as well none of this appears in the Australian media).
Further information on Swine Flu here:
WHO
and here
Pandemic Preparedness
Australian Guidelines for Dealing with Swine Flu for Health Professionals
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Tags: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Advice for Travellers, Influenza pandemic, Swine Flu, Swine influenza, Travel for Families
Posted by Miss Maccy on Jun 13, 2009 in
Planes,
Travel with kids 
Make sure they have plenty of Gin & Tonic at your destination. KIDDING!
Seriously though, jet lag is absolutely hideous and I have been scouring the internet looking for the best tips to deal with jet lag for children. The bad news is that there are very few options and most are hit and miss or rely on a placebo effect at best. Before we go any further I have some genuine advice,
Whatever you do, make sure you try it well in advance at home first. 30,000 feet up in the air is not when you want to discover a life threatening allergic reaction, or that it gives you a massive headache, or that it makes the children hyperactive.
On that note, my humble experience of kids and “calming drugs” is that the children who need them the most are either not effected or they have the opposite effect. The kids it works best on are the ones who don’t need it. I don’t advocate it, it’s something you’d need to do your own research on and discuss with your own doctor.
Now I am the sort of person who gets jet lagged travelling between Australia and NZ – and that’s a two hour time difference at most. So I am super aware of the horrible side effects of being jet lagged. The last time we did a major international trip, I was six months pregnant and also got horribly motion sick. As a result I was completely unable to deal with the Tube in London and the escalators and general commuting crush. We had to spend the all out time in London using the double decker buses instead (which was probably a whole lot nicer anyway).
I think the most important thing when planning a trip is to build in a buffer. Don’t plan on doing major attractions or theme parks on the day you arrive or even the day after. A lot of the sites I’ve looked at talk about it taking up to 5 days to adjust to the local time zones. (If you are travelling for 5 days or less, you might as well stick with your home time zones as much as possible).“Overcoming Jetlag” at Trekaroo goes into more details about starting things slowly. In our upcoming Europe trip we are starting with three nights at a campsite on a lake with a nice pool complex. Our plan is to be able to blob as much as possible for the first three days, plus naturally getting bright light at the right time by being in the pool. For the return trip, we’re scheduled to arrive at the beginning of the weekend – this means we have the whole weekend at home to recover from the flights and the change in time zones.
While staying awake once you reach your destination may be practical advice for adults, it’s not so easy for children. Exposure to sunlight is the most recommended activity. There are a couple of websites that help you calculate the best times to get a dose of bright light.
Fleet Street Clinic Jet Lag Calculator
Bodyclock: The Jet Lag Calculator
Alertness Solutions Jet Lag Calculator This is a bit different – it is a pdf chart to print off and fill in the time zones. It lets you see when your natural alert and sleep times are.
On the Fleet Street Clinic pages you will see a recommendation for using Melatonin. This is widely available in the USA but requires a prescription in Australia (even to import it). Melatonin seems to get very mixed reviews and it’s certainly not something I’d be prepared to give to my children. Help Me to Sleep has more indepth information on jet lag remedies for adults such as melatonin. A product that I have tried for myself that is a kind of precursor to melatonin is 5-HTP. “A Norwegian study showed that 5-HTP can affect sleep patterns by increasing the levels of serotonin, which is needed for sleep. Serotonin is needed to produce melatonin, a hormone which regulates sleep-wake cycles.” You can read more about 5-HTP here and here. Although you cannot buy 5-HTP widely in Australia it is easy to order online from many NZ stockists and there are no problems importing it. Again, it’s not something I’m planning to give to my kids, but I am intending to take some for myself on our trip.
So, non-invasive, practical things I am going to do to help lessen the impact of jet lag on my kids…
- A month before start changing their bed-time. because of the direction we are flying, I’m going to make this later by an hour each week (yay Homeschooling rocks, plus I’m making sure we have no morning appointments those weeks).
- In the week before we leave, I’ll be talking to my kids about what to expect, sleeping on the plane, and quiet activities to do if they wake up and their parents are still asleep!!!
