Tips for big, long haul trips

Hello! Looking for tips for ambitious travel with 4-5month old.

We're planning to use our parental leave to travel around a few destinations over the course of 4 weeks with our then 4 month old. The destinations will be further afield (including Asia), and will involve multiple long haul flights and different timezones. Probably crossing 3 timezones in total and 5 long haul flights over the 4 weeks.

Does anyone have any general advice for attempting such ambitious travel. Has anyone else tried something similar? Are we being too ambitious?

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We went to Thailand, Koh Tao & Koh samui with our 4 month old from London. Door to door travel was about 24hours (2 flights & a ferry on the first leg) but she adjusted surprisingly well to time zone & flying. We had a night flight which worked really well. Bear in mind the humidity, we went end of March and it was sticky! Had a baby carrier with us but only used it for the elephants because it was too hot, used it for the airports tho! We rented a travel buggy from tiny explorers, I wanted a parent facing one so we picked the joolz aer with nest which was really good.

We did 5nights in one place and 8 nights in the other. The 5nights were really nice but not ideal with unpacking & packing. The 8 nights we could properly unpack and relax more I found.

Feel free to message me any specific questions or if you want my list of things we took with us x

Yes I would say that’s too ambitious. Have you travelled or flown with your baby before at all? Crossing that many time zones and taking that many long-haul flights in the space of 4 weeks would be exhausting for an adult, so with a baby I just dont think you’ll enjoy the experience.

I say this as an avid traveller myself who has been on many trips before and after children. Children are absolutely wonderful but they are a huge time drain. You really do have to readjust what is practical!

Definitely go away for the 4 weeks and have an experience to remember but I would recommend:
1) travelling somewhere with baby as a trial run before you book (could be weekend or couple nights away in uk) - to see how you all cope with upheaval and packing
2) taking one long haul flight and shorter flights if you want to move around
3) staying in bases for 1 week minimum as the moving around/ packing takes its toll

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