Welcome to Family Travel Unpacked

Travel with kids doesn't have to wait. Join host Melissa as she shares how her family travels MORE now than before having children—from Hawaii at 3 months old to a 2-year family gap year backpacking the world.

In this debut episode of Family Travel Unpacked, Melissa introduces her 8-year journey running The Family Voyage and reveals the surprising truth: family travel became intentional, frequent, and affordable after kids arrived. Learn how maternity leave trips evolved into full-time travel, why kids make you better travelers, and how strategic use of points and miles makes it all possible.

In this episode:

• How we took each kid on their first international trip at 3 months old
• Why leaving a stressful finance job led to 2 years of full-time family travel
• Our philosophy: travel doesn't have to be expensive, kids are more capable than you think, and travel is the best education
• Balancing challenging adventures with resort relaxation
• What to expect from this podcast: destination guides, points & miles strategies, and real family travel advice

00:00 Welcome to Family Travel Unpacked

01:17 Our Early Travel Experiences

02:23 Traveling with a Newborn

03:46 Expanding Our Horizons

05:03 The Big Leap: Full-Time Travel

08:26 Core Principles of Family Travel

11:09 What to Expect from This Podcast

12:15 Conclusion and Next Steps

Hosted by Melissa Conn, founder of The Family Voyage, certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and mom of two who proves family travel is achievable for everyone.

