How to Travel Mindfully with a Small Child
Every now and then, Lauren Rad, one of the team members behind the scenes here at Myrth, will pop in with a personal blog post. This time, she’s sharing her adventures in using mindfulness to have a more relaxed and enjoyable vacation with her family.
This past October, my husband and I packed up our three-year-old and went to Spain for two weeks. It was something we had known was coming for a long time, but being the generally anxious person I am and the specifically anxious person I am about travel and parenting, there was a lot of spinning in the lead-up to it. I found that many of the mindfulness techniques I had been practicing for the last few years really came in handy.
It turns out that mindfulness is a great way to help you focus on the joys of an experience rather than excessively worrying about the stress of it. After spending the last few months mulling over our adventures, I've boiled down some of my favorite tips and tricks to share here. These may or may not work for you, but I always find it reassuring to see that I'm not the only one grappling with a particular issue, and I hope they prove useful.
1. When things start to go wrong, remember your breathing exercises
I had to use that one pretty early on. See, our stroller got lost in transit, and it turns out that Madrid is a hillier city than I had remembered. Our three-year-old lasted about half a mile before we wound up carrying her all over town for our first day and part of the second. I was frustrated and tired (and hungry, too, which does little for my patience).
Whenever I felt myself starting to get a little snappy, I took a few moments to slow down and do some measured breathing. It helped me reset my physiological reaction to the stress, which then cleared my mind a bit and let me think more rationally about what to do next.
2. Embrace slower living and travel
When you've also got a small child in tow, you just can’t move at the pace you used to keep before. Their little legs are shorter, you’re hauling more gear, and they need more breaks. It’s just the way of it.
That can be frustrating when you’re used to moving faster and doing more. It’s easy to feel like you’re wasting your time, which can be disheartening and demoralizing, especially if big trips are a rare treat for you and you like to really take advantage of them when they come around.
As a result, I gave myself regular reminders to stop and process the scents I was smelling, the taste of my food, the feel of the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the sounds of the cities around me. Those little moments of paying attention to my surroundings helped me keep track of my priorities, which on this trip weren’t so much cramming in every possible sight and instead were focused on enjoying whatever I did manage to go see with my little family.
3. Recognize, acknowledge, and assess your emotional reactions during travel
Mindfulness has taught me to be aware of my own emotional reactions to situations and to recalibrate if they are inappropriately intense. I didn't realize how well that lesson had stuck until we missed our flight home.
Yep, you read that right. We missed our flight home, and at the time, it felt pretty awful.
There were a whole host of circumstances that combined into a perfect storm and caused us to miss our flight by about 45 minutes, and some of it was definitely due to all the extra stuff we were hauling. Then it took forever to get through to an agent who could help us, and even longer to figure out when the next available flight was. I was not pleased when I learned that the next flight they could get us on wasn't until the next morning.
Still, although it was an expensive mistake, it wasn't one that was going to ruin our budget, and it did mean we had an extra day to wander around a city that I had become quite fond of. It also meant that we got to have a nice dinner with my sister and brother-in-law. I even got to make one last run with my kiddo for churros and chocolate.
Would I have preferred to make our original flight home? Undoubtedly. Did things work out okay in the end? Absolutely. Would my getting all bent out of shape have fixed anything? Nope. It only would have made me feel even worse about a situation that couldn't be changed. Mindfulness taught me that, so when we got the bad news, I was able to recognize my feelings, name them, and decide how to move forward.
Traveling with a small kid is full of all sorts of surprises. Before we were parents, our travel style was pretty intense, with 10 to 15 miles a day of walking, lots of hiking and climbing bell towers, and as much sightseeing as we could cram into each day. This time around, we spent more time at playgrounds, did more grocery shopping, stayed in quieter neighborhoods. Once we got a new stroller, though, we still averaged about 10 miles a day of walking, and we still climbed some bell towers. It turns out our kid’s little legs are stronger than we thought.
And through it, all, remember to stop, take a couple of deep breaths, and really feel what was happening around me made it an absolutely wonderful adventure.
Have you used tools and techniques you’ve learned through mindfulness to help with traveling, parenting, or traveling while parenting? Please share it with us in the comments!
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