Most advice about travelling with children is either a list of packing items or a reassurance that it is all worth it. Neither helps with the actual decisions, which are about pace, destination and health, and which get made before you leave.
The pace, which is the whole thing
An adult sightseeing day is eight to ten hours and ten kilometres of walking. A child’s is about four hours and considerably less.
The practical structure that works: one thing in the morning, a long lunch, and somewhere they can run in the afternoon. That is a smaller day than you want and it is what makes the trip sustainable past day four.
Half the itinerary. Whatever you have planned, remove half of it. This is the same advice as going slower generally and it applies about twice as hard.
Base yourself and day-trip rather than moving every second night. Unpacking once, having a familiar room to return to, and knowing where the nearest shop is are worth more than seeing an extra town.
Choosing where
The things that actually make a destination easy with children are not the things guidebooks rank.
Short flight, or a flight that lines up with a night. Anything under about four hours is manageable; a twelve-hour daytime flight with a toddler is a specific ordeal.
Low health risk — no malaria prophylaxis, safe tap water, good hospitals — removes an enormous amount of low-grade anxiety.
A culture where children are welcome in restaurants. Southern Europe, Latin America, Turkey, most of Asia and the Middle East: children are welcome everywhere, at any hour, and nobody minds noise. Northern Europe and North America are considerably more restrictive.
Beaches, pools and parks, which reset a bad day faster than anything.
On those criteria the easy answers are: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Japan, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Thailand’s islands, Mexico’s Yucatán, and much of central Europe.
The harder ones are not off-limits, but India, Nepal, most of sub-Saharan Africa and the high Andes all add real complications — altitude in particular is a poor idea with very young children, who cannot describe symptoms.
Flights
Book seats together and pay for it if you must; airlines do not reliably seat families together otherwise.
Bulkhead rows have the bassinet positions for infants and must be requested early.
Time it against sleep where you can. A night flight that matches bedtime is transformative; a 2pm departure that lands at 9pm is not.
Take off and landing: something to swallow — a bottle, a snack, a drink — deals with ear pressure.
Bring more food than seems reasonable. Airline meals are late, unfamiliar and often refused.
A new small toy per hour for the first three hours of a long flight is a genuine tactic.
Documentation: children need their own passports and, increasingly, their own visas and travel authorisations. A parent travelling alone with a child may be asked for a letter of consent from the other parent — this is enforced at borders in South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere, and it is worth carrying regardless.
Health
See a travel clinic at least eight weeks ahead. Children’s vaccination schedules differ and some vaccines have minimum ages, which occasionally rules out a destination.
Malaria prophylaxis for children is available but dosing is weight-based and some drugs are unsuitable below certain ages.
Dehydration is the main real risk with a stomach upset, and it arrives faster in small bodies. Rehydration sachets are the single most important thing in the medical kit.
Sun — high factor, hats, and midday shade. Sunburn ruins more family trips than anything exotic.
Check your insurance covers the children by name and includes them in the medical and repatriation limits.
Find the nearest hospital on the map on your first day in each place. You will almost certainly not need it, and knowing removes a whole category of worry.
Accommodation
An apartment beats a hotel room for anything over three nights: a kitchen, a washing machine, and somewhere to be after the children are asleep that is not sitting in the dark.
Ground floor or a lift, and check that “quiet” means quiet — many family-friendly hotels are family-friendly because they are full of families.
Ask about a cot and a high chair rather than assuming.
The costs
Cheaper: children eat less, many attractions are free or half price under a certain age, and public transport is often free for the youngest.
More expensive: you need more space, so family rooms and apartments rather than the cheapest option; you will take taxis you would have walked; and you will pay for convenience regularly, which is money well spent.
What actually goes wrong
Not the dramatic things. It is: everyone being tired at the same time, one meal too late, a day with no downtime, and the fourth museum.
The countermeasures are dull and effective. Eat before anyone is hungry. Build in an afternoon with nothing in it. Let them choose one thing a day, which they will take extremely seriously. And accept that some days the best decision available is a swimming pool.
The compensation
Children get you talked to. Travelling with a small child in most of the world means being helped constantly, being invited into conversations that would never have started, and being treated as a person rather than a tourist.
That is not a small thing, and people who travel with children consistently mention it before anything else.