It’s possible: 9 tips to enjoy a road trip with a baby!

We have a baby! And we’re still traveling!

We went on a 6 weeks road trip with a baby to 10 different national parks throughout the Western United States, from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon- and loved it! Our baby was between 4 months and 5.5 months old. We stayed in Airbnbs with kitchens and washing machines, and we stayed at least 2 nights everywhere, and often longer. It was different traveling with a baby than it had been before, of course, but it was at least as enjoyable, rewarding, and memorable as before.

I had heard from other parents before our baby was born that 3 to 8 months is a great time to travel, and while our baby is only 8 months now, I can say that our road trip at that age went really well. The idea is before babies can crawl- or even roll over very much- much less walk or talk, you can just carry them wherever you’d like to go!

I’m still going to write articles about how to travel to different places that we went to when we were just a couple, so if that’s what’s most useful to you right now, don’t worry! But I’m also going to write articles about how to travel with a baby (and hopefully, with a toddler and young child and teenager too, in the future!).

I’m also aware that since I started this website, AI has grown enormously- by scanning websites like mine and putting their summaries at the top without any credit. I’m afraid all my hard work writing all of these articles will just end up in an uncredited blurb from AI. If you find my articles useful, please consider doing one of the following to support my writing:

• Use my affiliate links if you’re interested in buying anything I’ve described by buying from the links on my website
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Okay, now for why you’re here: how to plan a road trip with a baby. This article will be mostly about planning your road trip, of course, but it will also include all that I wish I’d known before our baby was born. Here’s what I’ve learned so far after those first 8 months!

Note: I only have 1 baby, and our baby has been very calm, happy, and “easy.” I don’t know what it’s like to travel with more than one child, or what it’s like with any other baby. I hope this is helpful, but it is based on the only experience I have: my own!

1. Plan your road trip with a baby before your baby is born!

Otherwise, it will seem too hard and you won’t be awake enough to plan that far ahead! Discuss with your partner what you’d really enjoy seeing and doing- at a slower pace than what you would have done before. Assume it will take you about an hour longer to get out of the house, that you’ll probably be quite tired, and that you’ll aim for getting back to your accommodation about 6-7pm.

It will be much more fun and much less stressful if you don’t have to be at particular places at specific times. Think about places you can enjoy at your own pace, where you won’t feel time pressure. Add an extra day or two (or three!) at each location so that you can take it as slow as you’d like. Avoid places where everything will be a timed entrance or need a timed reservation for dinner or where you have to watch the sunrise or sunset. Allow yourself to take it slow.

For us, we decided on American national parks for a few reasons:

• They’re amazing! Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Crater Lake, Joshua Tree…these are just some of the national parks/monuments that we visited, and they are spectacular.
• Long hours, no specific timed entries: It didn’t matter when we left the house at 11am and got back at 6pm. They’re open as long as there is daylight, you don’t need to be there at a specific time, they’re extremely stroller (and wheelchair) accessible, and there are endless choices for how long, how much, and how difficult you want your hikes to be. In heat we could do short stroller walks, and drive in a/c to many beautiful viewpoints, and with cooler temperatures we could hike longer and with elevation using the carrier.
• Huge variety of different sights to see.
• Airbnbs with kitchens and washing machines all over.
• I could visit friends and family, so all of my cousins, brother, parents, and old friends could meet our baby!

Any nature areas would be good for your road trip as well, such as Canadian national parks, vacation parks in Europe, national parks in New Zealand or Australia, or nature areas in Japan. I would suggest traveling to places where you can drink the tap water safely, if possible, if your child is having solid food or formula.

If they’re eating solid food or formula, then it could be challenging to make sure no tap water gets into their digestive system. If they’re exclusively breastfed, and you have family where the tap water isn’t drinkable, this might be the safest time in a while to go visit!

2. When you’re pregnant, some tips…

These are some things I wish I’d known when I was pregnant, not just for planning a road trip with a baby but also for life!

