Travel with Manfred

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Copyright © 2004 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

August 4 - September 1, 2004

Experiences while Traveling with a Baby

Roadtrip with a 1 Year Old Infant

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: baby, camping bus, minivan, 16 days in a camping bus, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

Traveling is one of my pastimes. Traveling for pleasure without watch and without the need to be somewhere at a given time is enjoyable to me, and most likely most people. Over the years, better said, over the last two decades - yes, that's how old I am - I have traveled in pretty much any style: airplanes, trains, a lot of transportation by bus and of course the famous road trips in my own vehicle or a rental car.

My first real road trip was from Los Angeles to St. Louis. I remember it well. I slept in my white Dodge Diplomat on the backseats in my red sleeping bag. It was freezing cold at night which forced me to wake up frequently. Crossing the Sierras it started to snow and ice formed on the freeway. I slid off the road once. It was a scary moment. On the way back from St. Louis to Los Angeles I did an even stupider thing. I fell asleep driving and went into the median where the bumpy ride woke me up. I was lucky. Absolutely nothing happened, other than my heart throbbing like crazy. In a different year I drove from Pittsburgh to Washington. On another trip with my Dad we crossed all of Alaska and part of Canada. It is hard to imagine how large Alaska is unless you drive through it. I think we totaled some 5,000 km or more.

My road trips are not limited to the US. I have seen most of Europe by car. A couple of years ago we did Spain - Austria - Spain, a 4,000km round-trip journey. In general I have seen and experienced about any traffic conditions anywhere: from driving on the left side of the road in England and Australia, to suicidal driving in Taipei, from maniac taxi drivers in South America to desert driving in the African Sahara.

All this did not prepare me for a road trip with a baby. I thought I am experienced and that nothing will greatly surprise me. Well, I was wrong. A two-week road trip with a 1- year old is quite a different thing. Forget all your usual travel planning, how many kilometers you will do per day, where to stop, how much stuff you will need to pack, etc. Throw all of this out the window and start afresh. It is time to see the road trip with different eyes.

Let us set the stage before we jump into the details of the baby road trip. My partner and I have a daughter. She is called Angela. We live in Spain, while my family, i.e. Dad and brothers, all live in Austria. Hence once every other year we drive to Austria to spend a few summer weeks with my relatives. We have done this trip before - before Angela was born - and know the route reasonably well. We planned to spend all of August, 4 weeks in total, on vacation including the road trip as well as the stay in Austria. Angela was 11 months old when we this vacation.

The distance from Bilbao, Spain, to Linz, Austria is exactly 2,000km and according to - road-planner information on the Internet it is a total of some 19 hours total driving time. Hence, two people switching driving could actually do the trip (one-way) in one day. When we did the trip ourselves last time - without baby - it took us two full days because we avoided most freeways and spent the night sleeping rather than driving. So much about the past. Now to the today. Before leaving I thought to myself, "With a fast car one does it in 1 day. It took us twice as long in the past because we go slow. It took us 2 days. Now with the desire to sightsee a little bit let's double that number again. 4 days. We should be able to make it to Linz in about 4 days." These were my thoughts. Let's see later if my estimate was close to correct or far off.

Of course any trip starts with the packing. I don't need much and hence I am a light packer. Two pair of shorts, three T-shirts, a pair of jeans, a think sweater just in case of a cold night, a bathing suit, the toothbrush and my laptop. In total, that is a small sports bag for my cloths and a small bag for the laptop. That's it. My partner needs a bit more. We are going to a semi-formal baptism in Austria so she has to carry formal wear for just that one day. She needs a suitcase. To summarize, the two adults need 3 bags.

Now to the little one: In the morning she needs a hot bottle, so we have to boil water. That means we need a camping gas cooker. We need a pot to boil the water and to heat her lunch puree. In the afternoon she eats fruit (from the purchased jar) and yoghurt. The yoghurt must be fresh and cool. So, we need a fridge. To the cooker, fridge, and pot add all the big metal cans for the powered milk, the bag for the baby cereal, then the selection of fish, chicken, beef and vegetable purees in glass jars as well as the jars of banana, apple and peach purees. A total of some 30 food jars - just in case - and of course to have some variety in flavor in case she doesn't like a particular kind. Then we need some toys: various cuddly toys (a cow, a cat, etc.) for daytime playing. The special sleeping baby plush doll is essential as well and cannot be left behind. Then there are the building blocks so she has some educational toy too. What else is essential? Diapers of course. Lots of them. A big bag of 80 is appropriate since it will last some 13 days. Maybe we should bring some more? Anyway, a single bag of diapers is bigger than my sports bag that holds all - but absolutely all my travel items. Wet towels and baby cream go with the diapers. Everyone knows that. But 30 days of using wet towels might be harsh on the baby's butt, so we decide to also bring a plastic bowl, a sponge and an extra jug of 5 liters of water so that we can also wash her butt with water when we change the diaper. Let's not forget the creams for the baby's face, the specially soft sponge for cleaning her face in the morning and then the sun protection cream for the face and a separate sun protection cream for her arms and legs.

