Hey guys,
For those of you who are veteran travelers w/ families or kids, what do you suggest as far as car seats? Our little guy will be over a year by the time we travel with him to Hawaii and we are going to still need a car seat for him I'd imagine. Is it best just to rent one there? Or is it worth it to lug ours with us? Ideally, we want to pack sensibly to the point that we aren't walking around with luggage hanging off every available limb :)
Any tips or advice? We'd be flying with Hawaiian Air most likely and I think strollers/carseat check-ins don't incur luggage fees, which is nice, but the idea of hauling all that crap through the airport is daunting too.
When we traveled with our kids at that age (many times with #1, once with #2, including from CA to Hawaii, CA to NY, CA to PA)...
1. We ALWAYS bought him a seat on the plane. 5.5-6 hours would be godawful with a kid on your lap, not to mention not safe. If you buy a seat, then you use the carseat. They can sit there during takeoff and landing, they can eat, have milk, play with toys, nap. Our son generally would sit on our laps when I needed to nurse him, or to play a bit. (Because 5 hours is a long time to be in a seat too.) My first son flew 5 times in 1.5 years, and the only time we didn't buy him a seat was a short trip on miles, and even then, there were empty seats. We flew once with our second kid at 1, and yes, bought him a seat too.
- If you end up in a row of 3 and only bought 2 seats for 3 people, you are going to piss off the person sitting next to you.
- So...buy the seat. Use the carseat. Enjoy the extra storage space for the diaper bag. Remember to bring a spare set of clothing for the kid (or two), and one of you too. Trust me.
2. We never took a stroller when it was only 1 kid. Though you can, and check plane-side, it wasn't necessary. 2 of us, 1 of him. We did take the baby-carrier (Bjorn/ Ergo). So, in the airport, one of us had the kid in the carrier. We had 3 backpacks, one for each of us, to go under the seats (because we had 3 seats).
Thus, you have your very own carseat. We've only rented/ borrowed a carseat once, when ours didn't make it back on the plane (by then our son was around 4, so we checked the seat). The borrowed seat was sketchy, old, and dirty.