• Prior planning: Thinking is a bit harder when you are waking up every few hours. It’s harder to plan ahead, and with you and your partner both sleep deprived, it’s harder to make decisions, compromise, work together- harder to make any important decisions. So before your baby comes, write down some priorities.
  • After baby, what would you both ideally like your lives to look like? Think about:
    • Paid work: How are you both going to work after baby? How long will you both have off? Arrange this with your HR ASAP. See how much time you can get off, whether you have to take it all in one chunk, can take a day or two every week, can postpone taking some, etc. Figure out how best to use your leave that works well for you, your partner, and your future baby.
    • Unpaid work: How do both of you want to manage taking care of the future baby? Diaper changes, breastfeeding, bottles, making meals, dishwashing, washing clothes- there is so much more of all of those household chores than before, and your time becomes much more precious as you either need to do these while baby is sleeping, while baby is entertaining themselves safely (likely only for a brief window), while carrying baby, or while your partner is with baby. Consider writing down how you’d ideally like to divide this to refer back to when you’re both exhausted…
    • Vacations: Hopefully, you have some extra time off the year your baby is born. What would you like to do with it? If you want to travel, what would you want that travel to look like? If you want family who doesn’t live nearby to meet your baby, how can you arrange that?
    • Alone time: What do you enjoy doing now, pre-baby? How can you help yourself and your partner continue to do things you enjoy, alone and together, post-baby? Make a plan for how you can help each other recharge and connect to your pre-baby selves.
    • Help: When your partner is at work, or doing those things they enjoy alone…sometimes, you will need help! Do not try to take care of a baby alone, day after day! How can you get regular help? Do you have relatives nearby who would like to be involved? Good friends nearby who can go on a walk with you and baby, or hold baby while you make and eat food? Is there a mom’s or dad’s group in your neighborhood that you can join? Are there baby classes nearby you can join? It will make such a difference! Figure out what you can join/who can be there for you now. New parents’ groups can help you during pregnancy, too, as they are all going through the physical and mental changes too.
    • Magic jackets: There are amazing jackets nowadays that have inserts so that you can wear them during pregnancy, while carrying your baby in a carrier on your front, and while carrying your baby on your back! I didn’t discover them until I had my baby in the winter and couldn’t zip up my normal jacket over him…and then I bought a used one on Vinted. But if I’d known earlier, it would have been helpful during pregnancy too! I had a serious winter one called Wombat since my baby was born in December, and a more flexible weather one from Bonprix.

3. Useful apps for baby

It is crazy that you suddenly have a whole human being 100% dependent on you, with no manual or guidebook! I’m writing you all that I wish I’d known, but I know it’s not enough. There are a couple of apps I’ve found helpful, and I have also been using a couple of books:

For apps, I’ve been using Huckleberry for sleep/wake windows, and Solid Starts to make sure I know how to serve solids safely- not relevant until your baby is at least 4 months old, and you can wait until up to 6 months.

• Huckleberry– I’ve found this app useful for a few tricks:
  • Remembering which side breast to start with! Believe me, you will not remember. Really. So if you’re hoping to breastfeed, it’s really helpful to record which side and how long somewhere, and this app makes it really quick and easy to start a timer and start/stop on either side. You can easily see from your phone’s home screen which side without even turning on your phone.
  • Diapers: Your pediatrician is likely to ask how many wet diapers your baby has had in the first few days or weeks. It’s helpful and easy to record them here. It also makes it easy for you to see how long ago you changed it, as time passes slowly/quickly when you haven’t slept much.
  • Wake windows: You can do the math yourself and look on charts for your baby’s age…or you can just use the “sweet spots” that show up on your phone if you record naps here. Again, really easy for sleep-deprived parents to see when the next nap should be. I found this useful enough to pay for the “Plus” annual subscription after trying the free trial. Try it out, and if it’s helpful, keep it.
  • “Tips” and “Insights”- it gives you information based on your baby’s age, and I’ve found them quite useful- they’re short and relevant.
• Solid Starts– if you want to give your baby food that’s not only purees, this is a way to do so safely. I’ve only used the free version, which has a library of every food I’ve ever needed so far. You just search for the food you’re thinking about feeding your baby, and it shows you how to serve it safely based on your baby’s age. It starts at 6 months. I haven’t paid for the other features, though I’m sure they would be useful too. If you’re going to start solids on your road trip with a baby, this would be helpful to have so you know what’s safe.

