ONE MONTH IN ITALY WITH A BABY + A TODDLER

It’s been a minute since I traveled.. let alone wrote about it. To say it’s been a pretty crazy couple of years is a bit of an understatement. I’m not quite sure where all the time has gone and how it’s 2023 already. The last time I traveled internationally was January 2020 and it feels very strange even writing that. Obviously 2020 was weird and hard and devastating for most of the world, and when I remind myself that, I can’t really complain. But it was a dark time none the less. I started the year like everyone else, naive and so unprepared for what was to come. I had just found out I was pregnant and had a trip to Vienna with my best friend planned. The following month, February, I even had a 3 week backpacking trip with another friend worked out. Full itinerary and everything booked and set. China. Of all places to have booked for February 2020. I remember sitting watching the news days before I was scheduled to fly out, texting my friend and monitoring our flight. “Should we go?” “There’s no way this Coronavirus is going to be a big thing.. Can it?” I was a week outside the second trimester mark not only preparing to backpack through China, but about to embark into the epicenter of a virus that shut down the entire world. Obviously we ended up canceling. And then days after our initial flight plan, all flights to and from china were halted. I have no idea what our trip would’ve looked like if we had flown over there. Not to mention, again, I was pregnant. I did get to Vienna in January however. That was my last trip overseas and I suppose my first with Isabelle.

The rest of the year was an absolute disaster. But we did meet our little girl, so some good came out of it for us. We’re lucky. Cut to 2023.. we have two beautiful little ones (Marjorie *Maggie* joined us in 2022), we’ve updated quite a bit of our house, life feels really good, and now we’re looking at doing our first family trip abroad. I’d be lying if I said we’re totally pumped to bring a 9 month old and a 2.5 year old overseas, but we’re mostly excited. So there’s that lol. I’m focusing on the actual trip experience and I think that’s what is propelling me forward and motivating me to plan and brainstorm all the ideas and read all the things. Ben, I think, is focusing on the 8+ hour flight with two little ones, the actual getting to the airbnb with two little ones, moving around between cities with two little ones, and probably all the in between.. with two little ones. See the trend? There’s definitely loads to consider.. especially if you want to not only have an easy enjoyable time in general, but you also want your spouse to be up for another European vacation in the not too distant future, lol. So I have to make this look easy is what I’m saying.

TIME

The first thing we considered is time. How much time do we have to make this trip worth it. This question is different for everyone. I should actually preface with the fact that what worked for us may or may not work for you. I’m just sharing what helped us get into planning mode and made us feel a bit more confident (sorta?) to travel abroad with two little ones.

Now, we have time on our side for this trip. Ben’s job allows him to take a bonding leave for our second baby anytime within the first year of life. So we’ll be spending a month of his leave away. In my opinion, there’s nothing more bonding than long flights and uncomfortable train/bus rides. This time will either fly by or have us wishing we cut the trip in half. But for now, we’re super grateful for the time and hoping it’ll allow us to get to know a couple different cities and not feel rushed. I think time is the most important thing to consider when planning a trip with little kids. Especially if it’s your first big trip. You want to give yourself wiggle room for things to not go as planned. Or even just time and space to watch how your kid adapts and thrives in a different setting. I’m not suggesting taking an entire month to travel.. I know that’s not realistic. But “considering time” could simply translate to spending your vacation in one place. It’s mostly about not stretching yourself too thin and trying to cross too many things off your list. It’s also about considering jet lag and transportation once you get somewhere. Both of these cut into your time tremendously. Even though we’re spending a month traveling, we plan to land in Rome and stay in the city for three days. It’s not so much about seeing Rome as it is about getting ourselves and our kids into a bed as soon as possible. I have no idea how my kids will deal with jet lag.. it could be a day of misery and then totally fine for all I know. But three full days will allow us to recharge and rest a bit before continuing on. At the end of the day, you know your kid and if they’ll be pretty flexible and down to go with the flow or not. Having a toddler and a baby, this is our trip to test the water.

