A trip to America with young children: personal experience and advice to parents
'03.09.2019'
Source: Womo
We love traveling with the whole family, but we decided to go to America with our children only with my grandparents. Agree, it’s more reliable.
Prepare
Usually everyone travels to the States with empty suitcases. You can dress inexpensively from head to toe all, buy gifts, and this should be remembered when packing a suitcase, so as not to pay later for an advantage. By the way, I strongly advise you to buy special camping scales for suitcases, they will help you pack properly before departure, writes blogger Ksenia Verlan for Womo.
It is definitely worth taking with you all the possible medicines for everyone - it will be impossible to buy there without a prescription.
Flight
Nothing to say about the flight. The younger one ordered a special cradle on the plane and I took a sling with rings with me.
The elder is a classic: sweets, iPad, a couple of books and toys. Toys didn’t come in handy on the road. The aircraft has built-in screens, each has its own and a huge selection of films / cartoons. We flew to Philadelphia via London. The flight to London went unnoticed by everyone. But what was in London itself shocked us. If you have a little time between planes - do not take any liquids with you at all. Check each mini bottle for half an hour, we were almost late. If you have two children, check when receiving boarding and registration in Kiev to whom the youngest child is attached without a seat. We twice had problems that the younger one is framed for the older one (which is forbidden), and it took time to fix the system glitch.
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Hotel
We booked a hotel outside the city and rented a big car for everyone. It turned out both more profitable and more convenient. Originally it was planned to travel and travel a lot, from the city center it is not very convenient to do if there are traffic jams. We liked the hotel, 20 minutes from Philadelphia and right next to a major highway. Getting in all directions was very convenient. The hotel found two rooms nearby and there was a door between the rooms, in the end we got a two-room suite. And the children were comfortable, and us. The most important question - where to wash - was decided very quickly. 1,5 $ loading the washing machine and 1,5 $ drying. It is incredibly convenient. If we knew in advance, we would not have taken so many things with us.
Food
This is the second most important question that worries mothers - how to feed the children. I’ll say right away what we’ve come to after many trial and error. The hotel breakfasts are tasteless and children are not particularly suitable. For example, the Panera Bread restaurant for breakfast offers porridge, bagels (bagels with spread) and delicious coffee. But we found an option for the whole family - we had breakfast at the Wholefoods organic food store. It sounds strange, but there is great cooking, everything is very fresh and you can take eggs, potatoes, salads and even sushi. For children - Greek yogurts with all tastes or local cottage cheese with berries, croissants and tea biscuits. They took coffee there. Conveniently, the whole family could have breakfast at the tables in the store, immediately take water and snacks for the whole day.
Finding soups for lunch is another task. You can easily find crab or tomato, but they are not at all for a three year old. Chicken noodle is the most popular soup and the only one we could give to our son.
Once more they found potato with cream, but never met it anywhere else. For dinner, the restaurant will offer a children's menu where you will find pasta with cheese, a mini-burger, nuggets ... .. We took the child food from the usual menu - baked fish or chicken with a side dish. We visited many family restaurants. Olive Garden turned out to be very average in food quality, you often don’t like Red Lobster, the food is specific. Steakhouses are good, but a little expensive. Italian restaurants lose to all pizzerias in Kiev, for my taste. With food, we did not find harmony. Of course, this is due to the fact that we were looking for healthy, tasty and understandable food. But there have never been any problems with the stomach, thanks for that! Even when we bought Chineese Food in a food court.
Drinks are another story. In America, everyone drinks very cold and on ice. They will bring you ice-cold children's juice! Compared to our children, everyone there is very tempered in this sense. But we did not shock and check the strength of our son's throat - we diluted the juice a little with warm water. And they all asked for themselves without ice. If you do not ask, they will bring it in a basin of ice, I honestly say.
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Travel and entertainment
My husband before the trip bought everyone a single ticket for 5 visits to various museums in Philadelphia, the zoo and the aquarium. For the price it is profitable and convenient - no one stood in line.
Since we traveled with a three-year-old son, we thought out a daily program in advance only for his pleasure. Necessarily a playground in the morning or in the evening. Huge playgrounds are located everywhere, from easy to find on google map. We all enjoyed the playgrounds a lot - they are usually located in the park area, there are canopies, soft coverings, lots of slides and swings, all the parents watch their children, ice cream comes directly to the site in the special van.
A couple of days we set aside the ocean. We rented a small house by the ocean. It was 30 minutes from the hotel, so we didn’t even spend the night there. Such calm days from running around are very important for everyone on long journeys and it is best to plan them at the very beginning. After all, everyone will wake up in the morning around 4-5 in the morning for a couple of days, and then in the afternoon - fall asleep on the go. At the ocean, we all rested and gained strength.
Philadelphia Zoo is small. If the child does not really like animals or has been to a huge zoo (for example, in Prague) - you can skip it. The aquarium will be interesting to everyone - there you can not only walk through the tunnel with sharks, but also touch the young sharks with your own hands.
The most interesting place for children is Please Touch Museum. You can even go there twice - you will not regret it. Children can play enough with water, funnels and waterfalls, visit a construction site and drive an excavator, change wheels on a race car, and generally touch and do whatever the heart desires. A paradise for children, when everything is “please touch”.
We planned family shopping for lunch when the children were sleeping. All shopping malls are cold enough, so it’s worth carrying a blouse and socks for the smallest ones (in museums too). There are no children’s zones in the stores, you can literally find a couple of cars or a children's train. It is important to understand that the kids in the store will have nothing to do. We shared the children and shopped in turn.
A separate story is New York. If you haven't been there - of course, it's worth going once. But it's better without children. When you first set foot on the streets of New York, you will immediately feel the desire to cuddle or group children closer, and in general - to turn to a quieter street, but there are almost no such ones in the center. We arrived early in the morning, had breakfast at Olive Garden and went to Central Park.
They practically did not stop along the way, the flow of people just carries everyone forward past Times Square, Broadway, 5th Avenue. Everyone managed to relax in the park. You can sit on the grass or numerous benches, for children there is a huge lunapark, a mini zoo and huge climbing stones. After two or three hours in the park, we quickly walked back to the station and drove to the hotel. Traffic jams, noise, a huge number of people - it is definitely worth avoiding all this with children. But one can survive such a day.