4. Useful apps for planning your road trip with a baby (or on your own!)

• For planning any trip, please check out my article on how to travel like an expert first! For example, you’ll want to download offline google maps for the areas where you won’t have service or wifi, and any languages you’ll need. I go through how to do this step-by-step in this article!
• Audio is a fun app that will tell you stories about the places you’re driving nearby. It can be useful- telling you where there’s been excellent pies for the last hundred years, and educational- telling you all about the history of a place. It’s also just entertaining on long drives!

5. How to get out of the house with a baby

Ok, this is probably the hardest thing when you’re a new parent. It seems so daunting! How can you possibly go on a road trip with a baby when it’s so scary to go out of the house? Here’s the trick: going on a road trip with a baby isn’t any harder than going out of the house to the grocery store two blocks away. Really. The more you go out of the house, the easier it gets. Just do it, really, you’ll all be okay!

When I first had our baby, I didn’t leave the house for the first week. Then my mom came, and she helped me pack the diaper bag, get the stroller down the two stairs, and walk to our nearest park. And it felt really good to be outside! It was a huge energy boost to move in the fresh air, and a big sense of accomplishment.

So how do you do it? Pack a diaper bag (can be a regular backpack, but I do have this one and it’s useful and nice to have a separate thing I don’t need for work). This list is assuming you’re going out for 4 or more hours. If it’s just an hour or two, you can probably go with much less, but then you have to repack…and you can put it all underneath the stroller, so why not?

• Diapers! At least 2-3 for good luck! Go through every time you change sizes and switch them out. Tip: you know you need a bigger diaper size when the diapers leak…diapers shouldn’t leak if it’s just pee, and only really big poops should leak…
• A diaper changing pad. I use this one and have found it really effective and pretty!
• Wipes…and an extra packet just in case…
• 2 backup outfits
• A way to feed him you’re comfortable with. At first I used this cover up everywhere. Then I got tired of it and figured I had the right to feed my baby when I needed to, and stopped bothering! There’s really almost nothing visible anyway. If you’re bottle feeding, bring what you need to feed. If you’re breastfeeding but want to bring a bottle (much easier to walk or on public transit or driving), then think about whether you also need to bring pumping supplies.
• Paper towels, tissues, and/or rags: something to clean up spills of all sorts!

Once you have your diaper bag packed, change your baby’s diaper, have him dressed in appropriate clothes…and go outside! Try just a shorter walk at first, and then go out for longer and longer. It will get easier each time! If possible, meet a friend or family member. It will be great to talk with someone who can talk back!

Whenever you go outside, strollers and carriers can both be very useful. If you live on the ground floor and have plenty of space and wide sidewalks, get a big stroller with lots of storage space underneath. We have the Uppababy Vista 2, which we got from family, and we’ve loved it for the space underneath and the very smooth ride even on bumpy cobblestones. If we were buying new, we’d buy the Uppababy Cruz V3, which is the New York Times’ Wirecutter pick.

