Google Flights is an amazing tool, and you should be using it, especially for a big trip that’s potentially very expensive. My favorite aspect to it is the Price Graph. Let’s say you want to head to France and Germany and get around those countries via train. You can enter up to 5 departure and arrival airports. So, living in Cleveland, I could enter CLE, CAK, DTW, PIT, CMH into the departure field. Akron, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Columbus airports are all within a 2-hour drive for us, and for the right price, we’d make the drive. In arrival, I could enter CDG, FRA, CGN for Paris, Frankfurt and Cologne. Now if you click Price Graph, and tell you how many days you want to be gone, it will show you the best flight combination/price for every day for the next few months. You may find that there’s a strangely low fare one particular day … and if your places are a little flexible, voila!
It’s one thing for you to successfully navigate Houston airport for that 49-minute connection flight to Denver by yourself on that business trip. But it’s a different beast entirely when you’re trying to make a 75-minute connection at London Heathrow with little kids in tow, customs to get through, and a Terminal change to navigate. Don’t set yourself up for failure: make sure you have adequate time to make your next flight without stressing the whole family out. That’s not what vacation is about, and it’s a poor way to begin one.
If you have an unavoidable layover somewhere that’s a long one, some airport hotels will rent a day room to you for a reduced rate. Especially if the layover is after a long flight, the ability to get a quality several-hour-long nap, followed by a shower or a bath, can be quite rejuvenating, especially for little travelers. Some airports, especially larger international ones, also have mini-hotel rooms or room pods right in the terminals. Minute Suites, located in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Dallas/Ft. Worth is one such operation, and you can rent a small room by the hour.
If one or more of your checked bags gets delayed in arriving, you don’t want any member of your family stuck in the outfit they’ve been wearing for the last 12 or 24 hours. Be sure you pack something for everyone.
While this seems like a no-brainer, it’s even more critical for international trips. The easy check-in process I’m used to when traveling solo for business is occasionally goofed up when the whole family is flying overseas. I’m not sure if it’s a weird passport thing on the backend of the airline’s system that always seems to get us, but we don’t take chances any more. And given that some long-haul flights across the ocean only operate once per day, missing a flight or a connection can mean losing an entire day of your precious vacation time.
But some age-appropriate gifts that you can surprise the kids with – either in the airport or on a long flight. These can be coloring books, Mad Libs, novels by a favorite author, Hot Wheel cars, card games, or the like.
We like to pack multiple Ziploc bags full of a wide variety of our favorite snacks before we even leave home. Go for things with different tastes and textures: pretzels, chocolate candy, gummies, nuts, trail mix, crackers. My secret for long international flights is grapes: They provide sweetness and a little bit of hydration for when that pressurized cabin air is starting to get to you. (Note, most countries won’t let you bring fresh food into them, so you’ll have to consume them before landing or dispose of them.)
Paul J. Heney is an award-winning writer and avid world traveler. He has written extensively about family travel, green issues, cruises, and LGBT travel issues. He lives in suburban Cleveland with his partner and two sons, Joshua, 16, and Mathew, 10. Follow him on Twitter at @paulheney or Instagram at @paulheney.
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