LOCATION

This sounds like an obvious one, but you’d be surprised. The more planning and reading I do, the more I want to throw a curveball into our itinerary. For example, will it be an absolute disaster bringing my kids to the Almalfi Coast? Probably not. Will it be super enjoyable bringing my kids to the Almalfi Coast with lots of cliffs, steps, cobblestone, etc? Again, probably not. And since this is our first trip it’s about setting ourselves up for success and not making things more challenging.. we’re trying to keep it simple. Our initial plan was Germany. We love it there, the people are always friendly, and if we’re shelling up with small kids, a place with good beer on tap sounds great! The more we tried to nail down cities and towns though, the more I was just overwhelmed and unsure what our actual days with the kids would look like. We wanted places we could hunker down for at least a week. We were hoping to get to know different towns and relax instead of being constantly on the move. We wanted to have a bit of breathing room, but be close enough to a downtown for essentials (and stimulation). A grocery store/market, park, a couple of restaurants, and a pub were on our list. There are so many cute German villages that hit all the marks and would leave us quite content. But something was just missing and neither Ben nor I were getting super pumped about the trip. It was almost like there were too many small towns to choose from and there was a hovering pressure to pick the right ones. I think we were both scared to park ourselves somewhere that maybe didn’t have enough going on and would leave us bored and feeling stuck. The key to choosing the right location for us came back to picturing what our actual days would look like with the kids. I wanted us to spend most of our time outside. Whether that was exploring, going for walks, hitting up the local playground, it didn’t matter. I just saw us out in sunshine. I started thinking about Italy mostly because it was more south and a bit warmer. From there, everything just seemed to fall into place. We were both pretty excited about it too, which was the biggest clue that it was the right decision for us. Not to mention, Italian food! Izzy is already telling people that she’s going on vacation to go eat pizza, lol.

When it came to narrowing down our itinerary, we knew we wanted to start in Siena. Benjamin has childhood memories of a summer in Siena when his Dad was teaching a law program at the University in town. He remembers spending his days eating gelato and heading into the market with his mother to gather fresh ingredients for dinner. His description of these memories are not only the most quintessential Tuscan experience, but also exactly what we wanted for our first family trip with the girls. This was pretty much everything we were picturing and the theme for finding places we wanted to visit. Big cities were out (with the exception of a couple days in Rome when we arrive and Milan when we depart) and quaint, pretty towns were in. Since we aren’t renting a car, we do have to rely on public transportation to get everywhere. This helped narrow down our search of not only ‘where to next’ but also, how long we want to spend on a bus or train between destinations. So keeping this mind, we started researching towns that could accommodate our vision, but didn’t have us sitting on public transit for too long of a stretch. Although absolutely stunning, we crossed out cliffside villages and places that have lots of stairs, hills, etc.. nothing is more annoying than carrying a stroller up a bunch of stairs.. except maybe a toddler screaming “I CAN DO IT” and taking all the time in the world to walk up themselves. That’s not to say we won’t visit these places at all.. it’s possible we may venture out to Cinque Terre for a day trip or something.. but knowing that we aren’t lugging all of our things and children up steps and hills and cliffs only to dread leaving the Airbnb with our little ones make all the difference.

OUR ITINERARY

So! After considering all the things, Italy is where we landed. Rome, Tuscany, Italian Riviera, Milan. We will be initially flying into Rome and staying 3 full days. Delta flies into FCO, but once the warmer months come around, flying standby in and out of FCO gets a bit difficult. Flights definitely do book up and last time I was in Italy I had to buy a ticket to Edinburgh, Scotland and then catch a flight home from there. I’m hoping that leaving in the beginning of May is early enough to get there without any issues. If not, that’ll be a whole other experience to be had with the kids. We can take our chances circling back to Rome and leaving out of FCO, but we figured since we’re heading North we could just continue on and leave out of Milan. After Rome, we’ll be heading to Siena for 8 days. Our Airbnb is right outside the city walls, but only a few minutes walk to the wall. There’s a yard for the kids to play in, a beautiful ivy covered pergola casting shade over the patio table, a grill set up, and a playground basically right across the street. From Siena, we head up to San Gimignano for 6 days. The medieval hilltop town is about an hour and a half outside Siena, which I think will be a nice and quick ride for the kids. And once we arrive in town, our Airbnb is only a 6 minute walk from the bus station. San Gimignano is one of the more well known Tuscan villages, but a lot of tourists tend to do day trips into the city. We’re hoping that staying there for 6 days will allow us to get a better feel for it. And to be perfectly honest, staying in Tuscany without a car I was a bit worried we wouldn’t get the full effect of the countryside view. I’m dying to see rolling green hills as far as the eye can see, cypress trees perfectly spaced apart stretching into the distance, rows of olive groves and vineyards layering the hills and just blowing my mind with their elegance. Well, San Gimignano delivers that. The medieval village is plopped right in the middle of exactly all that. The view from our Airbnb and obviously throughout the village is Tuscan landscape for miles and I cannot wait. Lucca is the next stop on our trip and we’ll be there for 5 days. Still considered Tuscany, Lucca can be found on every family friendly Italian city list. I’m still a little unsure what there is to do there.. everything I read really only talks about renting bikes and riding along the city walls.. but it looks cute, we like riding bikes, and it’s on the way to our next stop. Plus, it’s location also makes it a great spot to take day trips to Pisa and the beach. Not sure if that’s the plan just yet, but it’s nice having the option. From Lucca, we’re heading to the Italian Riviera and staying outside Genoa in a town called Sori. We’ll be there for 7 days. It’s only a 25 minute bus ride into the city, which will be nice being so close, but also much more relaxed and quiet. Our Airbnb has a nice sized outside space that is partly covered and overlooks the sea. This is where we spend the last stretch of our trip before heading up to Milan. We have 3 days in Milan, but will be traveling that first day and flying out the third. So it’s really only enough for the tiniest taste of the city before heading home.