6. How to fly with a baby

Flying with a baby is probably the most intimidating of all the ways to travel, as you’ve probably been on a plane with a screaming baby at some point in your life. Here are some tips and reasons to do it anyway:

• Babies are free or almost free until age 2! So while it’s still not 150% more expensive to fly, now is the time!
• The younger they are, the more they sleep. The white noise of the plane might actually help your baby sleep more than you expect- helping with jet lag and reducing potential crying time!
• Whether you are breastfeeding or bottle feeding, offer that during take off and landing to help avoid ear pain with the pressure changes. That also means if possible don’t feed your baby right before taking off/landing so they have some appetite to drink!
• If your baby is under 1, request the infant bassinet seat! Maybe your baby will be able to sleep in it for a bit (instead of on you!), allowing you more freedom. But even if your baby ends up in your arms the whole flight, those seats are fantastic with a baby! You can get in/out of your seat without bothering other passengers, and you have more leg space and space for all the baby things. Highly recommend!
• If possible, do diaper changes together. Use a night diaper when possible, if your baby doesn’t poop often, in case they do end up sleeping a long time. It’s a very small changing space. We both went together and just propped the door open for more space. Once people see what’s happening, they leave you alone!
• Bring some new toys/books for entertainment.
• If he’s eating solids, bring some new snacks that are not messy. A leaf of lettuce, cucumber sticks, rice crackers, cherrios, broccoli or cauliflower florets, etc. can keep him occupied and not *too* messy.
• Bring a stroller that fits in the overhead compartment! For travel, especially on planes and public transit, we’ve loved the Yoyo Babyzen 2, but that was also secondhand and no longer available. The best stroller you can buy new that you can take on the plane with you in the overhead compartment is now the Joolz AER+ travel stroller. Being able to walk to the plane with your baby in the stroller is really helpful! Getting the stroller immediately when you land is also so useful.
• Bring a carrier with you on board in case your baby needs to be carried around for hours while you walk up and down the aisle. Luckily we didn’t have this, but it was reassuring to know we could have if necessary. We’ve loved the Ergo 360 carrier, from a few weeks old to now almost 9 months’ old.
• For your road trip with a baby, a travel stroller that will fit in the trunk of the car and the carrier for paths with stairs/steep hikes will be essential!

We have gotten very lucky so far…our baby has slept during most of each flight, and breastfed during the rest. I think for him, getting to be held and fed for hours and hours is a dream come true. We’ve been on 4 flights so far, two 3 hour flights and two 10 hours flights (crossing 9 time zones). You can do it!

7. At last…your packing list for a road trip with a baby

All the links below are affiliate links, so if you use them, I make a small commission and you pay the same price. Thank you for supporting my writing by using these links! Everything is what we used ourselves on our road trip with a baby unless otherwise stated.

We stayed at Airbnbs with kitchens and washing machines. This decision meant we could eat breakfasts and dinners at home, and pack lunches and snacks easily. It also allowed us to bring a reasonable amount of clothes for baby and us, since we could do laundry whenever! The trip was much more affordable and less stressful because of grocery shopping and cooking instead of dining out. Since our road trip was to national parks, it wasn’t a food-centric trip. We ate out occasionally, eating an early dinner out when there was good food nearby.