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Transcript

Melissa: 0:02

[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to Family Travel Unpacked. I'm your host, Melissa Conn, and I'm so glad you're here. If you've ever looked at a family vacation and thought This is too hard, or we'll travel more when the kids are older, or we just can't afford it right now, this podcast is for you. 'cause here's the thing, travel with kids is different, and yes, sometimes it is harder, but it doesn't have to be impossible, and it definitely doesn't have to wait. For the past eight years, I've been running the Family Voyage, a family travel website where I share our adventures tested travel tips, and honest advice about exploring the world with kids. I started The blog back in 2017 as we were planning for what would become our family's biggest adventure yet, but we'll get to that story in just a minute. Now I'm bringing all of that experience plus some behind the scenes stories you won't find on the blog right here to this podcast. Everyone who knows me in real life will tell you that it takes me about 5.3 seconds to turn any conversation toward travel. So it's about [00:01:00] time I jump into podcasting. Over the next 30 minutes, I'm gonna share our family's travel story, why we believe travel is one of the best gifts you can give your family, and what you can expect from this show going forward. So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's talk about why family travel matters and how you can make it happen. So lemme start with a confession. My husband, Ronnie and I, were not huge travelers before we had kids. Ronnie had studied abroad in Austria during college. He specifically chose it for easy access to the rest of Europe. I had taken a road trip to Canada as a kid and then a short geology field trip to Mexico and college. But I didn't even get a passport until I was about to graduate. By the time we got together near the end of grad school in Los Angeles. Ronnie and I both wanted to see more of the world, but our budgets and our PTO were both pretty small. Thankfully, we were able to slowly get a few trips under our belts, wine tasting in Napa, a friend's wedding in Curaçao, which is beautiful, by the way, A mini moon into Quebec, a magical road trip around France and even an overseas babymoon.[00:02:00] And then we had Jacob, our oldest. Like a lot of new parents, we assumed our traveling days were done. Babies are a lot of work, right? They need so much stuff. They have schedules, at least some of them. They're unpredictable. Conventional wisdom says you hunkered down for a few years and maybe start traveling again when they're old enough to appreciate it and perhaps even behave themselves. But I didn't wanna wait. I had three months of maternity leave for my very demanding job, three whole months. I'll be honest and say that the newborn stage was really brutal. I'd had an unplanned C-section, and Jacob had some issues that kept us all exhausted and frustrated. But somewhere around week eight when we'd settled into a routine and the initial fog had lifted, Ronnie and I looked at each other and thought, well, maybe we could try. I snagged a package deal on Orbitz, and I'm gonna tell you that the post booking pick me up was exactly what I needed at that moment. So when Jacob was just three months old, we packed him and a bunch of enormous suitcases and went to Hawaii. [00:03:00] I know what you're thinking. It sounds insane. Maybe it was a little bit insane, but you know what? It worked. Jacob slept through a lot of the flights and when he cried, we just dealt with it. We had a beautiful apartment by the beach. We adjusted our pace, took a lot of breaks, and we even hired a sitter for a few hours here and there. Honestly, it was amazing. As a new mom, it was just what I needed before I dove back into office life. That trip changed everything for us. We realized that yes, traveling with a baby is different from traveling as a couple, but it wasn't impossible. It gave us the confidence to go for bigger adventures as a family of three. Spain, Italy, Vancouver, Puerto Rico, and lots of smaller trips in between. Our perspective had totally shifted. Three years later, we had our daughter, Shoshana. Same story. I had three months of maternity leave and I knew we'd want to use a little time to get away. Before she was even three months old, our girl had passport stamps for Germany and the Netherlands. [00:04:00] Now I confessed to not remembering a whole lot of that trip. Unfortunately, we had initially planned a more relaxing trip to visit family and friends, but pivoted when that fell through. I wouldn't necessarily recommend running around three cities on the other side of the globe with a tiny baby, but we survived and enjoyed ourselves overall before I had to head back to the office. We learned a lot from those early trips. We knew how to navigate airports with a baby. We knew which gear was essential and what was just extra weight. We knew that kids are incredibly adaptable, often more than we give them credit for, and often more than their parents. Over the next three years, we added more trips to our memory books, Ireland, Israel, Croatia, Paris, and a few others i'm probably forgetting. But honestly, the crazy hours and stress at my job were really getting to me. I was missing too much of my kids' lives, and I was crankier than either one of them by the time I got home. I kept thinking about all the places we want to go, all the experiences we wanted to have as a family while I was sitting at my desk job that made me really [00:05:00] unhappy, but it also funded our adventures. In 2017, I made the kind of scary decision to leave my job. That's when I launched The Family Voyage. I wanted a place to document what we were learning, to share our plans, and honestly to hold ourselves accountable for this crazy dream that we were forming. And it definitely felt crazy at the time. For years, Ronnie and I had daydreamed about traveling full-time after we retired, but that was a long way off when we were in our early thirties with tiny kids. Since we're getting personal, I was also contending with a feeling of carpe diem since my dad had been diagnosed with a terminal illness at just 48 years old, and he barely made it to his 50th birthday. Keeping that in mind, we realized that leaving my job- and with Ronnie also at a professional crossroads and the kids not yet in school full time, could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we started planning what we thought would be a year long trip around the world. From the first time I floated the idea to Ronnie until we packed everything in either a pod for storage or a backpack for travel [00:06:00] it was just about six months. Come Labor Day 2017, we were off! For 12 months we traveled as a family of four. We spent plenty of time in South America- Panama, Chile, and Argentina. We explored Australia and New Zealand for a few months, enjoyed a few weeks in Thailand, and then we meandered