Traveling with kids is an adventure and one my husband and I highly recommend doing. There’s no right age to travel with kids – we started when Lou Lou and Jaf were both babies, taking them along on work trips. It wasn’t until Lou Lou was 4 (and Jaf was 2) that we decided to leave our life in Hawaii and become a mobile RV traveling family (here’s how I began to culinary worldschool my children while in Europe).

I’ll never forget landing in Europe with 6 full pieces of suitcases expecting to fit all of our stuff into the RV! It’s been four years since our Europe RV adventure, which was a huge learning experience. It brought us closer together as a family, we learned about our kids strengths and weaknesses, explored cultures and cuisines, and most importantly, learned how to pack efficiently.

Whether it’s your first time traveling with kids, or your family are seasoned travelers, here are our favorite children’s travel items.

Scroll down for the Ultimate Packing Checklist for Children’s Travel Items – with a FREE Printable Checklist!

Our Favorite Kid-Friendly Travel Gear

Packing your kids travel bags can seem like a daunting task, and you always seem like you’re missing something! Here are some of Lou Lou and Jaf’s favorite children’s travel accessories, and also some of my favorite family-travel gear that always gets packed.

Kid-Friendly Travel Luggage

• Kids travel bags – we’ve tested a number of bags out over the years, and these Deuter backpacks are lightweight. They’ve traveled with us from school, to the beach, and all through Europe!
• Kids Travel Suitcase – my kids are Star Wars obsessed (have you looked at their line of Star Wars foodie shirts?) and cannot go on a trip without their BB-8 hardshell travel suitcases.
• Portable Laundry Wash Bag – traveling in an RV meant we had to give up a lot of luxuries we were used to like owning a washing machine. The Scrubba Portable Laundry System Wash Bag ended up being a life saver! It enabled us to wash clothes whenever we wanted without having to look for laundromats.
• Packing cubes – I don’t remember what life was like before packing cubes, and frankly, I don’t want to! Packing cubes like these by Eagle Creek are a great way to sort clothing, compress them. Most importantly, they keep everything neat and organized in your suitcase!
• Carry-on Organizer – Living a minimilastic travel lifestyle means that everything has to be extremely organized – from the RV, to your suitcases, and even your carry-on and backpacks. This hanging backpack organizer by PACK Gear has never let us down – our motto is if it doesn’t fit in the pack, it’s gotta go.

Kid-Friendly Travel Tech

• Wireless Headphones – When we first started our culinary worldschooling, the kids had only one iPad to share between the two of them. These LilGadgets Wireless Bluetooth Headphones contain a shareport which made sharing so much easier between the two of them.
• Mobile Hotspot – wifi isn’t as accessible in Europe as it is back home in the US, and on top of that traveling in an RV meant access to internet wasn’t guaranteed. The Skyroam Mobile Hotspot saved us on more than one occassion, and it’s how the kids were able to be worldschooled every day on the road!
• Surge Protector – Voltage differs all around the world which is why we always travel with a Belkin 3-Outlet Mini Travel Surge Protector. It connects three devices, and has two USB ports to charge your smart phones and/or iPads as well.
• External Battery Power Bank – A day of sightseeing and exploring means our electronic devices lose battery. We make sure to always pack at least two portable power banks like the Anker Portable Power Bank – you never know when you might need it!

Kid-Friendly Medical Supplies

• Insect Bite Relief – My kids always get bitten by mosquitoes whether they’re at home in Hawaii or traveling abroad. A product that’s always in our medical kit is Bug Bite Thing – it’s an easy-to-use suction pump that removes the poison from an insect bite, effectively stopping pain and itching. Read our review here.
• First Aid Kit – Accidents happen! You never know when you’re going to need a bandaid or gauze, which is something we realized in the RV. We love this kid-friendly travel first aid kit.
• Activated charcoal – upset tummies are part of the package when you’re a foodie-focused family. A friend recommended activated charcoal the last time my son was sick, and it’s now something I swear by and always have in our medical kit.
• Paracetamol – always handy to keep advil in your kit when the kids are sick.

Kid-Friendly Travel Accessories

• Outdoor Blanket – having a blanket that’s portable like this Cosy Meadow one. It’s aluminum coated which means it can reflect heat and functions perfectly as a sun shade. Perfect for taking it from the beach to a concert, or even packing it with you for your travels.
• Water Bottle – we’re now a family of four that travels light, and that means even our water bottles like these kid-friendly Quenchers from Vapur when not in use can be compressed down to nothing and stored easily.
• Quick Dry Towels – we often stay at campsites which means shared restrooms & showers, and guess what? You have to bring your own towels – we love these light-weight, quick dry towels.
• Travel Books – while most of our reading is done on our kindles or iPads, we sometimes like the feel of actual books. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die was a book we read as a family during our European RV traveling days and it inspired us to make a few detours along the way.

And, there you have it; our favorite kid-friendly travel gear! These travel items and children’s travel accessories have been used by Lou Lou and Jaf throughout their travels, and have helped our family immensely when we lived a very minimalistic lifestyle in an RV.

Subscribe below to get our FREE Ultimate Packing Checklist for Children’s Travel Items (plus more kid-friendly food and family travel tips).

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