• Use a car with as big a (covered!) trunk as possible. We used a Toyota Camry (hybrid- much cheaper!), which has a fantastically large covered trunk to keep all the baby stuff safe!
• Invest in a new carseat, if you don’t have one already. We don’t own a car, so we needed a new proper carseat for our road trip with a baby, because this is one item you’re really not supposed to get secondhand (they don’t work as well if they’ve been in an accident, and each year they get safer) We bought Wirecutter’s top pick here. You can read the reviews for the age of your baby here.
• Bring a bassinet if your baby is under 6 months (once they’re 6 months, they’re likely to be too big for it, and then you’ll need a crib. If so, ask your hotel/rental for one, and choose another place if they don’t have one! If your baby isn’t rolling yet, an extra queen-size bed can work in a pinch.
  • This is the same company we used, but designed for travel: Halo Travel Bassinet
  • This is the one we used– we didn’t take the stand. We filled it up with baby stuff (diapers, wipes, etc.) so it wasn’t wasted space. But if you have a smaller trunk, the travel one would be better.
• Bring a proper changing pad, since you’ll be spending several nights in each spot. Put it in the trunk of the car when you go out for the day for easy diaper changes!
• Have a diaper bag with you packed as described for getting out of the house with you at all times. I enjoy having a separate specific backpack for our baby, but you can easily use any extra backpack.
• Keep track of how many diapers you use in a week, and bring that number + at least 5 per week. We used these during the day (obviously get the right size for your baby!). Night diapers are wonderful if your baby doesn’t poop at night.
• Bring many packets of wipes– 1 more packet than you think you’ll need for your road trip with a baby! They’re useful for so many things…
• If your baby uses a pacifier, bring multiple! We brought 4 with us, and this is our favorite brand.
• For our 6 week road trip with a baby, we brought 4 books, 1 stuffed animal, and 3 small toys. We kept at least 1 fun item in the diaper bag, 1 book and 1 toy in the car, and the rest in our suitcases for our room. Top book for the car rides was this one. Books with different textures and puppets are also great, and for 0-3 months, the high contrast black and white ones! The Lovevery play kits are wonderful but expensive.
• Baby clothes: If you’re doing solids, clothes will get messier. If your baby poops a lot, same thing- though sometimes a bigger diaper will solve the problem! Again, track how many outfits you go through in a week, and pack that many plus at least a couple extra. This is why we booked places with washing machines! Remember layers- sun hats, warm hats, socks, shoes if needed, rompers, sweaters, pants, sleep sacks, everything baby wears during a week!
• Baby soap, towel, and swim diaper: Book places that have a bathtub, and take a bath with your baby as needed. Bring the same bath soap/towel you’re comfortable using at home. If there might be a pool on your trip, bring a swim diaper.
• Other toiletries: A thermometer, for the bath temperature; a baby thermometer; baby Tylenol; something for a baby cold; nail file (this one has been so helpful!)
• Bring a travel stroller and a baby carrier! You’ll need both in different situations. A stroller is fantastic when you’re trying to eat a meal, when it’s paved and flat, and when you have a lot to carry (those heavy water bottles!). A carrier is necessary when it’s not flat (stairs, very steep), or really crowded. In the U.S., some public transit will make you fold up a stroller, so a carrier is less stressful.
• We also brought our baby monitor. Admittedly, we only used it 3 times on our 6 week road trip with a baby: all 3 times when Victor and I went to enjoy our Airbnb’s hot tub right outside our bedroom after our baby had gone to sleep. So it might not be necessary on your road trip, but a baby monitor is definitely necessary in general! I’d really recommend the one we have because it works both on wifi and just directly; you can get an app on your phone for if you’re away for the evening to check on your baby with a babysitter, and you can also check on the monitor in the next room without risking waking baby up…even when the wifi is bad/doesn’t exist. Video is really reassuring so you know he’s safe!
• A night light: Some rooms get really dark! When you’re in an unfamiliar room and need to pick up a screaming baby to feed, or put a sleeping baby very gently back into the crib…you’ll need enough light to see the crib! So this was really helpful for us on our road trip with a baby. Any nightlight will do. If your baby monitor has a night light already, you could use that. You could also get one with a white noise machine- also included in many baby monitors (ours has a night light and white noise, for example), but not really needed if you’re staying in nature.
• Aquaphor: We slather this on at any hint of any irritated skin, and so far, at almost 9 months now, no serious diaper rash issues….*crossing fingers*

8. A note about sleep and schedules…

Okay, this one might be a bit controversial, but our experience was that it is okay to be flexible with schedules when on a road trip with a baby. Our baby was only 4-5.5 months old, and we hadn’t tried to set a schedule beforehand. We were feeding on demand, and he was sleeping on demand. He slept in the stroller, in the carrier, in the car- all over. We brought a bassinet with us, and luckily he was just small enough to sleep in it the whole time (even though he’s a big baby!).

Before our trip, our baby was also eating and sleeping on demand, so it wasn’t a change for him. We also had many naps in the stroller or carrier beforehand. We don’t own a car, so he had only been in a car a few times before, but that went well as well. Most babies like being in motion and fall asleep with movement. When we saw sleep cues (rubbing eyes, yawns, etc.), we made sure he was in a position to sleep: clean diaper, carrier/stroller/car seat/bassinet, and fed. Whenever possible, we left him in that position as long as he slept.

