Traveling with Children Tip #2

Bring a Good Stroller!
I know a lot of people like to travel light (something we are Still working on!) and I have noticed a lot of people don't want to bring their regular or a 'big' stroller while traveling and opt for a little umbrella stroller. Big mistake! At least it would be for us when traveling. 

Traveling usually means lots of walking, and if you are in Europe like we were this summer, cobblestone roads plus a skimpy little umbrella stroller would have been a Very bad idea.  All that extra walking around you do during vacation means extra stroller time. It also sometimes (most of the time for us this summer) means napping on the go. I don't know about your kids, but there's no way my kiddos would nap sitting completely upright in an umbrella stroller. And non napping toddler while on vacation equals my own personal version of hell. 

Have I convinced you that you need to bring your good stroller while traveling yet?  We were sent the new quinny zapp xtra to bring along, and it worked like a dream for us. Not only did it almost fully recline, it also has an amazing shade. Which, for our first few days in Stockholm did good keeping the rain out, and our last two weeks kept the sun out.
Some of my favorite features of the quinny zapp xtra: *Super compact- one morning we were loading all of our bags into the back of a taxi to take us from our hotel to the train station and he realized we still had our stroller to fit in he got really worried. I assured him it would fit, and he still didn't look convinced. Once he saw how small it actually broke down to, he sighed in relief and looked quite impressed.  *Easy to nagivate/worked just fine on cobble stone for how small it was. *Light weight- we had to carry this guy up and down flights of stairs, with Tindra in it, no problem at all.  *Different reclines, Tindra could sit all the way up, or lay down for naps. And it was really easy and quick to switch positions, so she would fall asleep sitting up often and we would just quietly lay her down without her waking up. And she's a light sleeper like her mama so that's sort of a miracle on it's own.  And just a few of the pictures we took of the stroller this trip..

 ^Another handy thing about the stroller, our travel car seat fit perfectly in it, we just used some bungee cords to make sure it stayed in and this is how we traveled through the airports, we would wheel stroller right up to the air plane and gate check it, and bring the car seat (and toddler) onto the plane^

 ^At the airport in Iceland after a full day of traveling AND a full day at the blue lagoon. We were exhausted and had nasty spa hair (more on that later^

 ^I don't recommend loading the stroller this full with toddler in it..it might have started to tip^

 ^Waiting for taxi to take us to train station^

 ^Subway in Oslo^

^Two year olds aren't the only ones who get tired of walking on vacations..Jasper took a few turns in the stroller as well. And he fit! Barely but it was a nice break for him from time to time^