Guest Post: Christy Rounds’s Best Travel Mistakes

Christy from BabyTravel.com has graciously allowed me to post her work here.  If you are looking for more helpful tips and resources for traveling with kids, head over there!  Her packing list is awesome, and I am printing out her creative travel tips to bring with me to the store so I can get everything I need for #1-4!

Sharing travel tales of woe? How is this productive? Rest assured, I am not trying to encourage anyone to wallow in self-pity or scare the pants off some new parent preparing for their first airplane trip with a young child. Mistakes are our best teacher. And why not let someone else make them instead of you? So I’ll go first. Here are my top 5 travel screw-ups!

Christy Rounds’s Best Travel Mistakes

Soaked the Seats

O.k. So this isn’t just one mistake. It’s really about five or six. Remember when I said you can learn from mistakes? Seems in some cases, I just don’t. On many airplane trips, I brought an empty sippy cup for each child. When the flight attendant offered drinks, I’d have him / her put the kids’ apple juice in the sippy cup instead of the plastic cup. Smart, right? The problem is, I’d often forget the sippy cups. And invariably, someone would spill their apple juice. So if you were one of the unfortunate souls who had our seats for the next flight, all I can say is, I’m really, really, really sorry!


Smelled like Puke
From the title, I think you can guess the story. I was flying from Reno, NV to Traverse City, MI after a sales meeting. My parents had flown out to watch 6 month old Gracie while I attended my meetings. So Gracie and I were 1/2 hour into an 8 hour trip when she threw up, soaking not only her outfit, but all my clothes as well. Well… I’m not a total idiot. I had a change of clothes for her. But nothing for me. So I spent the day desperately trying to ignore the wrinkled noses and gagging sounds. If you were one of the unfortunate souls who had a seat next to us on one of those flights, all I can say is, I’m really, really, really sorry!


Miscalculated Diapers Needed
How many diapers can a baby go through in a flight? That depends. Does your baby have diarrhea? Mine did. So the normal 4 diapers for 8 hours in transit didn’t cut it. Did you know that it’s very hard to find diapers in Chicago O’Hare? Maybe there is a new baby supply store now, but I assure you, there wasn’t when I truly needed it most! I can also tell you that maxi pads and duct tape are not an adequate substitute. No, I didn’t really do that. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.


Injured the Baby
Dumb doesn’t even begin to describe this one. I was flying with three little kids – ages 4,3,1 – from Salt Lake City to Traverse City, MI with a stopover in Minneapolis. Thankfully, my parents, who had come to watch the kids while I attended a convention, were traveling in first class. I was distracted with trying to break up an argument between the two older kids, so I absentmindedly dropped a raisin into an empty pop can and handed it to the baby to uses as a rattle. Instead of rattling, my little guy reached into the pop can to get the raisin and sliced his finger. The slice was deep and I couldn’t stop the bleeding. In a few minutes, there was blood everywhere.
The flight attendant told me that if she opened the medical kit, she’d need to file a report when we got to Minneapolis, and I would miss my connecting flight. Not wanting to spend the night in Mpls with three young kids, I tried to stop the bleeding myself. Other passengers were begging me to have the attendant open the $&%*#@ medical kit. We finally got the bleeding slowed enough to not get bounced from the connecting flight. And once again, if you were one of the unfortunate souls who had a seat next to us on one of those flights, all I can say is, I’m really, really, really sorry!


Checked Car Keys in the Luggage
By now, you are wondering why you’d read a blog written by a complete idiot. But wait… I’ve saved the best for last. May of 2009, we were flying from Paris to Grand Rapids, MI with a 3 hour layover in Altanta, GA. Again, I was flying alone with the kids. Do you notice that all my disaster stories happen when I’m flying alone? That’s because my husband is smart enough to avoid all these problems! Anyway… the kids were 6, 5 and 3. There was no movie on the flight from Paris, so I expended a lot of energy keeping them entertained.
Exhausted, we finally arrived in Grand Rapids at 5:00am Paris time. The airline had lost our luggage. That wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for the fact that after 6 weeks of not using my purse in Europe, I’d packed the purse – with car keys inside – in my checked luggage.


O.k. So I shared my tales of travel shame and woe. Now it’s your turn. What are your stories of disaster? They don’t need to be dramatic, just something we can all learn from or empathize with! So go ahead, share…