Are we done with the baby stuff? Far from done. We need the baby chair in the van. That's the law and it occupies a lot of space. Then we need the stroller. There is no way to do without it. When we go for a stroll in the city we must have it. It is about the biggest piece if luggage. Done now? No. What happens when we go for a stroll in the forest or in the mountains? The stroller is useless there in such a terrain. No choice, we must also bring the special baby backpack to carry the baby in case we are on rough terrain. Besides the stroller and the baby seat this thing is the third largest object as it does not fold well. Let me think now. What else? Ah, the bag that goes with the stroller so we can carry the essentials as we walk through a city on the planned sight seeing. After that all the little other items: various towels, from small to large, from face to butt towels. A very large bathing towel she can sit on and play on. A plastic tarp goes under the bathing towel so that the bathing towel plus tarp can be put into any meadow without having to wash the gigantic towel. Next let's pack all the baby clothing: for night time, for daytime, for cold days, for warm days, some formal wear, some "sports" wear. Since we don't have a washing machine in the van (not yet, ha ha) we need lots of clothing for the baby. Typically she wears a piece of clothing just 1 or 2 days. On the trip we might stretch that to 2 to 3 days but it all adds up. It all adds up and her clothing alone is about 3 times as much as mine. I nearly forgot the bibs. Then the baby bottles, the spoons, the pacifiers, etc. While the van is also lacking the shower and bathing tub, still we need to bring the liquid baby soap, the baby shampoo, the body lotions and the baby plastic duck for playing for the days we are with friends and with family. No toothbrush and toothpaste yet though for the 1-year old. At least there is something she doesn't need. Going through my chaotic mind, give me a minute to think. Oh yes, we need the baby shoes. With them the baby socks.

Are we done yet? Maybe. I am just the father and I could think of all these things. The mothers are much better at that. Unlike the fathers they remember more and tend to not forget baby items. I am sure this is really just 80 percent and that only the female mind can think of the missing 20 percent.

Next we need some general things. While we have no washing machine or shower in the van it is a tiny camping bus and the back seat converts into a sleeping space for three adults. We will sleep in the van. The baby too, right in the middle, between mammy and daddy. For sleeping we will need some sheets, two pillows (note: none for the baby), some five blankets since one never knows how cold it could get in the Swiss Alps or in Austria. As it should turn out the coldest night was neither in Switzerland nor in Austria but in France and five blankets were too few to keep us warm and we were actually freezing one night. Hard to believe, but we were freezing badly. That morning I got up at 7:30am because I just had to move my body to get warm. At 8 a.m. I found some thermometer in the village that indicated 14 degrees C. Not so cold. Still, at night time it might have been significantly colder.

Now that we have about all our stuff, we need to think of the others. We bring 12 bottles of Spanish wine, a couple of Spanish sausages, glass jars of tuna fish in olive oil and a bag of T-shirts. Little Spanish presents for friends and family.

Trust me; I never ever carried so much stuff on any vacation. It was a father's nightmare, especially if the father is a minimalist like me. Where to put all this "junk"? Normally, i.e. before the baby, all our vacation stuff fits in the big trunk of the van. Not so this time. It wasn't quite up to the roof, but let's just say the van was full. That little 11 kg bundle of joy needed about 5 times as much luggage space as both adults combined. Where are the days when I hitch hiked around Europe for a full month and all my luggage was a simple mid-sized backpack? Say good-bye to those days with a baby.

I still hadn't not figured out how to get to all the items as they were strategically placed in the trunk. Some items were behind other pieces of luggage or worse they were behind two pieces of luggage. Let's just hope we would need the things in the very back of the trunk too frequently as accessing them would require significant work of moving pieces of luggage around and out and in of the van. Just image it is pouring heavily and your wife says: "Honey, where did you place the brown plastic doll with the black hair?" or "Darling, we need to cut the baby's finger nails right now. Please get the nail scissors out now." You know that the special doll and the scissors are in the bag furthest behind and that you will be standing 10 minutes in the rain trying to work your way through all the luggage to finally get to the bag in which you think (but are not sure) these items are.

