Welcome!
Welcome to Preparing to Travel. We’re just your average family that happens to love taking an epic trip once or twice a year. We love finding great deals and exploring the world together. We remember how overwhelming it felt planning our first international trip as a family of four, and we’re excited to share what we’ve learned with you so that the process feels less stressful.
On this site, we walk you through everything from figuring out where to go to packing to navigating the airport to arriving at your destination. Our tween has even put together a section sharing her experiences traveling from a kid’s perspective.
Here’s a quick peek at what you’ll find in each category:
From choosing destinations and finding flight deals to getting travel insurance, this section covers all of those little details necessary to plan a big trip.
Here, we’ll go over things like how we fly carry-on only as a family of four (yes, for international flights!), family document checklists, and how to stay organized so nothing gets lost.
We cover topics like how early to get to the airport, what to expect at airport security when traveling internationally, and the best ways to keep kids entertained on long flights.
This section covers how we decide where to travel, how to come up with a realistic family itinerary, and our personal travel experiences.
Here, our tween daughter shares her experiences with travel. She addresses common questions and concerns kids have, like what it’s like being on an airplane, what jet lag feels like, and things she wishes she knew before traveling internationally.
FAQs
Your Questions, Answered
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Yes! We have traveled internationally for up to two weeks with just our carry-ons. We’re not against checking luggage and may do so in the future, but we like traveling light and knowing we have everything we need with us at all times. We explain how we do it in our packing guide.
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Yes, but it requires being very intentional about what you pack and making sure that you have a way to do laundry if you’re on a trip for more than a week.
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We recommend a minimum of three hours for an international flight. If you’re going to an extremely large airport or during the holiday season/summer break, you may consider buffering in extra time.
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You check in if you haven’t done so already, check any bags if needed, head through security, then head to your gate area. We break it down in more detail in our guide on when to get to the airport for international flights.
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We use Google Flights to compare prices from nearby airports. We often consider multiple potential destinations and look for the best deal.
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We’ve used both depending on the deal and how many points we have available at the time of booking. We are eager to learn more about award travel.