How Traveling with a Baby is Different

When I first shared I was pregnant, apart from so much love and congratulations, came a sea of ‘just wait until’s.

Just wait until you take them somewhere amazing and they don’t care. Just wait until they have a blowout in the car on the way to somewhere important. Just wait until they’re screaming on the flight. Just wait, just wait, just wait.

It’s the best thing ever to hear as a pregnant person. Not.

I’ve traveled for over a decade sans-baby. Most of those years I traveled alone. I’ve been to over 60 countries, about 50 of them solo. I could be as selfish as I wanted. I could completely rely on serendipity. Would a child ruin that?

These are all the ways that traveling with a baby has been different, so far.

10. The Days Are Packed with Different Things

Before Felix, I would often set the alarm to be up before sunrise so that I could drive to a destination I had picked specifically for photography. I was often up with the stars and out well past sunset, hiking down from a trail by myself with a headlamp. I suppose I could do that with a baby, but then I think about how I’ve tripped over things in the dark and my mom anxiety can’t handle it.

I’m sure we will still have nights out gazing at the stars and I am sure we will still get up for the sunrise from time to time, but on our most recent trip to Vermont we were much more likely to sleep in as late as we possibly could, which was often until 10 AM since Felix was still on Pacific time, and that was delightful. Did I get the kind of photos that I normally would? Absolutely not, but now I take a new kind of photo – one of my adorable little guy.

9. There’s Less Serendipity

When I traveled by myself, especially in the early days when I was rich in time but cash poor, I would meet people in the dorms, hang out on beaches with them for weeks, and would wake up one morning and decide to leave at that instant. It didn’t matter that I traveled this way because it didn’t impact anyone else. I loved living la vie boheme.

But you know what? It also got old. I had my freedom, but I also started to wonder when I would meet someone, start a family, and let that be the new chapter. I am so glad that I got a chance to be completely selfish in my 20s, but I also knew that it wouldn’t be novel forever. Now I am traveling in a new way, with more plans and more people to consider, and that’s a change I wanted and asked for.

8. Everything…