Baby C just came back from her first plane trip, and first international trip! It was also our first big trip as a family of 5. Surprisingly, it was the easiest trip we’ve ever taken – maybe our standards have just lowered, and we’re much more lax about compromised sleep schedules. It also helps that the older 2 mostly entertain each other, and even at night when they were fighting jet lag, rather than screaming for us they were mostly just chatting with each other. They are also both at the age where they can play independently on playgrounds (within reason), and baby is at the age where she’s completely portable and immobile, so we figure this is the easiest it’ll get when traveling with the 5 of us (at least until the youngest is 3 years old, so I hear). Beyond being the easiest family trip we’ve taken, this might also be one of my favorite trips we’ve taken in general. We have been fortunate enough to have traveled to so many cool places (safari! Most of Asia! Trekking across the Sahara on camels! So many awesome places in South and Central America!), but I LOVED this trip. The valley was the inspiration for Tolkein’s Rivendell, the Shire, and Misty Mountains, which I had forgotten about until I got there, and I felt both at home and at peace.
I admit I got influenced 5 days postpartum while scrolling mindlessly on Instagram nursing the baby to take the trip, and booked flights almost on a whim (after convincing hubs for all of 2 seconds). By then I already knew that I was feeling 10000x better than when pregnant, and was ready to go back to “adventure traveling” with the family. Not only was the scenery beautiful, but everything was so family friendly as well. We spent a lot of time exploring the various towns and playing on the beautiful playgrounds. I was worried that instagram influencers had ruined everything because my algorithm was full of “family vacations to Switzerland instead of Disney”, and some of the main train stations were quite crowded, but overall especially once you get out of the center transit hubs, everyone still had plenty of space to spread out. None of the playgrounds were crowded at all, and we had an amazing time traveling to a new playground almost every day in a new town and exploring the local area.
We also decided to take the train in between places as well, since everything was connected via public transport and various cable cars, funiculars, etc. Many of the villages were car-free anyway, and it was basically impossible to find a car big enough for 3 car seats regardless. I was only nervous about bringing all our stuff onto various trains, especially after a red-eye, but we just packed everything into two hiking backpacks, a double stroller, two kid backpacks, and a doona. Since our first Airbnb had a washer and dryer, I actually think we could’ve gotten away with fewer clothes since we were doing a load of laundry every night anyway. We also probably could’ve gotten away with not bringing a doona, since our double stroller is newborn friendly and it was easier to carry baby onto busses and on hikes. But ultimately it was nice having a place to set all 3 of them down and be able to save our backs. Being able to sit on a train and have space to wiggle out the sillies for our long travel days were helpful in maintaining a relaxed vacation atmosphere – as someone who doesn’t do well on roadtrips especially with screaming kids, this ended up being a great call, especially since many of the trains have playgrounds built in.
I’ll update a blogpost for each location we visited (general areas below), and in the meantime transition back to reality. After a successful trip, we are excited to research what our next family-friendly trip will end up being, and I’ll be enjoying the last few months of maternity leave. This trip solidified why we’re stopping at 3 kids – even though I think we COULD probably do 4 kids, that would stretch us past comfortable capacity especially for the traveling we want to do. I want to be able to book more Switzerland trips on a whim 🙂 and not think about it too much (financially and logistically). I don’t think we would be able to do that with 4 kids; this trip was no longer “affordable adventuring” by any means – we are optimizing comfort with the kids over budget finds – but it was still quite doable, and the ROI was off the charts. This is the beginning of our new chapter in life, after all!
Planes, trains, funiculars, cable cars…everything except automobiles! Trains added more time only because we had connections instead of driving straight through the Alps, but honestly it was a great call to utilize public transport for a much more relaxed holiday. The Swiss train system and app are so great, everything was straightforward. And it was nice to have more room for the kids to roam. Kids did a great job on the plane – C was the easiest, as a blob baby. S was pretty good during our daytime flight back and watched movies for 8 hours straight. T made a valiant effort and only had 1 meltdown on the way back, and 1 after the redeye while waiting for customs. Overall he is exiting the “difficult to travel with” stage. It especially helps that we rarely do screen time at home so when they are given the iPads when traveling, it’s the BEST thing in the world and turns them into little quiet zombies.
General itinerary
Zurich – Lauterbrunnen (6 total nights)
theaffordableadventurist 