Car Seat Travel Accessory Question

We usually try our best not to carry on too much. Pack a small bag with some snacks, diapers, clothes, new toys (target has a section with small toys great for travel), a book or magazine for the adults. You may also want to bring a portable DVD player and some headphones. That always saved us on a long flight.

If you're just worried about getting all your luggage to the check-in counter, which was always a problem for us, have your husband drop you and your daugter and all the luggage at the curb. He can go park the car by himself and get on the shuttle to the curb w/out all the lugging. Then get one of those carts and push everything to the counter. Check everything...you'll be glad not to have to carry all sorts of stuff through the airport.

If you are using the carseat on the plane, then after check-in you would just have the seat and the one carry-on and your purse.

We always borrowed a strap from a duffle bag and hooked that around the car booster and carried it on our backs. Simple and easy and we didn't have to purchase an accessory that we'd rarely use.

Have a great trip!!

Hi S.,
We did buy the device that turns the car seat into a sort of stroller and it was worth every penny.
We strapped our 11 month old into his carseat and onto the device and wheeled him around the airport. We were able to move fast and efficiently with him in tow. Very confortable for all of us.
Once we were on the plane we collapsed the device and stored it in the overhead compartment (it's really compact once it's folded).
I highly reccommend getting one, it made our lives so much easier that day.

LOVE ours.. but is you evenflow triumph airline compatible?
I am assume this is the device you are talking about for the airport?
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2658824

If you are all traveling together and just taking the seat to use at your sister's, then I wouldn't spend the money. If you clip the buckles together, the seat is a little easier to carry by the straps and you can check it right away, so it is only awkward for the line at the check-in counter. As for the diaper bag, what has worked for us is to pack a back pack with stuff because it leaves hands-free to hold little ones or other luggage. And we only take the essentials on board- a few toys 2-3 diapers, and an extra outfit for each of us (I learned the hard way that it is nice to have an adult outfit in case of explosive dipes!!) I recently flew to DC with just myself a 4 YO and a 2 YO; It was very helpful to have "new" toys for my 2 year old. She loved having stickers and a magnetic pototo head book that I found at a garage sale. I also had pez for her so I could slip her a little piece of candy during take-off and landing, and pez doesn't melt like M&Ms did.

Have a good trip!

Having travelled to the east coast with my children several times (both of our families live there), I feel very experienced in this area. We never bothered purchasing the carseat stroller gadget. We just strapped the carseat to our backs when we had to change planes. We found on such a long trip our kids didn't want to be strapped to the carseat when we had to walk through the airport, they wanted to stretch their legs. We also checked a stroller at the gate, so if by chance they fell asleep, we wouldn't have to carry them too. (this was great to hold all of our carry on luggage as we traipsed through the airport. We always use backpacks for carry on so that we can strap everything to us if need be. It just makes it easier. If you do have a layover, try to find an area in the airport without a lot of people and let your child run, run, run. This last trip we took was so horrible with delays, we left our house at 6:30am and did not get to the east coast until 1:30 am, and we still had an hour drive from the airport to get to our destination. It was horrible, but my kids did great. We brought lots of never before seen toys and lots of interactive stuff to keep them busy. Look into some leap frog or vtech toys. They have a lot of small hand held toys that are great for planes. Also, my kids loved their story reader and listened to their stories over and over again. We also brought the portable dvd player, but only took that out as a last resort. If you do decide to purchase the carseat stroller, I would try to buy it used on craigslist or ebay since you probably won't get a whole lot of use out of it. Also, don't forget the snacks. Because of the delays when we got to one of the airports none of the food establishments were open because it was after 9, but to us, it was 6 and dinner time. I ended up feeding my kids junk for dinner since we had no other choice. Bring lots of healthy snacks since a hungry toddler is a cranky toddler. Also, make sure when you get through security you purchase some drinks and bring an empty sippy cup so she can have a drink for takeoff to help with the ear pressure.

Another option may be to see if you could borrow one where you are going. My friend is coming to visit in a few weeks and she's using a couple of our family/friends extras, or ones they still have from kids that have out grown them.
Just and option!