- To help with sleeping on the plane (and when we arrive) I’ve bought Badgers Sleep Balm and Badgers Night Night Balm from Uncommon Scents. I wasn’t sure which one would work best, so I got both to try out before we leave. (And doesn’t the cute picture of the Badger just make you want to snooze?) I also have ear plugs, eye masks and white noise to put on the ipods. Powrnaps Sleep System Combo Pack 26-minute Nap Audio System & Easy2sleep Audio System
I got from Amazon. Binaural Beats and Ambiscience Pure Sleep are two free iphone apps that have relaxing white noise soundtracks.
- Once we arrive I’m going to try the acupressure points recommended in No More Jet Lag I figure what is $10 when we have spent $$$$ going on this holiday? If it works, fantastic, if it doesn’t we’re really no worse off.
- As recommended in the Trekaroo article above, we’ll be stocking up on snacks once we arrive
These articles also have great tips:
Delicious Baby: Jet Lag
Travel with your kids: What you can do about jet lag
The Babies Online Blog has a hilarious article on dealing with jet lag and toddlers.
Tags: jetlag, Sleep balm, Time zone, Travel
Posted by Miss Maccy on May 28, 2009 in
Travel with kids RAC provide driving games ideas for kids.
Speaking of travel games – above is a link to a few new printable ideas for car journeys.
Tags: Car Games, Car trips, travel games
Posted by Miss Maccy on May 28, 2009 in
Travel with kids So yes, my kids suckered me into Macdonalds this morning. Normally I avoid it like the plague because with two growing lads, I find it hoovers the money out of my wallet ensuring that they have had enough to eat. Ahhhh, those were the days when a Happy Meal actually made them feel full. The other thing that drives me crazy about MacDonalds is the kids rushing off to play on the playground, eating a few mouthfuls, rushing back to the playground and then as you are pulling out of the car park, complaining “I’m huuuuuuungry”. And yes, we are completely OVAH the junkie plastic toys.
Anyway, today was no different wallet wise but at least we got something useful in return – a travel edition of Trivial Pursuit for $1. How cool is that? Weighs 100g and in a smallish cardboard box of 13×13 cm.
My one gripe about it would be that although it has the wedges for six players, it only has the wedge holders for two. If I’d realised earlier, I would have sprung for two of the games to get the extra pieces. And let’s face it – for $1, if they get bored with the game or loose the pieces while travelling, it’s not the end of the world (or la fin des haricots)
Apparently there are also travel editions of Guess Who and scoop-my-eyeballs-out-with-spoons-Monopoly. C’mon Maccas, what we really, really want is Carcassonne
or The Settlers of Catan
for $1.
Tags: Board game, games, Guess Who, Happy Meal, McDonald, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit
Posted by Miss Maccy on May 18, 2009 in
Travel with kids Kid Friendly has just published some tips for travelling long distances with kids. They have also done a comparison of the low cost carriers who fly from Australia. Both are good articles worth reading.
The best tip I have ever heard for dealing with long car trips with kids is to buy a bag of sweets before the trip starts. Every time the kids misbehave in the car or get rowdy, simply roll down your window and throw one of the sweets out! Make sure of course that the kids notice you throwing the lolly away! When you reach the destination, the kids may share whatever is left in the bag of lollies.
Tags: Australia, Confectionery, Driving, Flying, Travel with kids
Posted by Miss Maccy on May 6, 2009 in
Travel with kids Travel Wisdom From My Mother: Travel Savvy Mom.
You know what? I actually got goose bumps reading this post! What an incredible role model. I think I am going to print off those words and staple gun them to my forehead.
Tags: Advice, Travel with kids
Posted by Miss Maccy on May 4, 2009 in
Travel with kids 
Tags: humour, Parenting, vacation
Posted by Miss Maccy on Apr 27, 2009 in
Travel with kids thedailydigi.com » Blog Archive » If You Plan to Go to Disney World.
