Traveling with Baby and Child: Tips for Vanlife and Overlanding

1. So Many Questions...

Are you wondering if Vanlife is even possible with a baby? How does daily life change? What does Overlanding look like with a baby? Is it still possible to go on off-road tours with a toddler? Do you still do wild camping, or do you now also visit campgrounds? These questions have come up so often that we wanted to write about them here. First of all, we should mention that we can only report from our own perspective with our child. Every baby is different, and accordingly, the answer to these questions can be different for everyone. The way you travel also changes with the age of the baby or toddler.

Yes, we do travel frequently with our baby and our VW bus. Most recently, in July of this year, we spent 16 days in the Pyrenees, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, on remote tracks and gravel roads, such as the old smuggler paths around Andorra. Our baby was 11 months old at the time.

 

Daily Travel Routine; Day Planning

Daily life in the bus has changed somewhat with a baby. While we used to take perhaps a relaxed hour between waking up and setting off, it now takes more than twice as long with a baby. One of us is always busy entertaining or supervising the baby, feeding, or changing diapers, and there’s also more gear to stow away, so everything takes longer, and we often don’t hit the road until around noon. On the plus side, the first drive of the day usually coincides with the baby's nap. Our baby loves to sleep in the car, so on our Pyrenees tour, it happily "slept through" our 2-2.5 hour drive to the next destination, giving us parents some relaxed time to chat or listen to audiobooks.

 

 

Without a baby, we used to do more sightseeing on road trips, stopping to explore villages and towns along the way. With a baby, unpacking the stroller, etc., can be a bigger effort, so we carefully consider whether it’s really important to us. But every family is different. Maybe that's why we often decide just to "drive through" (or pass by) towns because we’re generally more interested in nature :)

In day planning, we’ve been very mindful of our baby's rhythm (sleep and wake times, activity levels, etc.). A happy baby equals a nice, relaxed day. But again, every baby is different.

3. Finding a Place to Stay

In addition to taking longer to set up and take down camp, our requirements for our campsites and wild camps have significantly increased. Even with sophisticated equipment, high grass, muddy ground, rough stones, cigarette butts, or broken glass on the ground suddenly become an issue. So we place more importance on nice spots where the baby can safely explore the world. It's also still important to find secluded and quiet spots. Consequently, the time spent searching for a wild camp has significantly increased, and a few times we gave up and instead went to a campground. The good thing is, there are plenty of them in the Pyrenees, and many offer a certain level of seclusion and peace, which overlanders who are used to wild camping often appreciate – at least that was our experience during the off-season. Sometimes, though, it didn’t work out as planned. But when we did find a wild camping spot, it was a dream and well worth the effort. Our tip is to plan more time for the search, so the baby has enough time to settle in, play, and explore the place.

 

4. Baby's Food; Washing

When it comes to food, you now also have to consider the baby's needs. We brought baby food jars from home, or if suitable, let the baby eat with us at the family table. But every supermarket in the Pyrenees had baby food jars, so we could have just as easily bought baby food during the trip. By the way, we found the Spaniards and French to be very child-friendly. Almost every restaurant had a high chair or offered a children’s menu. Besides meals, diapers generate more waste, and more laundry piles up. During our 16 days, we therefore stopped at a campground four times, something we had never done before.

During the day, we often went to restaurants when the opportunity arose. Besides enjoying the wonderful Spanish tapas, it was also nice for the baby to crawl around, "flirt" with the people at the next table, and explore the surroundings – just a nice change for the baby.

With a baby, we also never skip a meal anymore; these breaks are a must. What we now do more often is just stay an extra day at a nice spot, play with the baby, relax, and chill.

 

5. Sleep Situation

We tried out all the available options for baby beds before the trip. In the end, it was important to us that our "Houdini" couldn’t escape faster than our 45-second reaction time, the time it takes us to reach the baby from outside or from the pop-up roof. The baby sleeps across the driver’s/passenger’s seat, and we parents sleep in the pop-up roof. This setup has proven itself because you can darken the vehicle well with window mats, and the noise insulation is also much better down below.

 

Falling asleep in the bus, in unfamiliar environments, or at campgrounds can be a challenge. For us, the first night in the bus is always the hardest. Our little one regularly has trouble falling and staying asleep and has to get used to the new situation first. The following nights, however, go smoothly. We tried to maintain the normal sleep routine as much as possible, just like at home.

At the campground, our baby would hear the other toddlers, which meant our little one would fall asleep much later, around 10:30 PM, compared to 7:30 PM when wild camping. But that’s also due to our baby’s particular personality – it always wants to be part of the action :) At least on driving days, it doesn’t matter as much.

6. Final Remarks

From shorter weekend trips to a few days at a beautiful spot to 16 days covering a long distance (3,300 km), we've done it all. Traveling with a baby is possible without major restrictions. Our baby usually sleeps through the night without a break – as long as it can follow its rhythm.

 

No baby is like another, so we can only speak from our experiences. Our child was 11 months old and weaned during the last "big" trip in July – information that will certainly interest other parents to help gauge the article "Traveling with Baby" in terms of age.

7. Conclusion: Our travel experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. Once the baby gets used to the rhythm and the travel vehicle (in our case, a VW bus), the little home is always with you – and traveling is much more relaxed than changing hotel rooms. We’ve also never spent as much intensive time with the baby as we have on our bus trips. So we can only encourage every young parent couple to try out this way of traveling. You can always stop and go home, or escape to a hotel – we always leave that option open.

Our most important equipment for traveling with a baby is detailed in a separate future article on our blog. It covers the essential toys, bed, tent, mats, playpen, etc. What’s important is to bring only a little, but the right stuff. Here you can find our essential baby gear for vanlife or overlanding.

This Article is too available in german language.

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