EP 18: Lessons I Learned From My First Solo Trip With 3 Kids Under 5

What happens when a mom of three little kids decides to wing it on a last-minute solo hotel trip while her husband is away on business? A little chaos, a lot of snacks, and some unforgettable lessons.

In this solo episode, I’m sharing the story of my first-ever solo trip with my kids (then ages 5, 4, and 2!)—from packing the car to surviving the hotel breakfast buffet to learning how capable I actually am. 

Whether you’ve dreamed of solo travel with your little ones or have zero desire to take your kids anywhere alone (no shame in that game!), I hope this episode encourages you to see adventure in the ordinary and embrace the growth that comes with doing hard things.

*Post-production notes: My Mom Brain got hotels confused. For this trip, we actually stayed at Drury Inn & Suites -- I've linked the exact one in my blog and show notes!

A huge thank you to today’s sponsor, Cosmo Technologies!

Use my code "JULIANNE" for savings and to shop the Cosmo JrTrack 5 here

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Transcript

Julianne Nienberg (00:00)

Welcome to the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast. I'm your host, Julianne Nienberg, mom of three, backyard adventure enthusiast, and your go-to gal for making memories outside with your kids. This is your space to ditch the pressure of perfect and embrace simple, soul-filling time in nature that fits real family life. Each week, we'll talk motherhood, nature play, travel, and entrepreneurship with honest stories, practical tips, and guest conversations that'll feel like chatting with a friend.

Whether you're raising wild little explorers or building a business during nap time, I see you. So grab your coffee, toss some snacks in your bag, and let's make some memories. This is the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast.

Julianne Nienberg (00:39)

Welcome back to season two of the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast. At the time of this podcast, we are back to school and can I say I'm all in my feelings about it. I love the summers with my kids and I feel like this summer especially, I'm so acutely aware of how fast time is flying by. My youngest turns five this fall and I feel like that's the end of the little kid era.

You know, as I looked around our kitchen today, I saw my kids helping me. The boys were cracking eggs into pancake batter. My daughter was helping unload the dishwasher. And I was standing back in awe and savoring the moment. I can remember when they were all so little. And I wondered if I'd be in that stage forever. It gets a little bit, actually a whole lot easier as they get bigger.

We're in a new season and I'm just trying to enjoy every second of it. So back to this solo episode. Now that I'm all in my feels about the passage of time, I'm throwing it back to my first ever solo trip with all three of my kids when they were all under five years old to Louisville, Kentucky. Yes, I'm sharing a few of the biggest lessons I learned on that trip about preparation, mindset, expectations, and what

actually happens when you just put on your big girl pants and say, okay, let's do this. If you've ever dreamed of a family adventure, but felt intimidated by the logistics or the meltdowns, that's completely legit. This episode is for you. I'll take you behind the scenes of the chaos and joy and offer some encouragement for your next trip, big or small.

Julianne Nienberg (02:29)

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Julianne Nienberg (03:11)

So let me take you back to 2023.

My kids were five and a half, four and two. Only one of my kids was in preschool and it was spring break. We had no plans and we were coming off what felt like a really tough winter. My husband was headed to Louisville, Kentucky for a week long work expo at the same time that my oldest would be home on spring break.

So like any normal stay at home mom facing down a week home of solo parenting during that awkward time of year in the Midwest where it's not really freezing, but it's also not warm, I decided to take my kids along to Louisville, Kentucky. I packed them up and we headed down in the car with my husband.

So this is the part that's not really solo. We drove with my husband down to Kentucky, so that removed the whole solo road trip out of the equation for me. However, thanks to my type B planning skills, I discovered only a week before we left that my husband's hotel was completely sold out because of this work expo. So I had to make a hard pivot, which resulted in me booking a separate hotel on the other side of town alone with three kids under five. Not ideal.

But still, I was committed to this trip now, and my husband kept asking, are you sure you want to do this? have you ever been so stubborn in your commitment to something that there is no turning back? So yeah, that was me. I had researched some fun activities, both outdoor and indoor, and I was pretty confident that we'd have a great time, despite how overstimulated I might be from being with kids for 72 hours straight with absolutely no help.

Have women done harder things than what I was about to do? Absolutely. but this was like my Mount Everest in the moment. I do not remember what I packed for the road trip. I'm sure there were three different iPads. I'm sure my kids weren't getting along. To be honest, my kids were not great at long road trips in the car at that time. I do remember packing a small bin of first aid and sick supplies. Like if somebody were to get sick.

So there's that. I was being kind of a good mom by bringing all my home remedies, all my homeopathy things, ⁓ thermometers. I'm pretty sure I threw that in. I want you to remember that because it'll be important later. So we get to Louisville. I drop my husband off at his hotel. And the kids and I drive to our hotel 20 minutes on the opposite side of town. I remember when we arrived in the parking lot, I took a deep breath.