through Europe on and off for a few more months while also popping over to Morocco and Israel. We drove across the US both ways, spending more than a month each time, checking out different cities and national parks and everything in between. We experienced different cultures, tried new foods, and made friends from all over the world. And our kids? They did great. Now, I'm not gonna romanticize this. It was not all Insta perfect moments and Sunset Beach strolls. There were challenging days, there were meltdowns from both the kids and the adults. There were hospital visits and entire countries that got scrapped from our plans when we felt like we were blowing our budget. But overall, it was incredible. We watched our kids become more confident, [00:07:00] more adaptable, and more curious about the world. We saw them make friends despite language barriers. We watched them try foods they've never encountered at home. Maybe even more importantly, we became incredibly close as a family our kids were each other's everything, and I really think that's still the root of their closeness almost a decade later. That year fundamentally changed how we think about family life and what's possible when you prioritize experiences over stuff and you're willing to step outside your comfort zone to make your own happiness. I wanna acknowledge that we were really fortunate to have been able to afford a trip like that. We used frequent flyer points to cover a lot of our transit costs, and I had a longstanding partnership with home exchange.com that helped a ton with accommodations, but the whole thing still wasn't cheap. Of course, if I'd known some of the strategies I know now, we would've spent a lot less money. When we came back to the US in 2018, we didn't stop traveling. Ronnie was interviewing for jobs, trying to find the right fit in a place that worked for our family, and we [00:08:00] spent another year traveling to incredible places within the United States. Eventually, in the middle of 2019, we settled down in Ohio in a community that offered Ronnie a great job and a cost of living that allowed me to focus on continuing to build this business. But other than the pandemic, we've been anything but grounded. If anything, we've gotten better at travel thanks to so much practice. We learned what works for our family, what doesn't, and how to plan trips that balance everyone's needs. So let me share the core principles that guide how we travel now, because that's really what this podcast is all about. First travel is for everyone, not just the wealthy or child free. We use points and miles strategically to minimize our hard costs for flights and hotels. We don't usually stay at luxury resorts, although sometimes we do when we can use points on lots of trips. We prioritize experiences over fancy accommodations, though every now and then we splurge on a hotel stay that is the destination. We figured out how to make family travel financially sustainable, and I'm gonna teach you how to [00:09:00] do the same. Second, your kids' needs and personalities matter more than insta worthy destinations. Our son Jacob, is 14 now. He loves outdoor adventure, but he's not so into the heat, so he's always pushing for mountain trips. Our daughter Shoshana is 11 and she's more into resorts, good food going to shows. She votes for big cities. Last year she was diagnosed with celiac disease, which has made choosing destinations even more complicated. Japan, for example, incredibly difficult for celiac. There's gluten hiding in everything from sushi rices to sauces. I'm glad that we went to Japan before her diagnosis, but I wouldn't take her back now until she's more flexible about what she's willing to eat from the safe options that we would be able to find there. Costa Rica, on the other hand, was amazing for her because most of the food is based on things like corn and casava that are naturally gluten-free. The point is, there's no one best destination for families. There's only the best destination for your family right now at [00:10:00] this stage. Third, try to balance adventure with downtime. On our Costa Rica trip last spring break, we split our time between adventure activities in La Fortuna, think zip lining, hiking hot springs, and then decompressed at a beautiful resort on the Pacific coast. That balance is key for our family at this moment. If I push too hard, then everyone's exhausted, but if we play it too safe and we'll miss out on amazing experiences. Fourth, try to involve your kids in the planning. Our daughter has strong opinions about where we go and what we do. Our son, he is got preferences, but he is a little bit more flexible these days. We don't let them dictate everything. After all, we are still the parents and we are the ones paying, but we do listen. When the kids have some input, they're more invested in the trip. Finally, it's okay to make mistakes. We've absolutely made bad calls. We've chosen the wrong time of year to visit places. We've overscheduled days- guilty. We've picked [00:11:00] hotels that didn't work for us. Honestly, we still learn things about travel and about ourselves as travelers on every trip. Okay, so what can you expect from Family Travel Unpacked? Every week I'll be bringing you practical road tested advice for traveling with your kids. Some episodes will be deep dives into specific destinations like that Costa Rica trip or what it's really like taking kids to Japan. Other episodes will tackle the logistics, like how to choose where to go using points and miles or how to pack, carry on only for a family of four. I'll share our real experiences. The good, the challenging and sometimes hilarious. I'll tell you what worked and what I do differently next time, and I'll be bringing on guests occasionally, other travel experts or even regular parents who also love to get out and see the world with their kids. But here's what this podcast is not: I'm not gonna tell you that travel with kids is always easy or magical. I am certainly not gonna shame you for your choices, and I'm definitely not gonna pretend that there's one right way to do family [00:12:00] travel. My goal is simple to help you feel confident planning and taking trips that work for your family. Whether it's a weekend camping trip, two hours from home or month long, international adventure, I want you to have the tools, knowledge and confidence to make it happen. All right, that's it for our first episode. Thank you so much for being here at the beginning of this podcast journey. Next week, we're gonna dive into how we actually choose where to go next, how we balance weather, flight routes, school schedules, and what the kids want. I'll walk you through our real process using examples from the trips we've actually taken. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you subscribed and left a review. Definitely head over to thefamilyvoyage.com where you'll find tons of detailed destination guides, travel tips, and resources to help you plan. Until next time, happy travels.