Traveling with children is stressful! I totally get it, trust me! The first couple of vacations and trips you think to yourself... I'm NEVER doing this again...then you forget and find yourself traveling again and again and well again!

My family and I have traveled to 38 states and 16 countries with children! The first couple of trips there were lots of tears...mainly from me. I was so stressed, I stressed so much over my children on the airplane I made myself sick! I stressed over if I had packed everything and worried so much that I might have forgotten something. I worried to the point of hanging it up and never traveling with children again.

Then one day my husband and I were joking around while packing for our international move to Ljubljana, Slovenia and came up with the term Child Led Traveling or CLT for short. Child Led Traveling, simply means letting your children lead traveling. Let me explain...If your child wants a sucker in the security airport line at 4:00 am in the morning, let them have it! Does your child want to watch their IPAD for 2 hours... let them do it! Has your child opened a 100 bandaids while sitting quietly on the airplane...who cares! Have you listened to the same song a 100 times in the car, but your child is happy? Grab some ear plugs at the next gas station.

The concept of CLT is to let the little things go, traveling is not the time to correct behaviors or start reinforcing new rules. CLT simply means allowing your children to do the little things that make them happy, things that you normally might not allow, but your children are happy and not being disruptive. CLT gives you the time you need to think, relax, breathe, and enjoy your traveling experience too.

Traveling and vacations are meant to be fun, they're designed to give you a break from the "real world" and give you the chance to enjoy your family. Since, we've started using CLT we've found that our mood as a family is so much more light and happy! We find ourselves laughing at how ridiculous we must look with all our bags and our children. We see our children laughing, enjoying traveling, and having fun with each other. I see memories being made and stories that will be told years from now. I find that I'm way less stressed and enjoy traveling much more as a family.