And I was thinking to myself, okay, this is it. Here we are. Like my pack mule isn't here to help me haul everything into our hotel room. And side note, I want to just say for all of you single moms out there doing the dang thing, you're probably rolling your eyes at this entire episode. I commend you. I know so many amazing moms who are out there living life, taking their kids on solo adventures, not even thinking twice about it.

I think about my own mom. I was raised by a single mom for the majority of my life. And I think about all the special times that we had and the little adventures that we went on together because she just said, hey, let's go out and try something new or hey, let's go out and explore. So the goal for the first night of the hotel stay was just to check in, swim in the pool, have dinner.

Another side note, when we travel, are not like luxury hotel people. Like we want the most bang for our buck and usually we're not even in the hotel that much. I found a Staybridge Suites where all the rooms are suites and I could have the pack and play in the bedroom with me while my other two kids bunked up on the pullout couch, which is now like an ongoing thing. They just love to stay together in a pullout couch.

this is not a sponsored post, but Staybridge Sweets. If you hear this, let's connect. I love that they have a complimentary breakfast buffet, a complimentary happy hour and snack reception. So yeah, sign me up. I brought some snacks with us to take on our daily adventures, but you better believe I took advantage of those complimentary meals and I may have repackaged them into snacks on the go.

Another aspect of the trip that made me nervous was having three kids under five in a pool. whenever we go to a hotel, my kids, their first question is, is there a pool? Can we swim in the pool? At the time, it was only my oldest who could swim. My middle was kind of swimming. He could touch in like three feet of shallow water. And my youngest was definitely going to be in a floaty. I think one thing

that really helped me during all of this was talking to my kids and setting expectations before we did anything, reminding them that there is only one mommy and three of them. Whatever we did, we all had to do it together. And being that my kids were all under five, it was a simple whatever we do, we do it all together. We move together as one unit. And another thing that I leaned into, and I feel like I need to make a very important disclaimer here, like,

Trust your gut. As nerve wracking as this trip was for me, I wasn't overcome with fear because I was simply parenting in a different environment. All the things we were doing are types of activities we do at home, solo. The only thing different was the location. But one of the biggest challenges for me was breakfast at the hotel. Obviously I wanted to take advantage of that breakfast buffet.

But maneuvering through the line and stacking plates with a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and a five-year-old glued to my side was no easy task. So my strategy each morning was to try and get there early, find a table closest to the buffet, have my kids sit there while I went through the line and stacked breakfast food onto a main serving plate, and then I made my kids' plates at the table. And then we'd do it again during the happy hour or snack time and at dinnertime.

And after our second day, the other families staying at the hotel kind of knew our crew, so by the next morning, I actually asked an older woman to help me keep an eye on the kids while I went through the line. I know there's people listening thinking, I would never let a stranger watch my kids. Listen, I was solo and I had to make a judgment call

and thank the good Lord for his safety and giving me discernment because the judgment call I made ended up being an okay one as my kids were safe and they were just sitting there waiting for me hungrily and they weren't snatched up by an old couple. So as a mom, this is something we do all the time. We assess the risk in a situation and we make a call. So onto the fun destinations. My one day of research led me to discover

the Bernheim Arboretum, which was the perfect place for us to spend. I was there for the giant wood trolls. My kids were there for the promise of a playground. So off we went. I packed a cooler, a backpack, snacks. The Bernheim Arboretum doesn't have an admission fee, but accepts donations and suggests $10 donation per car. We arrived earlier in the morning while it was still cool and quiet, and we set off on foot to find the three trolls.

The trolls were designed and built by world renowned Danish artist Thomas Dambo in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Bernheim Arboretum. So for the Bernheim Arboretum trolls, Dambo actually used wood from pallets, fallen trees, barrels from the nearby bourbon distilleries, and scraps from the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory to construct these giant trolls.

He created a mom troll named Mama Lumari and two children, Little Ness and Little Alina. So we set out first to see Little Ness, who is looking down at his reflection in Holly Pond. Then it was onwards to see Mama Lumari, who is seated resting in the middle of the woods. And Little Alina is further out and she's forming rocks into the shape of a giant feather. So this was a lot of walking. And one thing to note, we didn't have a stroller.

and I was also potty training my second. my gosh, how did I forget to include that earlier? I was potty training my second. So I brought the travel potty for the hotel and for the car and my liberalist one was just out there winging it with undies and no pull ups. So that was pretty brave of me, I must say. The Arboretum was the perfect place for us to run around, but it also gave us a destination.

