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Today’s Hint: 3 Reasons To Bring Your Big Stroller on Your Next Trip

June 24, 2014 By Hint Mama

Before we ever traveled by air with our daughter, I remember people telling me not to take our big stroller on plane trips. It will get ruined when you check it at the gate, and it’s heavier to lug around than a small umbrella stroller, they warned me.

Yet I’ve found the exact opposite to be true, and I regret buying a separate lightweight stroller just for traveling.

We’ve been using our Uppababy Vista stroller for traveling ever since our daughter outgrew her Chicco Keyfit 30 infant car seat and Keyfit snap-in caddy stroller, and the big stroller has withstood gate checking just fine. In fact, we’ve found having it with us when we travel, whether by plane or air, actually makes our trip easier. This is why today’s hint is three advantages to having your bigger, everyday stroller with you when you travel, assuming your little one has outgrown the car seat snap-n-go stroller phase.

1. It can work as a bag cart. When you travel with little children, there’s a lot of gear involved, from diaper bags and coats to car seats and personal carry-on bags. One big advantage our Vista has over our lightweight umbrella stroller is that it has a much bigger storage basket, which we fill up with our carry-on gear while we’re strolling around the airport, saving our backs from undue stress.

Plus, the stroller also works as a bag cart at our vacation destinations, whether we’re lugging gear to and from a beach or pool, or lugging groceries back to our vacation rental. And putting the gear in the large stroller basket — or in the stroller chair itself — is a lot easier than tying it around the handles of our lightweight umbrella stroller, which tips over from too much weight.

2. It can double as a jogging stroller. If you’re like me, you like to get some exercise in while you’re on vacation. However, you can waste precious vacation time if you and your significant other need to take turns visiting a hotel gym and watching the little ones. That’s why my husband and I like to do family jogs on trips, or at least have one of us jog with our daughter while the other hits the gym.

So what does this have to do with a big stroller? As I’ve mentioned before, I wouldn’t feel comfortable jogging with a lightweight umbrella stroller, not least because such strollers aren’t designed for running, let alone trotting. But according to Uppababy, it’s actually fine to jog with my Vista as long as I lock the front wheels, though the stroller is, of course, not technically designed to be a jogging stroller. In addition, a number of other everyday all-terrain stroller models also work for jogging.

3. It can work as a travel high chair. In an earlier hint, I wrote about how a stroller can double as an on-the-go high chair, a great trick I learned from Keryn Means, the travel expert over at Walking on Travels. And an added bonus of having a bigger stroller double as a high chair is that your little one may be closer to the table than he or she would be in a lower down, lightweight model.

To be sure, not everyone is a fan of bringing big strollers on trips, and many travel experts prefer traveling with lightweight strollers. Keryn of Walking on Travels, for instance, says that she has never traveled with a big stroller and instead travels with an umbrella stroller because she can open and close it one handed.

“It’s hard to hold a kid, bags and use both hands to lock a stroller in place. I’m still on the hunt for a better stroller that can handle this requirement and the rest I have for travel,” Keryn says. I’m lucky that I often travel with my husband, so one of us holds the kid while the other folds the stroller. (Though when I did fly solo with my daughter recently, I asked an airline employee to help watch my toddler while I folded the stroller).

In addition, airline policies for stroller checking do vary, as Corinne McDermott of Have Baby Will Travel pointed out a while back. Some will charge you if you bring a large stroller along with you above a certain weight, though the stroller often won’t count toward your baggage count. So, before you bring a certain stroller along with you on your next trip, you’ll want to double check your airline’s policy (we often fly United and haven’t been charged yet for checking our Vista and our car seat).

Also, no matter what type of stroller you bring with you, there’s always the risk that your stroller may sustain damage sometime between when you check it at the gate and pick it up at your destination. This is one reason why some parents prefer to rent strollers at their destinations.

But if you pack up your stroller in a travel bag, it may be less likely to sustain damage, and at least one stroller manufacturer will even cover any damage sustained to strollers packed in its travel bags. Uppababy, for instance, will cover any damage caused to your Vista stroller during air travel, assuming you’ve registered your Uppababy Vista Travelbag with the company.

Finally, as experienced traveler Karen writes over at Rookie Moms, some destinations just plain aren’t stroller friendly, so before packing up your stroller, you’ll want to make sure you’re heading somewhere where the terrain can handle three or four wheels.

But assuming a destination is stroller friendly, I couldn’t agree more with what a former flight attendant writes over at Expat Women: “People ask me which stroller I recommend for flying. I always say to bring the stroller you need for the entire trip, not specifically for flying.” For me, a big stroller covers what I need for a trip — a bag cart, jogging stroller and high chair.

What stroller do you like to bring with you when you travel and why?

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  • Today’s Hint: Use Your Stroller as a Grocery CartToday’s Hint: Use Your Stroller as a Grocery Cart
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  • Today’s Hint: Use Your Stroller as an On-the-Go High ChairToday’s Hint: Use Your Stroller as an On-the-Go High Chair
  • Today’s Hint: Plan Ahead When Buying Your First Baby’s StrollerToday’s Hint: Plan Ahead When Buying Your First Baby’s Stroller

Filed Under: Gear, Strollers, Traveling Tagged With: Chicco, Expat Women, Have Baby Will Travel, Hint Mama, jogging strollers, Kids on a Plane, Rookie Moms, travel high chair, travel strollers, Trips With Tykes, UppaBaby, UppaBaby Vista, Uppababy Vista TravelBag, Walking on Travels

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Comments

  1. Leslie H (tripswithtykes) says

    June 25, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    Good tips! I’m a big fan of the cheap umbrella stroller for my own travels, but I definitely think different approaches work for different families. The UppaBaby Vista isn’t huge either (at least compared to some of the travel systems out there on the market), so it is a good middle ground. My cousins have it and travel with it almost exclusively. And the guarantee for damage when using their travel bag is amazing.

  2. Jessica says

    July 8, 2014 at 3:00 am

    Sometimes I wish I still had a reason to take a stroller. Such a useful tool!

Trackbacks

  1. Friday Blog Roundup: The Best of the Family Travel Blogs, June 27, 2014 | Trips with Tykes says:
    June 27, 2014 at 1:03 pm

    […] Today’s Hint: 3 Reasons to Bring Your Big Stroller On Your Next Trip: Although I usually advocate for traveling with a light umbrella stroller, Hint Mama makes a great case for traveling with a larger stroller on some of your trips. […]

  2. Today’s Hint: The Playground Workouts – Hint Mama says:
    July 1, 2014 at 2:00 pm

    […] is a mile and a half away. It’s also worth noting that this trick works on vacations too, assuming you have a jogging-suitable stroller with you. Case in point: When we last visited New York, I strapped my daughter into her stroller, jogged to […]

  3. Today’s Hint: The Free Travel Crib – Hint Mama says:
    July 30, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    […] policy here). So, we were able to check the travel crib, along with our car seat, at no cost, and then we gate checked our big stroller, also for […]

  4. Today’s Hint: A Travel Tip for When Kids are Too Big for Strollers (Think Scooters) – Hint Mama says:
    September 9, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    […] from Hint Mama: We’re still bringing our big stroller on trips with us, but I know the day will come when my daughter will be too big for a stroller. When that day comes, […]

  5. Today’s Hint: Use Your Stroller as a Grocery Cart – Hint Mama says:
    October 8, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    […] grocery basket to the list of what strollers can double as (they also make great high chairs and travel gear holders), and I’m not the only fan of this trick. Parents commenting over at WindsorPeak.com also suggest […]

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