The First Thing We Packed for Our Year of Travel

5 Minute Read
The First Thing We Packed for Our Year of Travel

Contributed by kidfriendlystays

Before the flights, before the itineraries, before I'd talked myself into and back out of dozens of destinations, I made one small, practical decision for the year that my family was going to spend traveling: we were getting the Wayb Pico.

With a three-year old and infant, I couldn't fathom dozens of flights spent dragging a 25-pound convertible seat behind me with an infant strapped to my chest, boarding passes in hand, while pushing a toddler in a stroller. So with (really) high hopes, I took a chance on what felt like an easy-button solution for parents on the go.

A child wearing a black puffer jacket, gray pants, and black-and-white sneakers stands on a sandy desert path at sunset, looking toward Joshua trees and rocky hills.

At that time, I knew that this type of once-in-a-lifetime adventure was going to benefit from any extra ounce of convenience that I could balance with my need for top-notch safety for my kids. But what I couldn't have predicted was how over the next several years, we'd come to rely on the flexibility that one car seat purchase offered our family - moving from one child to the next, among dozens of rental vehicles and on handfuls of flights.

I think back to our minivan rental in Hawaii often. We'd pulled over somewhere with the sliding doors thrown open to the ocean, our toddler buckled into his car seat while scooping shave ice, salty air everywhere. That's the picture I'd give you if you asked me what that year of traveling with two tiny kids felt like. Messy, maybe, but those memories are the stickiest of all.

I think about Joshua Tree, installing Pico in our rental SUV before we headed out into the desert. Elsewhere, rolling down our car windows and seeing a tiny little hand move in the wind while we drove through the mountains. The first time that we packed the car seat on the plane for Florida, when it was officially passed down to my youngest for her use.

A child in a light gray top and blue jeans sits in a black Wave brand car seat installed on a tan leather car seat, with an adult woman adjusting the seat inside the vehicle.

Today, the car seat that's traveled thousands of miles with us over the course of three years lives in my trunk most of the time, as we routinely use it to swap kids into grandma and grandpa's car for an ice cream run at the cottage. When it only takes a minute to install, even the smallest outing feels like an easy "yes."

Three years in, it's still the first thing getting packed up. Not because it's a gadget I'm excited about — because of the ocean snacks, the desert drives, the grandparent ice cream runs. The Pico didn't just come along. It helped us go.

 

Photo credit: kidfriendlystays