Overlanding with a Toddler PART 1
Although I’ll be discussing overlanding with a toddler, I thought I’d start at the beginning: what is overlanding? There are lots of interpretations about what it is or how you do it, but my definition is that it’s whatever you want it to be; don’t let someone else define it for you. With that out of the way, the most common interpretation is adventure travel with a vehicle, where the most important part is the journey, not the destination. I’d like to say that is true, but not always; there are many factors that can affect this and one of those factors is traveling with a toddler. My wife and I have been overlanding or adventure traveling since we met thirteen years ago, and now that we have a fouryear-old, our goals and ideas of adventure travel or overlanding have had to change slightly. No more spur-of-the-moment trips to the mountains, no more extended cross-country trips with long days in the
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Jeep, and more often than not, we find ourselves spending our time closer to home enjoying a few days at a time with other couples who have kids. Whether we are by ourselves or with others, the important things are that we are watching our son grow up in the outdoors and sometimes even sharing those moments with other like-minded families. So, let’s start with what it takes to get out the door. If you’re like us and have most of your camping gear already stashed away ready to go, all you need to do is pack your clothes, grab your food and you’re out the door. But now we also have a toddler to contend with, and his needs are drastically different. As adults we learn what we can live with and without. We can occupy our time reading a book on long drives or we can just enjoy nature and beautiful scenery as we
traverse a mountain pass, but a toddler’s needs and wants are vastly different. To start with, they eat all the time, they have short attention spans, their moods can change in an instant, and when they need to go potty, they need to go. So how to do you prepare for adventure with a toddler, especially when space is limited, or you need to travel across country to get to your destination that you’ve been longing for? Patience, lots and lots of patience. Now that you know the secret, we’re done! Not quite, but it’s a good starting point. I can honestly say, my wife is better at it than me; I can get hot-headed and disgruntled very quickly. She, on the other hand, can take a calming approach that almost always seems to work. My downfall is that I like schedules, but when traveling with a toddler, forget it. However, there are some tricks that can keep you
