Our two intrepid but sleep-deprived travelers waiting to depart Amsterdam Schiphol for Albania.
This is not the first time I’ve asked that question. It’s come up on an almost daily basis since I began plotting this newsletter with my wife, co-parent, and newly minted newsletter collaborator.
I’m a journalist, marketer, and writer by trade. I’m well aware the internet is already pasted over with short-lived newsletter, blogs, and social media accounts where people like me tried to build an online presence sharing travel hacks and hidden destinations with an air of authoritative whimsy.
I didn’t want to add to that noise. And I was sure the newsletter we wanted to make—a pragmatic, upbeat, and occasionally funny resource for parents who travel with their kids (or parents who don’t travel as a family but wish they did)—had already been built and abandoned dozens of times over.
So I went looking for the newsletter we wanted to make. If it was already out there in the world, connecting with an audience of like-minded parents, then we wouldn’t have to make our own. I could subscribe to that one, read it in the quiet moments after dropping the kids at school, and put my energy toward something else.
I found a lot of great newsletters. But I didn’t find ours—a newsletter that was:
Focused on empowering families with young children to travel
Honest about the struggle as well as the reward
Written by parents who are passionate about being helpers, not influencers
Informed by lived experience, not by AI
Eager to foster community and connection with like-minded families everywhere
So that’s what we’re building here. Welcome to Bring the Kids.
We want to make your next family trip better
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment this project crystallized from a hypothetical “Wouldn’t it be fun if…” proposition into a serious labor of love.
Was it before our family of four RSVPed yes to a wedding in Ohrid, Macedonia?
Was it after our four-year-old rolled down his window at a toll booth outside the Tirana airport and yelled to the attendant, “My dad can’t drive this car!” (Dad’s first time driving a manual in about a decade.)
Maybe it was closer to the day we spend six mostly pleasant hours at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The parents walked out of that building on such a high, proud of our kids and proud of ourselves. Look at this sophisticated family we’ve built!
But I actually think it was closer to our last night in Amsterdam, when we walked out of an amazing Japanese restaurant (ISSHIN) and ran into two women headed inside to eat. Our four-year-old stopped and tried to talk to one of the women as she locked up her bike, but she didn’t seem to speak English. I began walking down the street with our seven-year-old, enjoying the golden evening light after the rain, and my daughter and I turned and watched from a safe difference as my wife tried to explain to our son that he is speaking English and the woman did not—to which our son began shouting, “I don’t speak English! I speak normal!”
Yes—I think that was when the newsletter was born. Or at least when its spirit was conceived.
Listen. We’re not approaching this newsletter as pseudo-experts or wannabe thought leaders. We don’t have all the answers when it comes to traveling. No one does. The world is vast, and every kid and family is different.
But we’re happy to share what we do know: The lessons we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, through our own family travels. More importantly, we’re eager to use this platform to ask questions, share what we learn, amplify other voices, and foster connections and confidence for our readers.
As this newsletter gets rolling, we’re going to be sharing a bunch of different wisdom and resources that will benefit all of us when it comes time to plan our next family trip. Things like:
Interviews, Q&As, and original reporting on dealing with jet-lagged children, traveling as a single parent, and dealing with anxiety as a parent
The latest travel trends affecting where you should or shouldn’t plan your next family trip
Our personal recommendations for products that will help you sleep better on the airplane, maximize luggage space, and more
Limited-time sales and travel deals to help your family do more with less
An engaged community of readers who share tips, recommendations, parenting wins, and comedic disasters
It’s all coming soon to an email inbox near you—but only if you subscribe:
We’ve got big plans to grow this newsletter and the community around it. We hope you’ll decide to be a part of it. There’s nothing out there like it—trust me, I checked!
Enjoying ice cream cones from Pastiçeri Reka in Tirana,
Albania’s New Bazaar. Well worth the jet lag (for them).
In the meantime, feel free to follow our brand-new page on Facebook—and maybe pass us along to your friends.
Happy travels, and remember: Until you’ve confirmed it with your own eyes, do not ever, ever, ever tell your kids there’s a working swimming pool at the hotel.
Until next week,
Bring the Kids
