The scenario – flying across the country with my wife and two year old daughter to spend six weeks in San Francisco. What should I pack? Should we fly with the car seat? Should we take a stroller? How do we carry all of our stuff for six weeks? Will we have the time of our lives, or will we be miserable and resolve to never travel again until our daughter is in college? Putting our trip together brought up these and many other gut wrenching questions. So, first some background! My wife and I spent over ten years travelling and having fun before our daughter came along. Thanks to Tim Ferris’ book, “The Four Hour Workweek”, we decided to spend our summer in San Francisco. I’ll pass along what worked for us and what didn’t and hopefully, as you plan your big family adventure, some of these tips will make every stage of your trip a little bit easier.
Now, your circumstances are going to be unique, and may call for different approaches. I’ll share with you our tips, but think of that only as a starting point. There may be a better solution and you may be the one to find it (if you do, please share it with me – anything that makes travel easier is great in my book).
PACKING
Packing for six weeks in San Francisco was fairly straightforward when it came to clothing. July and August in San Francisco is consistently cool and foggy. I knew I would go for occassional runs. We also had a weekend trip to Napa planned. For me, that meant my clothing consisted of the following – two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts, two pairs of running shorts (which doubled as my evening lounge-around-the-house shorts and swim trunks) two collared shirts, four pairs of underwear, three pairs of running socks, 1 pair of running shoes, 3 pairs of regular dark socks, 1 pair of all purpose “dressyier” shoes, assorted t-shirts, a scarf, and fashionable hat, a functional knit cap, and a thin sweater. First, let me start by saying the apartment we rented had a washer and dryer, but if it had not, I would not have packed anything more. To fly I wore the dressy slip on shoes, jeans, and a decent looking shirt, and the slip on dress shoes, so those things did not have to get packed.
PACKING AND SHIPPING KID STUFF
Baby stuff that we packed was another matter. We ended up shipping quite a lot of baby stuff and some wife stuff to San Francisco via UPS. Not the cheapest thing to do, but for the shipping cost ($250, roughly) we shipped our folding stroller, a bunch of clothes, toys, stuffed animals, and books. Bear in mind that had we tried to pack that stuff and check it, our baggage fees would have been close to the shipping cost, and our bodies would have been broken in half. Honestly, I would rather spend the money with UPS, which cares about serving its customers versus spending the money with the airlines, who seem to care most about screwing their customers out of every penny they can. It meant we were able to fly with one small bag per person and travel comfortably. On the return we shipped even more of our stuff so we would have even less to carry on the plane. It is definitely the way to go. There are even services that will come and pick your stuff up and your house and handle the shipping for you. Just search for “luggage shipping services”. Honestly, they are not worth it, in my opinion. Every thing we shipped, we stuffed into trash bags (don’t ship suitcases – the weight and dimensions will drive the cost of shipping through the roof) and took it all to our local UPS store. They boxed it, and sent it on its way. Then, in San Francisco, like any delivery, it was delivered right to our door. We rented a townhouse, so it was a regular residential delivery. If you are staying in a hotel, just check with UPS and the hotel to make sure that delivery is not a problem (it shouldn’t be, but it is better to check) For the outgoing shipment, we paid for three day delivery and just made sure we had what we would need for the first few days. On the return, we shipped all of our junk by the slowest and cheapest means possible. We have plenty of clothes and stuff at home, we wouldn’t need our travel clothes right away once we got home.
A big question is whether you should travel with a car seat or not. We labored over this as do so many other parents travelling with kids. We thought our daughter would be happier and more comfortable in her carseat (0h yeah, safer too). The drawback was our connecting flights. The thought of lugging the giant Graco super-duper mega carseat through multiple airports made my back hurt in anticipation. The solution we found was the PorterCase PCX Lite carry on. While it is the most boring and ordinary looking rolling carry on, it is anything but. The bag quickly converts to a luggage cart that will carry up to 100 pounds of luggage on top of it! This thing is brilliant! In the photo below, the PCX case is the bottom most bag. We had our carseat, my carry on backpack and my wife’s laptop bag strapped to it. Once you get to the plane, unload the stuff on top, reattach the handle to the back of the bag, and it fits easily in the overhead compartment. Then you know you have a supply of diapers, change of clothes, stuffed animals, whatever your travelling munchkin might need.
We used a short strap to attach things to the handle (you could also use a bungy cord or something similar to hold things to the cart). We also used the cart before we left San Francisco to haul our bags and boxes of stuff to the shipping store that was several blocks away.
You can also go for the full on Porter Case. The original rolling luggage/hand cart combo, it is the more expensive big brother of the PCX Lite. It converts faster, is more durable, and can carry up to Tw0 Hundred Pounds in its “cart” configuration! I bet you could surf it down the escalators too, but I wouldn’t recommend it. With that bag, I could put our carryons, my daughter and my my wife and there and roll on through the airport! You can’t get a manlier piece of carryon luggage, but it will cost you a good bit more than the PCX Lite. For what it’s worth, I found the PCX Lite conversion fairly quick once I played with the bag a few times. Convert it back a forth several times at home so you don’t hold things up at TSA checkpoints or at the gate.