ACCOMODATION

All of our accommodation is already booked for the entire month! We have 6 different places we’ll be staying and chose to do Airbnb for all of them. Airbnb has been hit or miss for us lately, but it made the most sense for this trip. We wanted an entire home for starters.. a full kitchen, living space, an outdoor balcony/terrace, and separate bedrooms. We want it to feel like our home away from home. We’ll probably be eating most breakfasts in our airbnb and cooking a lot of dinners as well. Both kids go to bed for the night between 7-8 and although we aren’t sticklers and know some nights will be later, we plan to stick to our normal routine for the most part. A balcony/terrace will allow us to put the kids to bed and sit out with a glass of wine or late dinner and still feel like we’re doing something out of the ordinary for us.. something that still feels special and like we’re on vacation. We’ve done plenty of road trips with Izzy and having an outside space has always been a game changer. Having separate bedrooms is huge for us too. Maggie will most likely be in our room, but we would like to keep Iz in her own room. She’ll be able to sleep uninterrupted and it won’t be too different than at home. Izzy has been sleeping in a twin bed recently so that allows us a bit of freedom in that we only need to request one crib for Mags. Initially we were thinking we’d have to take our travel crib, but decided against it. It narrows down the Airbnb search results needing a crib, but the luxury of not lugging extra stuff is so worth it to us. A few other obvious things we considered is where in town is it located.. we don’t plan on renting a car so we’ll be walking from the train/bus stations with all our bags and the kids. All our accommodation is within a 15 minute walk and we have some kind of idea what the walk entails.. hills, busy road, etc. For the exception of 2 of our stays, we made sure to have a washing machine as well. After living in Thailand for a bit, I’m no stranger to hand washing my clothes, but with two kids this will save us time and energy for sure. A couple other less obvious things we considered when picking our accommodation was lighting and decor. Before children, both of these were high on my list also.. but for different reasons, lol. As a parent, I’m considering lighting for nap time and decor is mostly about ‘less is more’ these days. I do love big windows and natural light does wonders for a space, but not so much in the bedrooms when my kids are trying to nap in the daytime. I found the cutest attic apartments in Genoa with gorgeous skylights and then remembered the children, lol. There would be no way for us to cover those windows. You won’t find many Airbnb listings that advertise black out curtains, but we managed to randomly find one, which was great! There are travel black out curtains you can buy and bring with you and also travel crib tents that block out light as well. I haven’t decided if we’ll be bringing any of these yet, but they are nice options to have. I’ve linked them below. I think we’ll assess closer to our departure date and decide. The less is more on decor is hard for me. I love a beautifully styled room and I’m definitely a sucker for plants and art and all things pretty. But I also don’t want to worry about my children touching or breaking things in someone else’s home.. Let alone helicoptering them to make sure they’re handling things with care. Lastly, if you’re in an apartment building check on the elevator situation. A lot of times in older buildings lifts only go up a couple floors and you have to walk 1-2 stories.. or sometimes there is no lift at all. A few of our Airbnbs are like this, which is fine.. I just like knowing what I’m walking into.

PACKING

We obviously haven’t done any packing yet. Dealing with a baby under 1 and a 2.5 year old, I can’t really let myself plan too far ahead. They develop so quickly that what they may be needing/wanting one month could be totally different the next. So for now, I’m doing as much reading and preparing as I can and then will assess my kids closer to when we’re leaving. I’ll be sure to post an updated summary of what we’re bringing when the time comes. That being said, Ben and I both plan on bringing our backpacking backpacks and a roller board suitcase.. our backpacks will be for us and the suitcases for the kids and all of their essentials. Also, as of now, we do plan on bringing a double stroller, a travel highchair for Mags, a fold up booster seat for Iz, no travel crib, and no car seats. We’ll be bringing a baby Bjorn carrier for Mags and possibly some sort of carrier for Izzy as well. Items that have been intriguing me however are: Tushbaby Hip Carrier, Travel Blackout Curtain with suctions for the window, Toddler Inflatable Bed for the flight over, and a Blackout crib tent for Maggie’s naps.