From Rachael
I almost let everyone talk me out of it.
I've been travelling full-time since 2016. Moving to a new European city every single month. Along the way, I built For the Story Vacations — a boutique European travel planning company, featured in the Wall Street Journal and International Living.
Travel isn't something I do. It's who I am.
So when I moved back to Ireland to have my first baby, the messages came flooding in. "You'll want to be settled now." "Wait until they're at least two." From people who meant well — and who had never once left home with a newborn.
On our recent trip to Paris
My first trip back home to the States was when my son was just three months old. My husband had an important work trip he couldn't miss. And suddenly I was faced with a choice: cancel the trip, or get on a transatlantic flight alone with a newborn and figure it out.
I got on the plane.
It was not graceful. I over-packed (laughably so). I mis-timed the feeds. I forgot that babies need to be held during descent. I was that mum in the airport toilet, completely overwhelmed, wondering what on earth I'd been thinking.
But here's what also happened: we made it. We landed. She slept in a hotel cot in a city that wasn't ours and woke up completely unbothered. And I thought — I just need to figure out what I did wrong, so I never do it again.
Trip by trip, I refined the system. And now, for the first time, I've written it all down — everything I know from a decade of professional travel planning and from my own experience as a new mum who refused to stop exploring. This is the guide I wish I'd had.
Because when you bite the bullet and go for it, you'll open yourself — and your kiddos — to the most wonderful experiences. My baby's first taste of bread was a baguette in Paris. His first haircut was in Florence. And sure… his first "poo-nami" diaper blowout was in a restaurant in Tenerife — but better in Spain than at home!
