Great tips.
When looking for holidays I would advice parents to look at the flight time and also consider what time that means waking up in the morning, a 07:00 flight like sound OK when you book but that might mean waking up at 03:00 depending how far you are from the airport. Also have a think about the tranfer time from the airport.

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My top tip – don’t take kids abroad. Too hot, too difficult at airports, sometimes painful for their little ears on planes, etc. Holiday in your own country until they are a bit older. Added bonus is that you get to know areas of your own country you might not have visited before and keeps any spending in own enconomy during these down times.

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Our last trip to France brought us our biggest travel with kids tip ever, pack ONLY what you can carry. You can’t depend on the availability of luggage carts, porters or even working elevators. Am looking at the Trunki ride on suitcases as on option.

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Take your car and travel by ferry instead, much easier than flying.

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Some of my travel with kids tips:

1. Look for apartment or condo rental or extended-stay hotel with kitchen. It will save money and stress of eating out every night.
2. Plan lunch out instead of dinner out and save money. Plus kids are much better during the day than at the end of the day to sit still in a restaurant.
3. Travel slowly. Instead of planning a few attractions per day, only plan one attraction and take a break and enjoy the local scenes.
4. Kids love public transportation especially Metro or subway. Check out the route and enjoy the ride.
5. Give each kid a journal so they can draw or write about their trip at the end of each day. Fun and free activity to keep them occupied for a while.

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Number one tip: Don’t bring your kids to Vegas!!! I was just there a couple weeks ago and saw parents with their kids out on the strip at 11 at night! Not only is it past their bedtime, its Sin City! How about the porn peddlers on each corner!? You want your kids seeing that? Go to Disney!

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Agree with Ralph, if you are planning a family break, stay somewhere that is family friendly, or recommended as a family place. If the kids are happy the parents are happy. Even though you are paying, it’s their holiday too. Involve them, don’t expect them to do what you want all the time.

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And what a great uncle you are too, Darren!! You know I love family travel, so I stumbled this post!

I must agree with Linda that kid’s really do not need a dvd player to travel in the car or anywhere! We have traveled over 88,000 miles on our open ended world tour as a family since 2006 and rarely use our dvd player for our young child.

Someone mentioned ferries and we love them, have taken them all over Europe, including one between Ireland and France. We also took a fabulous, luxurious cargo ship between the UK and Sweden that our daughter and all of us loved.

Like Catherine above, we only traveled around our state ( California) until our daughter was 5. We wanted to wait until she could read well, walk as well as any adult, remember and be educated by her travels and carry her own luggage before doing extensive international travel. That has worked really well for us.

Nevertheless, she took her first trip and stayed in her first motel at 2 weeks old and took her first trip to the mountains to see snow at 3 months. I found the best things to travel with a baby was just to breastfeed and carry a sling that folds down to nothing and leaves one hands free.

Books are my favorite tip! Get kid’s books about a place to read before, during and after the trip. It adds so much and can make even a little one feel more connected to a place and “make it her/his own”. We have made wonderful family itineraries by using children’s literature and highly recommend that.

Once children are old enough to understand, there really is no better education than travel. It is different than single or couple travel, but it does not have to be stressful. In fact, I have found family travel to be the most exciting travel of all. Time to be together and create wonderful shared memories that you’ll never forget.

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If travelling in Asia look carefully at room configuration when you make a booking. The assumption in Asia is often that children will happily share a bed with adults and the booking is confirmed on that basis. Sometimes, young western kids are much less happy about that arrangement!

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