6 must have’s for your older child to have on an international flight

Traveling on an international flight with your kids can be nerve racking and stressful! All of these thoughts go through your head, “Are they going to sleep?” “What if they get bored?” “I hope they are not going to disturb anyone on the plane!” These thoughts can drive you crazy, especially when you have multiple kids.

I will be traveling out of the country soon and I made a list of the things I am taking for my two older kids.  These activities are great for children 4 and older.

1. LeapFrog LeapPad2 Power Learning Tablet, Green. My kids love their leap pad.  It is educational and you can take pictures with it as well. This is great because they can share all the games, which gives them a great variety.
2. Travel Journal for Kids You can buy this or if you want to embrace your creative side(and you have the time), you can make your own.  My sister in law (Nisha,thank you for all your time and effort) made my kids the coolest journal(A picture of it is below).  It has so many different activities for them to do and it will be a great memory book for them to enjoy in the future.  She included activity pages, places to paste pictures, journal pages for them to write about their trip, and so much more. Click here to see it in detail.
3. Interactive books are also great for long trips and you can buy them almost anywhere.  Some great examples are Don’t Let the Pigeon Finish This Activity Book and Melissa & Doug Tape Activity Book.
4. Bring travel size hands on activities.  Anything that can fit on an airplane tray table works great.  Some examples are  Travel Tangoes Object Puzzles, or card games such as Spot It,Uno Card Game,Bicycle Classic Kid’s Card Games (6-Pack).  Magnetic block sets, such as 14 Piece Tegu Magnetic Wooden Block Set, Tint, are a great toy to have as well  because it is compact and they can build for hours.
5. Crayola Ultraclean Broadline Classic Washable Markers (10 Count) and Crayola Washable Crayons 16-pi, are good to have for drawing and coloring.  I also suggest bringing a pad of plain paper, not just coloring books, because sometimes kids like to get extra creative.
6. Disney Travel Pillow and Throw Set. Sometimes the airplane blankets just don’t cut it, so we always bring our own.  Make sure it is light weight and easy to fold so you can carry it in your child’s bag.

A couple other essentials you may want to have for your plane ride are: Infectiguard Hand Sanitizer with Carabiner, 1.8 Ounce, for those icky hands(and it will save you having to get up to wash hands in the restroom), and L.L.Bean Original Backpack Blue One Size or Alpha Sherpa Backpack  to carry all the items listed above.  It is a great size and really durable.

I hope this list will help keep you sane when packing for those long trips.  Safe travels!!