Bottom line

Traveling with toddlers can be highly rewarding but also extremely challenging. A few changes to your travel approach–like not overpacking, not checking in luggage if possible, doing simpler trips–can make your trip a lot smoother without detracting from the joys of the travel experience.

You are so brave!

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “I love traveling but haven’t traveled in years because I have kids.” This might be the most common excuse I’ve heard for parents with young kids not traveling, even though they would have loved to. Of course, there could also be financial limitations when you have kids–those little humans are so damn expensive!–but that’s not what this article is about. A lot of people find the idea of traveling with a kid (or kids) challenging. On our recent trip to Europe, the most common comment my wife and I received from strangers who saw our toddler was: “You’re so brave!” But after traveling multiple times with our kid, I’ve decided that traveling with him need not be an act of bravery. The rewards of showing him our world, even though he probably won’t remember most of the experiences, far outweighs any challenge involved in traveling with him.

Kids under two travel free or cheap!

An underrated benefit of traveling with kids under two is that they are either free or much cheaper than kids older than two. For most airlines, you don’t need a separate seat for your less-than-two year old, meaning you don’t need to buy a seat. I’ve found this to hold for all domestic flights (within the U.S.) For international flights, the fee for the kids are usually much cheaper. On our recent long-haul business class flight to Manchester on Singapore Air, the fare for the kid was 10% of the adult fare. On short-haul flights on Ryan Air, the fare was $25. So, the first tip is to check with the airline for their policy on fares for kids without seats (typically referred to as infants by the airlines). My wife and I decided to fully take advantage of this perk and travel as frequently as we could with our kid, including multiple trips to Canada and a recent Europe trip.

Airlines are generally accommodating of kids’ travel essentials

In my experience with several airlines, they are usually very kid-friendly when it comes to travel essentials for kids. For instance, when traveling with a car seat or stroller, airlines would often check those for free. Airlines, including the low-cost airlines, would gate-check strollers for free so you can use them within the airports. Airports also generally allow you to bring in more liquids, for example, if they are baby formula or medicine. However, the first thing you want to do is to check with the airline and airports about their policies regarding kids.

Google Bard is a game-changing AI for travel tool.

Bard as a trip planner AI: a game changer

Now, where Google Bard truly shines is in its recent upgrade with extensions, which I believe positions it as a game-changing AI for travel tool. With these extensions, Bard gains the ability to tap into various Google products such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Maps, and YouTube. This means Bard can now provide insights and personalized recommendations based on real-time information from these tools. For travel enthusiasts like me who often turn to Google Flights for flight searches, this development is particularly exciting. I typically scout for flights on Google Flights and then book directly with the airline. Now, with Google Bard, I have an AI trip planner at my disposal, capable of factoring in my preferences and offering real-time flight suggestions. Given my penchant for exploring by foot during travels and planning based on distances from my hotel, incorporating Google Maps into my plans through Bard opens up exciting possibilities while still leaving room for serendipitous adventures.

How to get started

So, how do you get started with these extensions? When signing up for Google Bard, you’ll have the option to enable them. Once enabled, you can incorporate extensions into your prompts by using the “@” symbol followed by the desired extension. For example, a sample prompt to search directly on Google Flights could be:

@Google Flights What are the cheapest flights between Tucson, Arizona and Europe in October?

Google Bard can now search on Google Flights and other extensions.

You can even combine multiple extensions, such as Google Flights and Google Maps, to receive results that encompass flights, distances, and personalized recommendations tailored to your travel needs. While these extensions might still have some kinks to work out, I’m confident they will continue to improve over time, eventually becoming my go-to tool for trip planning.

I provide an overview of Google Bard with additional examples in the video below.