OT/Int'l Travel Update--w/Children

Welcome to the Summer Holiday Madness 2023

Dear readers,

I’ve been silent for a few days as I flew to my home country to pick up our children who vacationed with their grandparents.

This post is both personal and slightly off-topic, but I do think it has informational value for those who plan to travel internationally with children this year.

Pro Tip #1: Try Going Around Germany

We bought the tickets through a travel agent this time as my wife brought the kids and I picked them up a few weeks later. The travel agent suggested to try to avoid layovers in Germany as airports there are notoriously crowded, very short on staff, both ground and cabin personnel, and, given ‘ze Germans’ and their seeming aversion to parents (apologies to those Germans who read this and aren’t like this, but my travel experience with kids in the past decade is, well, telling), that’s what we did.

Pro Tip #2: Avoid Layovers, but Be Prepared

We flew via Copenhagen, Denmark, to Vienna and returned to Norway via Stockholm, Sweden. On the first leg of the journey, the flight to Copenhagen was delayed multiple times, my wife and the kids missed their connecting flight in Denmark, and had to stay overnight. In addition, the luggage ‘went missing’ (but eventually arrived, via Paris, France, three days too late).

Sure, that delay issue was trickier as it concerned three passengers, but my family had to travel via Brussels to Vienna, with the first flight from Copenhagen departing at 6:30-ish in the morning—additional fun with two excited, if super-exhausted, children.

Bottom line: I’m unsure about Germany being a bad place for layovers right now, but I suspect that the less stops, the better. Yes, this was true BC (‘before Covid’), but I think it’s gotten worse ever since.

Moreover, ground staff and ‘service’ (ahem) was quite expectably bad, which is an additional feature that’s annoying beyond belief in the above-sketched situation.

Lesson learned: pack a spare of clothes and a toiletry bad in the carry-on bag.

Pro Tip #3: Bring Your Own Food

This is perhaps the most ‘newsworthy’ item on this particular list, as domestic US flights never included food and beverages for regular travellers.

Since most flights in Europe are ‘international’ ones, these conventionally involved a bit of cabin service.

These days, prices have gone up significantly while ‘service’ has been reduced. This is particularly tricky if you didn’t know that in advance and bring kids along, but it also applies to adults.

Pro Tip #4: Don’t Expect Any Special Treatment for Kids

As a parent, this is perhaps the most obnoxious issue: BC families with young children would be invited to board separately. No longer.

Manners didn’t exactly improve during the so-called ‘pandemic’, hence this is quite a bummer, in particular as many adults travelling without children don’t seem to notice kids.

Bottom Lines

I think it’s fair to add some more time to consider whether flying is the best option.

Individual travel by car, train, or a combination thereof is quite certainly both cheaper and preferable, esp. as airlines are now asking customers to ‘be at the airport two hours before boarding’. Be prepared to waste a lot of times.

Air-travel was an obnoxious hassle BC, but by now it’s—perhaps by design—something that is getting worse and worse.

Regular posting to resume tomorrow.