My other recommendation regarding carseats and flying is to not fly with uber-mega Graco car seat we used. We love our car seat, but is designed to convert into different configurations as the child gets older and bigger. It has cup holders, and little storage pockets and is awesome when installed in our car. But, it is gigantic compared to some other car seats. On a plane, the only way it fit down the aisle was for me to hold it upside down over my head. It fit into the plane seat, but on one of the smaller planes, it barely fit. Also, judging by the behavior of the flight attendants, terrorism is nothing compared to the threat of parents flying with carseats that are not FAA approved. Every flight attendant asked in their best Keifer Sutherland-24-interrogation voice whether our car seat was FAA approved. I had no idea there was such a thing and after spending ten minutes with our first stewardess looking for the appropriate sticker, I still have no idea if the damned seat is FAA approved. Every stewardess that asked from there on I just lied and told them with great confidence that yes, this car seat is definitely FAA approved, no worries. All I can think is that FAA approved seats are smaller than the monster we travelled with. The takeaway is that flying with the car seat and the PCX luggage cart/bag was great for us and our daughter. It also made it easy when my cousin picked us up at the airport in San Francisco. We clicked the carseat into place, and, voila, our daughter was able to travel safely by car.
The other piece of luggage that is worthy of comment is the eBags MotherLode eTech Mini 21″ Wheeled duffle. I am a luggage freak. I always think the next bag will be the ultimate piece of luggage gear, only to be disappointed by the reality of travelling with the thing. Not so this time. The eBags bag is, first of all, not a “duffel bag” at all. It is a well designed rolling carry on suitcase. It is brilliantly designed, well built, and very well priced. It will be my go to bag for all travel from now on. I’m not keen on the small exterior pocket near the top of the bag (I, and lots of other people think the zipper should be on the other side), but it is still useful, if not as useful as it could be. I packed all of my clothes and stuff in that bag for the full six weeks. You can find really good reviews and a video demonstration of the bag at the ebags link above. It was my first experiment in the long travel-small bag style of packing, and I really like it. You don’t need to travel with all of that stuff you usually pack. Join the revolution! Pack less, pack lighter! Go to www.onebag.com for more information.
GETTING AROUND SAN FRANCISCO
Six weeks of finding our way around San Francisco led to some solid realizations of the things that help and don’t when getting around the city with a two year old. First of all, diaper bags. At home we usually carry a big, brightly colored diaper bag crammed with a wide assortment of kid related stuff. Trying to lug that around San Francisco sucked. Our solution developed into a two fold method. When we would go out for the day, my wife and I split up the kid necessities between her small shoulder bag and my SeV jacket. When we knew we would only be out of the house for a short while, we used my ScotteVest Tropical jacket/vest. I was able to put extra diapers, wipes, small toys, my Iphone, credit cards, ID, Iphone earbuds, snacks, bread to feed the ducks at the pond in the park, camera, water bottle/travel sippy cup, and just about anything else I needed to take with me while out and about with my daughter and not feel or look like a stuffed turkey. It is the man version of a diaper bag, except there is no bag! The jacket converts to a vest so it was perfect for those foggy,variable days in San Francisco in the summer that can range from the low 60′s in the morning to the high 70′s and sunny in the afternoons downtown. It is going to be a go to piece of dad gear for me at home too (once the heat goes away – Charleston, SC in the summer is not conducive to even the lightest jacket). The piece is well vented, but can be quite warm too. It is the ultimate undercover dad diaper “bag”. It also allowed me to do without my wallet I used some of the smaller pockets to carry my credit card, debit card, id and Clipper card (the new San Francisco public transportation pass). I wore it as my “carry on” for the flight home. I had a book to read, and a variety of other possibly helpful things on me at all times. By the way, buy the black jacket. It looks like every other black jacket on the street, meaning you look like a local. If you buy the tan colored jacket, you scream to the world, “I am a tourist! I’m subconciously trying to look like I am on Safari in Africa! Feel free to laugh and point/rob me!”
In San Francisco, public transportation is the way to go. 511.org, the public transportation website for the region, was phenomenal. Anywhere you want to go around the city or outside of the city, that website will tell you everything you needed to know to get where you were going, quickly and simply. Combine that with the public transportation Clipper card, and you will move around the public transportation system like a life long local. The Clipper card looks like a credit card. You load with cash at a variety of stores around the city (Walgreens drug store must have a monopoly on the city – they are the only drug store you will ever see… and you can load your Clipper card there easily). Once your card is loaded, you pass it in front of a card reader located on every bus and your fare is paid. It keeps track of your transfers, you can use it on the city MUNI buses, the BART subway and even CalTrain trains. Another nice little touch is that sometimes the card readers don’t work and the driver invariably just lets you ride for free. Forget trying to keep the exact bus fare on you or keep track of your transfers. I was able to use 511.org and my Clipper card to get from our rental place in San Francisco to a meeting in Palo Alto with total ease. I used buses, subway, and trains, and arrived at my destination within four minutes of the time 511.org estimated I would arrive. That is pretty impressive, and shows just how well integrated the public transportation system is in Northern California.
