Travelling to Overseas with Infant & Elderly: What to Prepare & What to Expect
February 02, 2020
It is undeniable when going for family holiday, we want to enjoy it as much as we can. But, what if we travel together with infant and elderly on the same time? Can we have fun and enjoy the moment? Especially if we travel overseas.
Infant : A baby or very young child
Elderly : An old person
Both of infant and elderly need more attention and more support. It can be really exhausting taking care both of them on the same time. Therefore, let me share my experience, what to prepare and expect while travelling with them.
What to Prepare
- Friendly itinerary
Before going, decide when is the best time to visit, it is summer, winter, or autumn. Browse as much as informations about the destination before making the itinerary. Importantly, is the destination friendly for the elderly? Furthermore, while making the itinerary, keep on your mind that the itinerary must be flexible and friendly destination for both of the infant and elderly. Also, do not make the schedule too thight in one day. One or two destination in each day would be fine.
- Accomodation and Transportation
Look for the best accomodation, has to be in a good location, easy access for the transportation and enough room for all the family. If there is no hotel in the location, try to look for the AirBnB. In my case, we did a road trip and we rent campervan on that time. Of course the van has to be big enough and suit for all the family members.
- Wheel chair, baby carrier and baby stroller
Wheel chair is for the elderly. Most of them are not be able walk in the long route. There are two options regarding this wheel chair: we can bring it from our home or we borrow it on the destination. Even when we book a flight, some airlines will asking whether we need wheel chair or not. We used Virgin Air from Melbourne to Tasmania, and they asked us whether we need help of wheel chair or not. We agreed to get some help. They provided us wheel chair that can be used in the airport until the gate, and they will pick up us again with the wheel chair. During travelling there, we only visited place with easy access for wheel chair and provide wheel chair. We can borrow it during our visit and return when we are finish. However, when we visited Japan, we brought our own wheel chair. Because it was short trip and we didn't really have an itinerary during our trip. Yet we can still ask for help on the airport.
Baby carrier and baby stroller are two important items that can be missed while travelling with baby. It will make our life much easier. There are several types of baby carrier and each parents their own preferences. It is up to you which one that you want to bring for travelling as long as it is comfortable, just go with it. For the baby stroller, choose to bring cabin stroller. So we can bring our baby with the stroller up until the airlines. I prefer to brought Joie Pact Flex Signature Stroller that we rent from Gigel.id. It is light but still has big enough space to put bag or any items, and most importantly, our baby can sleep well inside.
- Medicine
Do not forget to bring your own medicine. Just in the very worst case, your baby get tummy sick, get fever, etc. Buying medicines in foreign country probably is not as convinence when buying in your own country. No need to bring that much, just bring few, maybe for 2-3 days.
Therefore, What to Expect? CHANGING PLANS/ITINERARY/SCHEDULE
While we travelled to Tasmania, our baby got fever on the very first day. She didn't want to eat well, didn't want to being separated from me. It was really nightmare since she was one year old and we didn't know where is the pain and what she wants. Our plans on the first day when we arrived was to visit 1-2 places. Yet, we decided to skip it and just let her have some rest. Turned out she still has the fever until day two noon. We had to change the plans, like almost all of it. We planned to stay 10 days and we were going to road trip, we already booked everything. So, due to unfortunate sick, we had to reschedule everything in order to match our accomodation and time. It was nightmare in the beginning, but it turned well in the end.
It was really grateful that we brought some medicine for her. No needed to visit the doctor nor buy anything at pharmacy. Her body also could cope well with the usual medicine. Therefore based on that experience, I always bring her medicine whenever we go, just in case. It also applies when we travel domestic. I just want to make sure we don't need to depend on the pharmacy/doctor.
My experiences maybe not that much but I just hope it can help whoever read it while planning their holiday.
Enjoy your day!
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