We have a small baby and before it was born, a lot of people scared us like “you will not be able to travel with a baby anymore”. However, we decided to travel with the baby when it was just 4 months old. Of course, I had been a bit (means enormously) nervous and I had googled everything about travelling with babies before we left. In this article, I would like to sum it up, just in case someone else wants to go for a similar journey (from Czechia to Croatia with a baby or something like this) and they would like to read about our experience.

Content of the article: Before leaving (baby’s ID, packing), the journey, (way of transport, the best time), in Croatia (accommodation, activities)

Well, firstly, I would like to write that I’m aware that writing this article in English is kind of useless since the people travelling from Czechia to Croatia are obviously Czech people who speak the Czech language. And because all of my articles are written in Czech as well as in English, they will read it in Czech. Therefore, writing the English version is probably pointless, but whatever, I want all of the articles to be here in both languages, so, here it is.

BEFORE LEAVING

BABY’S ID

Before you leave your country, it’s necessary for your child to have their own ID document. You need to have an ID card or a passport, depending on the country you want to travel to. In our case, the ID card would be sufficient, but since we plan to travel more in the future, we decided to get our son a passport. More information about this topic can be found HERE (it’s in the Czech language because it’s about our country, but you can translate it) and I’ll also write you my own experience here.

I went to the city office to ask for the passport, I needed to have my ID card, baby’s birth certificate and the baby :). I went there alone which is something I don’t really recommend. They must take a picture of your baby sitting on your lap and you have to put a white piece of cloth between you and the baby so as the background is white (and simultaneously you have to hold the baby to prevent them from falling and your hands may not be visible). That seemed to me completely physically impossible. Nobody helped me and I was struggling to make it several minutes. Nevertheless, I made it eventually. The office had 30 days to prepare the new passport, it was done a bit sooner (after like two weeks or something) and I paid 100 CZK.

PACKING

I’m sure that everyone must pack something else, there is no universal list of things you will need. There are for instance few things I took for the baby…

• a lot of clothes (considering the weather)
• sunscreens (even though babies cannot be exposed to direct sunshine)
• several toys
• a bottle
• diapers changing stuff
• a soft mat (to make lying on the beach more comfortable for the baby)
• a beach shelter (so as we could hide in a shadow and to be protected from wind)
• a pram
• a thermometer and some medicaments (just in case)

THE JOURNEY

WAY OF TRANSPORT

Taking into consideration that our son was only 4 months old, we didn’t want to fly by plane (not that we couldn’t, we just thought that dealing with the pressure changes could be unpleasant for him). Therefore, we decided to go by car. We wanted to go from our country (Czechia) somewhere to the sea, somewhere not very far away, so we chose Croatia.

THE BEST TIME

The journey should take about 10 hours. We were wondering whether to go at night or during the day. I was aware that is wouldn’t be very comfortable for our son to be in the car for such a long time. I read some discussions on this topic, how people travel by car with such small babies. I only found out that everyone deals with it differently.

Eventually, we decided to go during the day. Well, to leave at 3 am and to arrive in the evening, in order to have enough time to stop and have a short walk every like two or three hours. That was probably the worst idea. In the end, we arrived at night, it was already dark and every one of us was exhausted after this long journey. Our baby was crying a lot and I was very angry at myself for having such a stupid idea to take this little child for this journey. I wished we stayed home and didn’t travel anywhere.

Nevertheless, this was the only case he cried in Croatia (so obviously, right the next day I didn’t regret going there anymore). The whole vacation was amazing and we had really great time. When we went back, we left in the evening and we arrived home soon in the morning. Who wasn’t driving was sleeping and it was waaay better than our previous journey during the day.

IN CROATIA

ACCOMMODATION

We booked our accommodation on Airbnb, a whole flat for a week. It was one of the cheapest deals, but it was beautiful and just a short walk to the beach. It’s one of the houses on the photo – HERE is more info.

ACTIVITIES

When we are abroad, we are usually very active. We want to go everywhere and see everything. This time, however, we made an exception and we spent most of the time on beaches. To be honest, I was a little bit lazy and I just didn’t want to walk with my baby for any long trips.

I will write more details about our week in Croatia in another article. This one was supposed to be mainly about the journey (from Czechia to Croatia with a baby) as such.

In the end, I would like to write something like “if you’re not sure whether to travel with a baby or not, just do it, it will be amazing”, but I will not. You know, it can be this case, but also, it doesn’t have to be. Anyway, for us it really was amazing and I’m so glad we set off.

Have you also travelled from Czechia to Croatia with a baby? Or do you have another similar experience with this kind of travelling? We would be happy if you share it in comments below 🙂