Navigating the city was infinitely easier with our Iphones. Maps, apps, Safari, a compass, a video camera, a regular camera, videos for our daughter to watch, games for my daughter to play, text messaging, and even a phone, all in one flat handy unit. Reception was ok in the city, calls were dropped occassionally, which was surprising, but all of the features I listed above made it an essential piece of living-like-a local in San Francisco with our two year old. All of the built in features made life easier, but being able to access 511.org and Yelp at all times made the Iphone indispensable. I’m sure other smartphones would be similarly helpful, but every single feature I listed above came in handy more than once.
The other crucial piece of our live-like-a-local trip to San Francisco was the website Yelp. Yelp has been around since 2004 to allow regular internet user type folks to review just about any sort of business or anything else you can think of. Now it’s got over 38 million users and over 12 million reviews. And, in San Francisco, anything you are looking for, anything at all, can be found on Yelp. How do I know? I wanted to go out one night and do some night photography, a hobby of mine. I googled “night photography san Francisco” and what was the first result? A list of night photography sites assembled by a yelp user. I used that list, selected a location, and captured amazing images of downtown San Francisco at night. I also used Yelp to find restaurants, a place to have a pair of jeans altered, the best place for a cheap cheeseburger, and the best playgrounds to take our daughter too (and there are some kick ass playgrounds in San Francisco!). The very best way we used yelp was with the Iphone yelp app. Using the Iphone GPS, the app would show us great restaurants nearby, wherever we were in the city. The best part – once you have chosen the place you want to go, you can tell the app to give you directions from where you are to your destination. One time, in dire need of a restroom, I asked it for a nearby coffee shop and was led to a nearby coffee shop (and restroom) that I would not have found otherwise. Anything we wanted to do, we were able to find on yelp.Yelp is also available in other cities, so try it out the next time you travel or the next time you go out at home. My one request – if you use Yelp, take the time to write a review or leave a comment or something. Give back.
With those few tricks up your sleeve, you will be able to navigate around San Francisco with ease.
THE RETURN
The return flights were uneventful. We carried books and a dvd player, and stuffed animals and a change of clothes, and diapers, and anything else we could think of to entertain our daughter. From San Francisco to Charlotte, NC and Charlotte, NC to Charleston, SC she slept maybe 45 minutes. For the rest of the hours and hours, we either walked up and down the plane or played and talked with her or she watched kids TV shows on the Iphone. Repetitions of the same episodes of Dora the Explorer, Wonder Pets, and Go, Diego, Go kept her transfixed for huge stretches of time. We had to keep the volume low because anything audible to the flight attendants resulted in our getting chastised, but she was entertained by those shows for almost the entire trip. So, my recommendations for flying – try videos on the Iphone or Ipod touch. They were invaluable.
TIPS AND TRICKS
These are the things that worked for us. Some are universal, and some may or may not work for you.
Carry plastic bags big enough and watertight enough to catch kid vomit in. Our daughter has never shown any signs of car sickness ever before. Well, on the way to Napa Valley, my wife noticed she looked pale and clammy when she started fussing. We knew what was coming, but we had nothing to contain it with. Our daughter projectile vomited all over herself, ber blanket, her stuffed animal, my wife, and the car we were riding in. The poor thing puked a couple of times. We still had 20 minutes of driving to get to our destination. It was not pretty. Then, on the drive to the airport to fly home… the fussing started again. She even said, “I’m sick”, in a sad kid voice. Thankfully, we found spare dog poo bags in the car and my ever so talented wife caught every bit of it in the bag. Travel day saved. Since car sickness (or any other kind of sickness) can hit kids out of the blue, and you don’t want to spend a day of travel covered in your child’s regurgitated breakfast, carry plastic bags. Preferably once that are not transparent. For double coverage, carrying multiple bags and spare shirts for everyone is not a bad idea and will fit easily in your carry on.
We found flying with the car seat to be a big plus. Travel with one that is FAA approved, not too huge, and get the PCX rolling luggage/luggage cart to haul it around airports on. I would NOT recommend travelling with a car seat without the PCX bag. I don’t like suffering. If you do, feel free to carry a car seat through a major airport or two. Really, it’s that big a deal.
For kid entertainment – IPhone or Ipod Touch! The stupid, bulky, heavy DVD player never got used. If your child becomes as addicted to Iphone videos as our daughter did, I suggest getting a combination battery and protective case. Before you hand over your Iphone to your child, you need a good case. My wife swears by her Otterbox case. The battery/case combo is not something I have hands-on experience with, but should be just what you need for long travel days. Also, always carry a charger with you. Any time you can, charge that sucker! Even if only for ten minutes, that is more time your child will stay entertained. Trust me, it isn’t pretty when the Iphone dies in the middle of a Wonder Pets episode!
So, can you travel with your toddler and still enjoy the experience? The answer is a resounding yes. Plan your trip, step out of your comfort zone, take your family and GO! It will be great.
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