mcbainjoe

My husband and I are planning a trip to Europe. We initially had a wild idea to spend 3 months away, but it has been whittled down to a month. We are planning to bring our 5 year old daughter with us. Our itinerary right now is one week London, one week Berlin, one week Prague, two weeks Bavaria. Now, I am thinking this might be a bit much with her. Are we biting off more than we can chew?

sssteve

I don't think that anybody here can properly answer that question except you. It depends on you and your 5 year old. 5 weeks is a long time for a 5 year old. Is she used to traveling? Are you used to traveling? Are you used to traveling for extended period with her?

Your thread is new. Perhaps you will get an answer from somebody who has done it and can provide some useful guidance.

nukesafe

I don't understand the gist of your question. Are you asking if the time is too much for your daughter, or too much time for you? The fact is that you will obviously be with your daughter full time wherever you are, so my guess is that you are concerned if the stress of travelling together will too much for your family.

My experience, having traveled across Europe with four little ones, is that kids that age have no idea where they are. They exist in each moment in whatever place mom and dad happen to be, and are either happy or unhappy right then. The secret is to tailor the journey so that the happy moments are greater in number than the unhappy moments.

They need rest or they are unhappy. They need fed, or they are grumpy, they need attention or they are whiny. Plan your journey so they have space to run about, things to do to entertain them, and time to enjoy being with happily traveling parent.

If you follow this advise and slow down to a kid pleasing pace you will not see as many places or do as many adult activities as you might have planned, but you will still have a marvelous trip.

greg

Whether it is too much of not depends on the child, you, and the scope of the visit. You are looking for a simple one size fits all answer.
We have taken our two year old daughter for three weeks. She thought it was a new game, giggling and giving new names to new things she encountered. Unless you have canned your daughter in your house, she is still exploring the world and taking in all the new things as they come along. Not really different from discovering new things around home.
The issue is unlikely to be her. It might be too much for you.

bilboburgler

In 15 years they will have forgotten most of it, either way

nytraveler

If you stay a week or so in each place, make sure you are near a park/playground your child can visit every day, don;t pack in too many adult activities and leave lots of down time for kids activities (even just feeding ducks in a park - not Disney) you should probably be OK.

I would stay in apartments so you can have breakfasts there as well as all the necessary snack foods, make sure you child has favorite toys and videos and keep to a schedule she is used to, which may mean dining early in some places.

Also I would give her picture books of where you will be and an idea of what some of the foods would be, etc.

If she has been happy on shorter trips it will probably work out well. Just listen to her clues.

AndiM

We have had mostly good luck traveling with our two daughters. Our first big trip was six weeks in Germany, France, and Belgium back in 2011. Our youngest was 4 at the time. She is still a feisty little girl at age 9! In retrospect, 4 was too young for her. However, my 6 year old was great. We took our now 9 and 11 year olds to Thailand for a month last summer with great success. Start traveling now and I bet your daughter will be a pro in a few years! I'm including our blog which details the three big trips we've taken since 2011. We're gearing up for another big one next summer! (Btw, your daughter will LOVE Germany's great parks and public pools! Prague also has amazing parks. Check out Mirakulum Park outside of Prague - http://www.mirakulum.cz/en/) Here's our blog. Let me know if you have questions! http://familyineurope.travellerspoint.com/

janisj

If you think you and your daughter can deal w/ being away from home that long -- at least you are planning on doing it right. A full week in three different places and two weeks in the fourth. You will be able to settle in and maintain sort of a routine. You won't be dashing about like chickens (unlike a concurrent thread where the goofball wants to take her 6 yo all over hell and gone, one night stand after one night stand after over night train after overnight train)