I'm planning on traveling to Penang, Malaysia with DH and 3 young sons ages 12, 9. It's been a long time since I've travelled internationally and this is our first trip overseas as a family. I'm currently researching flights and the best I can come up with that doesn't break the bank is an early June EVA flight leaving at midnight with 2 stops each around 3-4 hrs and arriving in Penang the next day in the evening. Another flight I found is an afternoon flight, with 1 stop but an 11 hr layover and arriving 2 days later.around 1pm. Traveling with kids, which would you go with? Also, what am I not thinking of? Or does anyone have any advice? TIA

Might help others to help you if you said where you were flying from. There may be other routing options.

Eva is a decent airline and I assume you will be flying via Taipei or maybe Bangkok and the second stop in KL? If so you could perhaps spend a night or two in Taipei or Bangkok to break up the trip.there to break up the trip. Both are pretty amazing cities. Most airlines will allow a no cost stopover, some throw in a free or v.cheap hotel.

0f the two options you outline I would favour two 3-4 hours layovers. Just did a 9 hour stop over from London to South Africa and really wish I hadn’t . Too short to do anything and too long to hang around and airport (and that was without kids or jet lag to worry about)

There are advantages to doing all the flights with the same airline - checking through bags etc. But some of the budget carriers like Air Asia may have more frequent/convenient schedules and are usually pretty cheap. Do watch out for any change of airport though.