Sometimes we had to transfer him, like when we arrived at a destination, and sometimes he stayed asleep and sometimes he didn’t.

One important point about going on a road trip with a baby: We didn’t let him sit in the car seat for more than 2-3 hours at a time. If we were driving longer than that, we stopped, changed his diaper, did some fun movement with him, walked around with him, and stretched our legs. It was a good food/bathroom/gas break for us anyway.

We also designed our road trip with a baby to have longer stays than we would have otherwise, and shorter drives than we’d do on our own. For example, almost all of our drives were only 2-3 hours a day. We always stayed at least 2 nights in one place, and often 3 or 4 nights. The longer you stay in one place, the easier it is for you: packing up and unpacking takes a lot of time!

When I was going to go back to work at 8 months, we decided to sleep train because our baby was waking up 4-6 times a night. Then, we used Taking Cara Babies, and we started being on a schedule. Since we are both back at work now, being on a schedule and sleeping through the night are useful and important for our family. On our road trip with a baby, it was better for our family to be flexible. Think about what works for you- and what works might change!

9. A note on bottles and breastfeeding…

I’ve been really lucky as a teacher and in the Netherlands to have had all of spring semester and summer vacation home with my baby- the first 8 months. Everything is different if you have to or want to go back to work sooner, and every baby/mama journey will be different. For us, I had a lot of support breastfeeding in the first week with a maternity nurse who came to our house as part of the Dutch healthcare system, so we got off to a very positive start. At three weeks, I started pumping 1x a day and having my husband give our baby a bottle 1x a day.

We did that every day for many months. During our road trip, I would pump the day before a longer driving day to get ahead (pumping on one side while feeding him on the other). While driving, I would give him a bottle, and pump.

However…I couldn’t pump as much as our baby wanted to eat. So over time, I figured out I could breastfed him while my husband drove, if I sat in the middle seat in the back. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for me, but the alternative was pulling over and sitting there while I breastfed, or having a screaming hungry baby…so I managed!

Since I couldn’t possibly pump enough to keep him full during longer drives (5-6 hours), there was one week when I stopped pumping and just breastfed him. He’d been taking the bottle happily from 3 weeks to 5 months, and then I stopped for one week…and when we stopped traveling and I went to a baseball game with my parents and brother, he refused the bottle.

I’m back at work now, and pumping during my lunch breaks, but our baby has never taken a bottle since. He gets my milk through an open cup, and in porridge, and he’s eating more and more solid food…but this is a message to you all: give a bottle 1x a day every single day, if you want your baby to be willing to! Of course, other babies can go the opposite way and refuse to breastfed, so it can just be tricky!

Last thoughts on your road trip with a baby

It’s not easy, taking care of a baby. Getting out of the house can seem like an enormous challenge. But once you’ve done it, being outside is wonderful! Your baby will probably love being outside. The leaves on the trees, the light and shadows, the new faces, the sounds, the smells- everything will be fascinating and exciting. The movement: being carried by you or in the stroller, it’s all soothing and mesmerizing.

When our baby is upset, going outside calms him down. If things seem difficult, going outside makes it seem more manageable. The hardest moments I’ve had as a new mom have been when I haven’t gone outside all day. Getting out the door is an accomplishment, and it helps everyone’s mood.

Going on a road trip or any sort of vacation is the same. It sounds hard. It sounds easier not to go. But once you’re on it, it’s no harder than being at home: your baby will sometimes cry, poop, eat, and sleep whether you’re at home or at the Grand Canyon. Where would you rather be? If you have maternity/paternity leave, do you want to spend it changing diapers at home, or in Yellowstone? If you’re going to be tired, where do you want to go for a walk outside?

Go for it, and have fun! You can do it! I hope these 9 tips for your road trip with a baby inspire you to make it happen!