This article has some fabulous advice for families who are going to visit Disney. The author Janet used to have annual passes to Disney World and so has visited over 50 times! Despite being written specifically about Disney World, there is great advice for visiting any theme park. Well worth reading also for the gorgeous photos – might have something to do with the fact that this web site is The Daily Digi and normally devoted to digital scrapbooking!
Tags: Disney, Theme Park
Posted by Miss Maccy on Apr 25, 2009 in
Travel with kids tripso.com | 10 ways to save when feeding a family on the road.
Food for thought here! (Pardon the pun).
This is something we’re thinking about well in advance. Our local supermarkets sell cheap chiller bags for carrying home frozen goods. They’re light and they fold up easily. We intend to take at least one of these. Once we get off the plane at the other end, we’ll be looking for a supermarket to stock up on picnic supplies for our “car kit”. (If we can’t find a large supermarket, we’ll simply keep an eye out for an Ikea).
Our Car Kit List:
- Disposable Plates
- Possibly disposable bowls for breakfasts too
- Disposable knives, forks, spoons
- A cheap but sharp knife (ever tried slicing a tomato with a plastic knife?)
- Ideally a small cheap chopping board (see “tomato” above)
- Hopefully a thermos flask – filling up with hot water before you leave in the mornings can really save on the cost of hot drinks during the day.
Our accommodation will be a combination of one nighters, which will be hotels with no cooking facilities and cabin style for the longer stretches. It will be interesting to see if it is possible to do any baking in the cabins. I haven’t felt very inclined to do so before when on holiday, but whisking up a batch of muffins is a quick and economical way to feed a family snacks.
Something else we are doing ahead of time is thinking about the times when we will need to buy takeaways or fast food. For example, our flight into Manchester (UK) arrives at about 7 pm at night. We don’t know if there will be a meal aboard the plane (I suspect we will be sitting ducks for the snacks trolley). Therefore we’ve checked the airport website. A big thumbs up to Manchester Airport for their website! I’ve been able to see exactly what food outlets they have, when they are open, and a menu even for one of them (go Giraffe). While looking at their website, I also realised it would be a really good idea to stock up on some muffins and cookies and fruit for breakfast for the following morning. All of this saves picking up the rental car, driving out of the airport and going “right, where are we going to eat?” and driving around hopelessly lost when the kids are starving.
And speaking of saving money when feeding families, keptwoman and I are currently engaged in a battle of the budgets! We’re aiming to slash quite a few dollars out of our food budgets before we even get on the plane. You can check out our little competition over here at Bring on the Beans!
Tags: Bring on the Beans, Budgeting, Car trips, Food, Saving
Posted by keptwoman on Apr 2, 2009 in
Accommodation,
Travel with kids If you like to travel… just say NO. Two children are just fine.
I’m not even going to discuss the impact of the extra body on cars and suitcases.
You know all those lovely family rooms you read about? Yeah, they are for people with 2 kids. A family is 2 adults and 2 kids, once you hit number 3 your accommodation options decrease dramatically in number and increase exponentially in price.
Take New York: unless we want to pay USD400 a night plus tax, we are stuck with either a backpackers, many of which won’t guarantee us our own room, or travelling to Union City, NJ or Jamaica, NY. Good fun.
In New York I have it down to two options:
1/ The West Side YMCA. We can get a room with 3 sets of bunks for $210 using a shared bathroom. They will even give us the room to ourselves! And because they are a charity they don’t charge tax, which can be exhorbitant. They have an onsite pool, fitness classes (for when I haven’t had enough exercise after a day of walking… yeah right!) and they are right by Central Park. But they don’t have any kitchen facilities or even a refrigerator. Bunk beds, welcome to America!
2/ Embassy Suites Secaucus. It has the benefit of being $50 a night cheaper AND including breakfast and getting real beds and a private bathroom, and a simple kitchenette thingy. But it’s a train ride into town which would cost us $30 a day.
Decisions, decisions.
Tags: New York, United States
