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Family travel tips — The Wandering Fam
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What we’ve actually learned from years of traveling with kids

These aren’t tips we read somewhere — they’re things we learned the hard way. Like the time our son developed a fever over the Pacific and all our medicine was in checked luggage. Or when Spirit canceled our Puerto Rico flight without sending a single email after a tornado hit.

Consider this the collection of lessons we wish someone had told us before our first family trip.

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Flights & Airports

💸 Don’t book cheap airlines to save a few bucks. There’s a Punjabi saying — “spend more and cry once, buy cheap and cry repeatedly.” Spirit canceled our Puerto Rico flight with zero notice after a tornado hit. No email, nothing. Stick to reputable carriers.
🛂 Get Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, and CLEAR. With kids in tow, airport security is brutal. All three together make it almost painless. Amex Platinum and Capital One Venture both cover the fees — essentially free if you have either card.
⏰ Leave earlier than you think you need to. Kids mean extra pit stops, extra snack breaks, and extra everything. Buffer time is the difference between a stressful sprint to the gate and a relaxed boarding.
💊 Always pack medicine in your carry-on. Our son got a fever somewhere over the Pacific. Every single medication was in checked luggage. Learned that one the hard way — never again.

Full flight booking strategy How we find cheap flights & use points

Flight Guide →
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Saving Money

🎨 Get a Children’s Museum membership with ASTC or ACM benefits. Usually $50–$150/year and gives you free entry at museums nationwide — and even globally. Our membership alone saved us $140 at the Maui Ocean Center.
🚗 Book car rentals through Costco Travel or Priceline. Then set up an Autoslash alert — it monitors your booking and notifies you if the price drops so you can rebook at the lower rate.
📊 Track spending as you go. Google Sheets or the Travel Spend app work great. Without tracking, it’s very easy to go way over budget and not realize it until you’re home.

Our credit card strategy How we fund most of our travel with points

Points Guide →
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Packing & Planning

📦 Use packing cubes. Game changer for families — one cube per person, organized by category. Unpacking at a hotel takes 2 minutes instead of 20. Once you use them you can’t go back.
📱 Use TripIt to organize your itinerary. Forward all your confirmation emails to TripIt and it builds a master timeline automatically — flights, hotels, car rentals, activities. No more digging through your inbox.
🩹 Pack a small first-aid kit in your carry-on. Bandages, kids’ Tylenol, antihistamine, motion sickness meds. Takes up almost no space and has saved us multiple times.
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Insurance & Protection

💳 Always book trips on a travel credit card with trip insurance. Our younger one got sick right before two separate trips. Because we’d booked on the Chase Sapphire Preferred, we recovered the non-refundable costs both times. That alone has paid for years of annual fees.
🏥 Check what medical coverage your card includes internationally. Some cards cover emergency medical abroad — know what you have before you need it. Consider travel insurance for longer international trips especially with kids.

The one thing that matters most: Plan everything, then let go of the plan. Something will go wrong on every trip with kids — weather, illness, a meltdown at the worst possible moment. The families that enjoy these trips most are the ones who expect it and roll with it. The memories you talk about for years are almost always the things that went sideways.

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