If you’ve followed The Froth Family for a while, you’ll know that travel has shaped a huge part of our life over the last few years.
Jacob and I left Australia with Kaia when she was still so little, and since then we’ve spent years figuring out what family life looks like while moving between countries, living overseas and trying to create some kind of normality along the way.
There have been plenty of incredible moments, but there have also been long travel days, sickness, visa headaches, accommodation that looked much better in the photos, toddler meltdowns, plans that changed completely and more than a few moments where we’ve wondered what on earth we were doing.
Somewhere in amongst all of that, Kids Who Travel started to take shape.
When I first met Carly in Türkiye, we quickly realised we had a lot in common, but were so different at the same time. We were both Australian mums living overseas, raising our kids while travelling and figuring out family life a long way from “home”.
We also realised there was something we both struggled to find: honest information and conversation about what family travel actually looks like.
There was plenty of content showing beautiful destinations, hotels and perfectly packed suitcases, but we wanted the conversations happening behind those photos too.
What happens when your toddler loses it on a long-haul flight? What do you do when somebody gets really sick overseas? How do you find somewhere to settle for a few months? What visas do you need? How long can you stay? What about school? What do you do when plans fall apart, or when nobody has slept and you just need everyone to survive the travel day?
Those were the conversations Carly and I kept having anyway, and eventually we started talking about whether other families might find them useful too.
That’s really where Kids Who Travel came from.
Two Families, Two Different Ways of Doing Life (and Prioritising Travel)
One of the things I like most about doing the podcast with Carly is that our families don’t always do things the same way.
Our daughters are different. Our routines are different. The things that work well for one family sometimes make absolutely no sense for the other.
Carly might have one answer to a question and I’ll have a completely different one, and I actually think that makes the conversations more useful.
There is so much advice online that makes it sound as though there is one way to travel with children. Our experience has been pretty much the opposite.
What works depends on the child, the family, the destination, the season of life you’re in and sometimes just how everyone is feeling that particular day.
We’re not travel agents or parenting experts, and we definitely don’t have everything figured out. We’re two mums who have travelled a lot with our families and learnt a bit along the way.
Kids Who Travel is simply a place for us to share those experiences honestly.
Why I Wanted to Do It
One conversation that has always stuck with me was with a friend who had been planning a family trip to England.
They ended up cancelling because the thought of taking their three-year-old on a long flight – and dealing with the time-zone change – felt too overwhelming.
It wasn’t England that stopped them. It was the flight.
I completely understood it because travelling with a baby or young child can feel intimidating before you’ve done it. There are so many things to think about once kids are involved.
Will they sleep? What if they cry the whole way? What if they refuse to eat? What if they get sick? What if everyone on the plane is annoyed? What if the whole thing is just too bloody hard?
I’ve worried about those things too.
What the last few years of travelling with Kaia have taught me is that she often handles these things better than I expect, and Jacob and I just figure the rest out as we go.
That doesn’t mean every travel day is easy. Far from it.
Your child might cry on the plane. A flight might be delayed. You might book the wrong accommodation – or flight! Someone might get sick. Everyone might be completely over it before you’ve even reached the destination.
None of that means the trip wasn’t worth taking.
If something Carly or I share helps another parent feel a little more prepared, or gives someone enough confidence to finally book a trip they’ve been putting off, then I think the podcast is doing exactly what we hoped it would.
What We’re Actually Talking About
We’ve somehow already published five episodes, which feels ridiculous because it still feels like we only just started yet we’ve been talking for years.
The first three are all about flying with kids — mostly because we quickly realised we had far too much to say for one episode. Since then we’ve talked about getting sick overseas, medical care and insurance, and most recently health and wellness while travelling.
There’s plenty more coming too: education, transport, accommodation, visas, travel plans going wrong and all the everyday stuff that comes with travelling and living overseas with kids.
Some episodes are practical, some are more personal, and knowing us, some will probably wander completely off topic because one of us has remembered a story halfway through.
The Froth Family Isn’t Going Anywhere
This is still where I’ll share our travels, the places we stay, what things cost, what we’ve learnt from living overseas and all the random parts of our life that I’ve always shared here.
It will be more personal. More family and friends, and more of just us.
Kids Who Travel is simply another way of telling some of those stories, with Carly bringing her family’s experiences into the conversation too.
If you’ve followed our travels for a while, you’ll probably recognise plenty of the stories I tell on the podcast. Some have already appeared here in one form or another, while others are things I’ve never really sat down and talked about properly before.
If You Want to Have a Listen
Kids Who Travel is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and we’ve also built a separate website where all the episodes and blogs will live.
You can find it here:
Kids Who Travel
https://kidswhotravelpodcast.com/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/kidswhotravelpodcast/
We’re only at the beginning, but I’m really happy we finally turned all those conversations into something.
If one tip makes another family’s flight easier, one story saves somebody from making the same mistake we did, or something we talk about makes travelling with kids feel a little less daunting and a little more achievable, then it’s worth it.
Til next time & with love always,
R