Have Kids Will Travel: Bethany Hamilton’s Travel Tips for Success

We interviewed Bethany on the Today’s Mama Podcast. LISTEN HERE!

Bethany Hamilton’s Travel Tips

Through trial, error, and some creativity, we’ve figured out a few go-to tricks that help everyone better enjoy each adventure near or far.

Here are some of our family’s travel tips:

Stay hydrated. My family drinks electrolyte powder, we like Ultima. On the go hydration in awesome refillable Corkcicle canteens! We put our big refillable water bottles in the diaper bag as “baby water” so we can bring our filtered water through security.
We also plan extra time to have mandatory bathroom breaks for the littles.
Pack healthy snacks. It can be tough finding nutritious food in airports, so we remove the uncertainty by bringing our favorites!
Use Yelp. We love yelping the local area to find healthy places to eat.
Plan driving around traffic. Sometimes we will find a park and wait out traffic at the park or a sweet coffee shop.
Travel in the day with kids, instead of night flights.
Bring hand wipes. Lots and lots of hand wipes, and natural hand sanitizer.
Pack an extra change of clothes for kids in your day bag, and if traveling internationally, for parents too, because accidents happen (you can almost guarantee they’ll spill something on you) and this way you’ll be ready.
Sleep Tricks: We travel with dark sheets to darken a room if need so we can sleep better, also ear plugs, eye covers, a safe high quality melatonin and sound machine. Life on the road is a lot hahaha …we make sure to get exercise and sunshine to adjust to time change as well.
Create and bring an immunity kit. Ours is filled with goodies to make a thorough homeopathic kit: including probiotics, activated charcoal and Chinese herbals for whatever might come our way, and also includes a solid first aid kit. We have arnica tablets and arnica ointment since kids are always bonking themselves. I’ll share more on this in the future, because I’m a nerd on this stuff and it really does help! We’ve traveled the world multiple times and have done amazing fighting sickness no matter the location.
Protect your skin. Pack hats and sunscreen (we like Amavara), bug repellent and deet-free bug repellent bracelets for the kids.
Pack what you need and remember the fun things. Bring your kid’s favorite light-weight things (toys, coloring equipment etc.). We have Tobias fill his backpack with his favorite, lighter toys. Things to help avoid screen time. That often includes coloring gear, play doh, and memory match cards, which are great for cars and planes. We don’t watch tv or movies much, so for Tobias that’s a special treat on planes. We also like listening to audio books. Five thin/lightweight books is usually the max, but also a good amount for diversity.