These were my thoughts when I started the engine. This pessimistic thinking never materialized. It never rained heavily, or at least I never had to leave the van in the rain. Once we came close to this worst case scenario though. At the Swiss border the military border patrol guard with his machine gun pulled us over and had us stop the engine. I feared that his next words would be "Unpack all your luggage so we can inspect it." That would have been something, but luckily this short guy just wanted to demonstrate his power (Why is it that some short men seem to have the tendency and need to show off their power occasionally?) We escaped the unpack-and-repack torture and he let us go after asking us the usual questions of "Where are you coming from? What do you do? Where are you going to?"

As we pulled out of the garage it was about 11 a.m. or maybe 11:30. We wanted to leave early. If you have a baby, 11:30 a.m. is early. Finally we were on the road. The road trip could really start. In four days we would be in Austria; or so I thought.

I had to learn a few more things. Let's just see what the average day on the road looked like. At 8 a.m. the sun rises slowly. Our Angela is lazy and she likes to sleep. She wakes up at 9 a.m. We start with the morning toilet: washing her face, changing her diaper, putting on her clothes. It is 9:30. I boil the water for her bottle, add the milk and cereals. Since we don't want to scold her with boiling water we need to wait until the bottle is cool enough for her to be drunk. Drinking the bottle is the smallest part; that she does in record breaking 3 minutes. Anyway, it is 10:00. The parents want to have some breakfast too. A bowl of cereal and hot coffee (now that we have brought the gas cooker we might as well use it). Meanwhile Angela is playing and digesting on the makeshift bed in the van. It is 10:30. We need to turn the van from "night state" into driving conditions. The curtains on all windows have to be removed. The blankets have to be removed and folded. The bed has to be converted back into a row of backseats. The baby seat has to be mounted again. All sorts of bags and things have to be put back into their place. It is 11:00 when we start the engine. We are off, driving. After the breakfast and her half hour playing Angela typically falls asleep with the rhythmic motion of the bus. She sleeps for an hour before she wakes up and starts making happy sounds and then with time less happy sounds. It is 12:00. We stop and change the diaper, we let her move around on her butt for 15 minutes so she can stretch a bit. It is 12:30. We drive off again. She is singing in her seat and playing with her cuddly toy animals. At 1:30 we stop again. She is hungry and her mood changes from happy to demanding food. We start heating her food, a glass of puree. She eats slowly as she frequently is distracted and wants to play. The food gets cold and we have to re-heat it on our gas cooker. Sometimes we have to re-heat twice. Then we feed her the desert, yoghurt, nice and cool from the fridge. Then we have to wash the pots and dishes. It is 3 p.m. We try to do some parallel processing. While one heats the food and feeds her, the other prepares some sandwiches for us. Our favorite is French baguette with a few drops of olive oil, cheese, a slice of ham and tomatoes with pepper. If we are lucky we parents are also done eating at 3 p.m. Eating in the van is the quickest. Eating in a restaurant takes even more time (waiting for the food, waiting for the bill, hoping that they can microwave the food of the baby). Going to restaurants was definitely the exception on the road trip. Eating in the van gives one also the flexibility to stop anytime, at a minutes notice, and anywhere (in a nice village square, on a lake shore, or near a nice Alpine meadow for example). We get an hour of driving in before it turns 4 p.m. It is time to change the diaper again. It's 4:30. At 5:30 we stop again. It is time for the baby's afternoon meal. She eats a jar of fruit puree (banana and peach are her favorite) followed by half a yoghurt. After all that hard work of eating she deserves to play a little. Also her parents want to play a bit with her. It turns 19:00. We drive for the last hour. At 8 p.m. we have to stop in order to use the last minutes of daylight. It gets dark at 8:30pm. We need to change her diaper again and her clothes. It is 8:30. We prepare the bottle (boil the water, etc.). We convert the van from driving state to night- time state (up with the curtains, moving bags around, moving the baby seat to the front so the back seats can be turned into a bed, prepare the blankets, etc.). 9 p.m. It is dark now. Finally the bottle is cool enough to be taken by Angela. At 9:30 she goes to bed while we have our dinner (a can of tuna fish, some olives, etc.). At 10 p.m. it is "lights-out".

It feels like a long day. You get up one hour after sunrise and drive till sunset. Do you think you get a lot done? Do you think you can get far? Let's do the math. Driving time is 11:00-12:00, 12:30-13:30, 15:00-16:00, 16:30-17:30, and 19:00-20:00. A total of 5 hours. If you drive through the country side, away from the freeways and tollroads, the 5 hours driving translate to about 350km (200 miles) per day. And remember this does not include any sightseeing whatsoever. With a baby you make it 350km, maybe 400km, a day if you use all the free time available to advance towards your destination.