We took our time and I think that's one of the biggest pieces of advice that I have also is to take your time. Take it from someone who used to want to go, go, go and had all of my itineraries planned before I had kids. Plan two to four hours for a one mile loop with young kids and toddlers. Two to four hours because they will mosey on, they will, and really their moseying is them taking in.

so many sensory experiences, right? And they are looking at the details, whereas I feel like adults were always moving about with the destination in mind. so for this particular hike, it did take us, I think, somewhere between two to three hours to do like a one mile loop with my kids. And by the time we got to the second and third troll, my crew

was losing steam. They had been walking, stopping, exploring for hours. And I packed enough snacks to pull out strategically during that time. Like, we would walk to the second troll. It was fruit snacks. We would walk to the third troll and then back to the trailhead. It was suckers or some other, novelty. We may have also had a couple of potty breaks for the boys out in the woods.

By the time we got to the end, the kids were super hungry, so we had our picnic lunch and played at the nature playground for an hour. the visitor's center at the Bernheim Arboretum is beautiful. It has a gift shop with all kinds of nature toys, books, alongside handcrafted items. And if you want to skip bringing your own food, there's a cafe called Isaac's Cafe inside the visitor's center. It features fresh salads,

soups, kids' meals and desserts, and they utilize as much as possible from their edible garden next door. I actually had a delicious roasted veggie and hummus quesadilla that day. I still remember that quesadilla. So all in all, if you find yourself in the Louisville area, I would highly recommend a visit to the Arboretum. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel for quiet time and a nap for my littlest and probably me as well. And after the nap, was pool and dinner.

Well, somewhere before our second night started, my middle began complaining of an earache. The dreaded hotel earache. Not gonna lie, this is where things got dicey. Anyone who's ever dealt with a sick kid in a hotel room knows there is nothing that will take down the vibe of a family trip faster than a kid who gets sick on vacation. And it always happens, right?

I dare you to name a family trip where a member of your family has walked away unscathed from injury, ailment, or illness.

Julianne Nienberg (14:30)

All that aside, we got through a pretty sleepless night and since it was raining on our second day in Louisville, it was the perfect opportunity to explore the Kentucky Science Center located in downtown Louisville. We easily spent four hours here. One of our favorite exhibits was One World by Air Cargo, which was filled with a Boeing airplane simulator.

Their science and play exhibit on the first floor had water stations, climbing walls. It was great. was really impressed. My best tip for visiting children's museums or science centers when you are traveling is to become a member at one of your local museums or science centers and to check their reciprocity list. We ended up getting free admission the Kentucky Science Center because our home science institute had reciprocity.

The one caveat of the institute is that it's right downtown, so parking was a little difficult for us. Considering I had three kids and I was unfamiliar with the area, I circled for probably 20 minutes until I found a spot on the street that was just a block away.

So regarding activities and things to do when you have really little kids, here's what I want to emphasize. Choose one destination or one activity that gives you flexibility. You don't need a packed itinerary of multiple stops and multiple destinations. You need space. You need space for the kids to run, to explore, to be able to regroup as a unit. So after our full day at the museum, it was back to the hotel.

for a pool, reception, snacks, dinner, and sleep. In my mind, being that this was our last evening, was to get the kids to dinner, get them to bed, let them watch a movie before bedtime, and then in the morning, we'd be reunited with my husband to make the drive home. By the time we picked up my husband after his work expo, I looked like every meme you've ever seen on the internet about a tired mom. Like dark circles under my eyes, beaten down, tired.

but still mustering a smile on my face like, we had a great time. But to be honest, I felt really proud. We did it. We survived. We thrived, kind of. Would I do it again? Absolutely. There's something that happens to a mom's brain. I don't know, selective amnesia perhaps, but it allows us to compartmentalize the really tough parts and realize that it's just for a moment.

in order to see the joy in the big picture, right? I would do it again in a heartbeat. Not because it was easy, it really wasn't, but because it showed me that I could. And that's what I hope this episode reminds you too. You don't have to be the perfect planner. You don't have to have perfect conditions. You don't need to wait for your kids to be older. You certainly don't have to be fearless.

You just need to go out and do, even if it's messy, even if there are meltdowns, which there will be, even if there's missed naps or wet swimsuits, you can go. You can do the thing. You'll grow confidence one adventure at a time.

So my outdoorsy challenge to you this week is to plan a little adventure with your kids. Even if it's just a walk or a local museum or a hotel night one town over, don't wait, just go. Let it be simple, let it be messy. Go out and make the memories.

Julianne Nienberg (18:04)

Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me. I hope this episode left you feeling encouraged and inspired to get outside and enjoy nature wherever your feet are. If you loved what you heard, it would mean the world to me if you tap those five stars or leave a quick review. It helps other outdoorsy minded moms find the show and grow the sweet little community. And if you're looking for more ways to simplify, slow down, and connect through nature, you can find me over on Instagram at myoutdoorsymom, read the blog at myoutdoorsymom.com, or explore all my digital resources and seasonal guides in the shop.

Everything's linked right there in the show notes. Until next time, take a deep breath, step outside, and I'll meet you back here next week.