Adventures with kids and gadgets
Baby Lounge Envy In Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport « Kids Go Global.
Hulllloooooo Australian Airports? Is anybody home? Is anybody listening?
I would strongly, strongly recommend that if you have a baby and you need to travel to Europe, you fly via Amsterdam. Kudos to Schipol Airport for a fabulous idea brilliantly executed. I give them an A++
Cool Baby Sunscreen: Baby Silk Towelettes.
This is a seriously brilliant idea for travelling families. Not available downunder just yet. Singapore is the closest. We’ll be keeping an eye out for them!
Today was box day in our house! Wooo hooo! Normally this means exciting things like new curriculum but today our friendly neighbourhood postie brought our parcel from Uncommon Scents. I have to say I am loooooooooving all things Badger. Mmmmm. Badger Balm. Mmmmm.
Then we went to the shops and stocked up on a few travel supplies. Can’t decide which glue stick to take. The pressure!
My parents are currently in Europe. I know, it was a coincidence that both families planned to go to Europe in the same year. As you can imagine, before they left we compared lots of notes. As ‘mature’ travellers (yeah, we’re the immature ones) they have quite a different itinerary and pace. Although they politely admired our Rick Steves carry on bags, they maintained they didn’t mind taking bigger suitcases and not having to cart their bags onto the plane.
Well, we are currently piecing the story together from SMS messages and emails but the gist of it is that my Mum has lost her bag. They flew from London to Paris. The airline didn’t loose the bag – another passenger picked up Mum’s bag by mistake. When he realized the mistake, he contacted my Parents (who were half way to Germany by that stage) and returned the bag to security at CDG Airport. My parents drove back to CDG to retrieve the bag but it couldn’t be located.
So my parents have resumed their trip minus all of Mum’s clothes. They will be able to buy replacement clothes and they will put in a claim of course but now they have the added hassle of trying to shop in an already busy
schedule.
I don’t want to get too smug because all our travel disasters have yet to happen. We need to wait until we get back before we can truly say that carry-on is a better way to go. In the meantime, it’s certainly sounding less crazy.
Motorola Talkabout Two-Way Radios Review & Giveaway.
Travelling Mamas have a pair of Walkie Talkies up for grabs. We’ve found walkie talkies to be absolutely brilliant when travelling BUT remember you need to get country specific ones. You cannot take walkie talkies internationally, as each continent has separate band widths for public use. You can take them from the UK to Europe but not to the States or Australia for example.
Things never to skimp on when traveling with kids.
I like the points this article makes – it just seems to be more US centric than perhaps intended.
Ok, I don’t agree with the number one point, which is don’t skimp on the hotel. To me, that is a very American way to travel. In fact, ignoring hotels has been the number one way that we can actually afford to travel. I would amend this point to “do your research on your accommodation – read the reviews”. Now that I totally agree with.
Perhaps it’s having flown so often between Australia and NZ but both of these countries have quite strict regulations about what food you can and cannot take off the plane. If you came laden with snacks, you can expect to have your bags searched by sniffer dogs (and yes, you will have to open your bag on the airport floor and everyone will see the underwear you packed).In fact the sniffer dogs know if you’ve had fruit in your bags anytime over the past couple of weeks, so even if you don’t have fruit currently on you, your bags can be searched. I speak from personal experience! You will be required to dispose of any fruit or dairy products before customs. Pre-packaged, highly processed and unopened snacks may make it through customs (you will of course have to declare them) but I don’t see the benefit in carting around loads of highly sugared junk. I’m still trying to think of an alternative.
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
Just a couple more digiscrapping freebies for travel scrapbooks….
HP have this great pdf of vintage looking travel postcards and tags.
Just So Scrappy have made the most gorgeous set of luggage tags from their “Boys will be Boys” kit. I don’t know how long this freebie will last (scroll to the bottom of the page for the download link, also check the earlier posts for more in the series).
Ok, this last one isn’t a freebie but at $0.50 it’s not going to break the bank either. This is a great paper called “All Mapped Out” and it’s made of vintage maps of the USA. Designer Digitals have some lovely travel kits if you have a bit of loose change burning a hole in your pocket.
Just came across these sites with some cool printables and digiscrapping resources for Disney Fans:
Walk With Us has some great word art for scrapping.
The Mouse For Less has lots of Disney themed download pages. They have travel journal pages for kids and adults, homework pages, luggage labels and more.
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,
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…
I got from Amazon. Binaural Beats and Ambiscience Pure Sleep are two free iphone apps that have relaxing white noise soundtracks.These articles also have great tips:
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.
Travelling with Kids
Third Culture Kids R Mine
Jumped the Ditch
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