This is exactly what happened to us on the way from Spain to Austria. We thought to be there in 4 days and that that would allow some sightseeing. On the first day I quickly learned that I estimated poorly. We spent one full day including two nights in France with friends. Thereafter we had to cancel all our sightseeing plans. In all it took us 6 days (5 days of road trip without any special stop for sightseeing and 1 day with friends) for the 2,000km from Bilbao to Linz.

On the return trip we planned better. We had learned a lot on the first leg and applied all the learned lessons to the return trip. This time I insisted on sight seeing and we allotted 10 days for the journey. That meant that on average we only had to do 200km per day. That is about two and a half hours of driving in our van. That would give us some 2.5h of sight seeing time 9acording to our calculation above). We then tuned the daily routine. We forced Angela to get up at 8 a.m. which was no problem for her. That gained us an extra hour. We also drove occasionally until it was dark, say 9 p.m. That added another hour. In total, with the adjusted time schedule and the adjusted daily routine, we had 4.5 hours for sight seeing every day. We combined the sight seeing stops with the baby stops. If we wanted to visit a certain village, we would stroll through the village and feed the baby in a village park, or outside the museum, etc. That worked out really well. We could enjoy the setting, the atmosphere and the scenery while Angela enjoyed her food and the new views around her. If necessary we would pre-heat the food and carry it with us in a thermos flask, or we would stop in a cafe and ask then to kind microwave our baby food. This way we could enjoy lake shores, small villages, city centers and even a beach. The only rule that we stuck with was: if the baby sleeps we will not stop to avoid waking her up. So, occasionally we would pass by an interesting village or a small sight and we would decide to skip it because the baby was sleeping. There are enough interesting things along the road. Skipping one "attraction" just meant that we have time for another.

On the way back it was really fantastic. We managed to make one or two sightseeing stops a day. In Germany we visited Munich (to be friends and to use their washing machine and showers, but also for sight seeing), we got to know Neuschwanstein (famous for its castle after which Disneyland was modeled), Wieskirchen, and the region along the Lake Bodensee with beautiful towns like Lindau. In France we managed to see Besancon, Vienne, Le Puy, Toulouse, Alsi, St. Bertrand and Biaritz as well as to stop to be with friends (again a handy opportunity to sleep in a soft bed and have access to a washing machine and hot shower). Anyway, as you see, the return trip really turned into a comfortable (especially for the baby, but also for the driver) and successful road trip with plenty of well-used stops and breaks for sightseeing and learning new things about old countries.

Angela turned 1 year old in the last week of our road trip. She loved it. She loved the vacation, she loved being in different places, she loved seeing new things. In her short life of 365 days she has managed to be in 10 countries (Spain, Basque Country, England, Hong Kong, Australia, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Germany) already. She will not be able to remember any of it later, but she has her own passport already and is already a small world traveler.

Given that we went at her rhythm, the travel was pleasant for her avoiding any kind of stress or lack of sleep. She could sleep at her rhythm and getting up one hour earlier every day on the way was absolutely no problem for her. Given that we could stop anywhere and at any time, we could also always give her the meals when she wanted too. She especially loved the van after getting up and before going to bed when the van was in night-time position. She had the bed all to herself and the bed was closed off on 4 sides. To the left and right were the windows of the van, in the back the back window of the trunk door and on the top the roof. She could "jump" and bounce around as she liked and she thought that this playground was just specially made for her with blankets and her toys. She had a good time playing in the van (because she cannot walk yet). Once she starts walking this might change. Sleeping in the van as well in different houses of various friends was never a problem for her. She adapted in a snap. She was a very happy baby throughout the vacation including the road trip. She didn't miss her baths and her crib.

In short, the road trip with the baby was fun for all of us, for the baby, mommy as well as daddy. All you need to keep in mind is that you need a gigantic trunk to lug around all the things a baby needs. A camping bus even as small as ours is a suitable to take the baby on long journeys. The other factor is time: you will need lots of it. The more time you have the more enjoyable the road trip will be. Having enough time you will be able to take care of all the baby needs, make the little one comfortable and have time left over to satisfy your own needs, like sight seeing or whatever else turns you on during a road trip.

Last advise: Watch out though, your wife might ask you for a bigger camping bus or RV once you come home; preferably with washing machine and hot shower built-in.