Is the thought of travelling with your baby scaring you? Then, don’t panic! We tell you some vital tips for mothers to keep the baby safe and healthy. Read on to know more about these vital tips.

Travelling with a baby or child can be a stressful experience and it will also be an ordeal for fellow passengers as they can get disturbed by the baby or child but one has to prepare nicely before air or road travel to avoid any problems for the baby or the child. Is the thought of travelling with your baby scaring you this summer? Then, don’t panic as we got you sorted with some vital tips for mothers to keep the baby safe and healthy.

These are some of the foolproof tricks that can help you to travel stress-free with your little one. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Prashant Moralwar, Consultant Paediatrician at Kharghar’s Motherhood Hospital shared some essential strategies to ensure that the travel is not only safe but also pleasant for you, others and the baby, whether travelling by plane or the road. These include –

1. A quick diaper change prior to boarding the plane or car can do the trick: This will reduce the number of times you’ll need to change your baby on board. If you are traveling by car then take frequent breaks to change the baby’s diaper. Not doing so can lead to skin irritation or nappy rash. Do not keep the baby wet for too long. So, it is advisable to change the diaper from time to time.

2. Go for a flight that matches your baby’s sleep pattern: You need to choose a departure time close to your baby’s sleep pattern. Opt for the middle of the day when your baby naps or a flight later in the evening near their bedtime. Early morning flights can disturb your baby’s sleep. While traveling by road, you can commence the journey once the baby wakes up. He/she will be fresh and less cranky.

3. Opt for noise-cancelling headphones: The loud noise of an airplane’s engine and other passengers can make it difficult for the baby to sleep, and he/she can become fussy as well as tired. You can try noise-cancelling headphones for the little one so that he/she can get a good sleep while going by plane or road.

4. Breastfeed before take-off and landing: Are you aware? The sucking due to feedings will open the baby’s Eustachian tubes and equalize the pressure in the ears reducing the pain.

5. Travel with your partner or a family member, if you have more than one baby: Doing so can help you to manage the baby very well. Also, you can take out some time and relax while the partner or the family member is taking care of the little one. This can be helpful while traveling by the road too.

6. Pick an aisle seat: It lets you get up and down more freely. A window seat can be problematic as it can cause an inconvenience to fellow passengers.

7. Reach early at the gate: While air travel, you should arrive early with the baby and then board before others. Doing so can help you to settle with the baby.

8. Carry sufficient baby supplies: Flight delays could extend the length of your trip by several hours. You should bring baby food, snacks, formula or pumped breast milk, diapers, and other supplies that you actually need to avoid a hungry, fussy baby.

9. Dress your baby in layers: Dress your baby in layers. Try to carry a blanket, if the baby feels cold.

10. Carry the baby’s favourite toys: While traveling by road or an aircraft, it will be imperative for you to keep the baby happy and engaged. Bring a few favourite toys and books so that the baby doesn’t cry.

11. Emergency medicines: Please carry emergency medicine for vomiting, stomach pain, nasal blockage, ear pain, and fever.

A successful travel day does not happen by accident. If you’re going to get to where you need to be safe, sound and ready to go, there are some very specific things to do along the way to improve the chances of that happening. Priority No. 1: Reduce anxiety in whatever ways you can; make it easier to do your best work.

1. Always leave early. Always leave earlier than necessary for flights ferries or trains, and allow more time than you think is necessary to get there.

Missing a flight because you wanted an extra 30 minutes of sleep doesn’t make any sense. If you show up early, you can use that bonus time to work on something else. And if you run into a problem en route to your destination, you won’t have to stress about being on time.

2. Make sure all travel itinerary info is entered into your smart phone. Don’t underestimate the value of having easy access to confirmation numbers for your hotel, rental car, flight, etc., as well as phone numbers for each of those agencies. Sooner or later, your plans will change when you’re on the go, and having all of the pertinent information at your fingertips can change the game. Plus, it’s nice to be able to check your flight status without having to dig through your briefcase to find your flight-confirmation printout.

3. Take a (great) seat. If you’ve ever watched The Amazing Race, you know that contestants on the show are always jockeying for seats at the front of the plane so they can be the first ones off when it lands. While you might not need to be as strategic with your seating as those racers, keep in mind that the aisle seat does have its advantages. It allows you, if necessary, to easily get the items you need out of the overhead bin. (Side Note: Be sure to plan what you’ll need during the flight before the plane takes off so you won’t have to keep opening and closing the overhead bin.) Also having a seat in the exit row and on the aisle makes it easy to get up if you have to use the lavatory. Face it: Drinking lots of water is one of the best ways to stay healthy while traveling.

4. Invest in a club membership with the airline of your choice. If it’s possible, do it. The first year I flew 30 segments marked the beginning of my membership devotion. (In 2011, I flew 142 segments.) You’ll gain access to club space, so when you’re waiting for your next flight you’ll have a calmer, quieter, cleaner, more comfortable place to be your best productive self. And perhaps most importantly, the space will be quiet enough for you to make calls to clients or colleagues without airport announcements blaring in the background.

5. Always carry cash. You never know when a problem with your bank or credit card company will cause a card to be denied. Always travel with cash so that you won’t be left stranded without a way to pay a cab driver or without money for lunch.

6. Plan meal times. From the airport to your destination city to the journey home, you gotta eat. Do a little thinking about where and what you’re going to eat before you even leave your house.

On short trips I always make sure to have a Balance Bar or a bag of nuts from Trader Joe’s. For flights longer than five hours, I make sure to include time in my schedule to grab a sandwich, a salad, and a bottle of water at the airport. I also recommend figuring out where you’re going to eat at your destination before you begin your journey, if possible. The day before you travel, call the concierge at the hotel where you’ll be staying. Ask for lunch and dinner options within walking distance or a short car ride from your hotel. This will not only save you time searching for food once you arrive, but it will also help you ensure you go to quality restaurants while on your trip.

7. Picture It. Your cell phone’s camera, of all things, provides several time-saving options that may also save you headaches during a travel day:

Use it to take notes. Instead of digging around looking for a pen and paper, simply snap a shot of books and items you want to buy or price-check online, restaurants you want to visit, billboards of shows you want to see, etc.

Use it to remember your parking spot. Take a picture of your parking lot space number and parking structure floor. Travel days are stressed and rushed, for most people, remembering where you left your car a week later can be a challenge.

Use it to remember your rental car. Take a picture of your rental car and license plate. (It seems like they’re all silver or beige.) Save time you’d otherwise spend wandering around a parking lot looking for a car you can’t remember.

Use it to remember your room number. Take a picture of your hotel room number, especially if you’re traveling to several cities or traveling very frequently. After awhile, especially if you’re in a different hotel every night, they all start to look the same.

Rising tides, beach erosion, and overtourism threaten seaside resorts. Heres how travelers can support sustainable tourism in coastal destinations.

Its trouble to become a beach lover. Rising seas and intensifying storms are wreaking havoc on global shorelines. Vacation homes along NEW YORKs Outer Banks have fallen in to the ocean; Miami Beach has go out of offshore sand to replenish its eroded beaches; and storms in the Caribbean have repeatedly caused vast amounts of dollars of damage.

The worlds 7,000 beachfront resorts are powered by the literal front lines of the struggle, and sustainable tourism has turned into a key tool in fighting back. But beachfront resorts arent just reacting to changing shorelines, theyre adding to them.

In the first 19th century, as seaside resorts became a fixture of upper-class British life, the coal-powered trains used to attain them were already warming up the atmosphere and helping ocean levels inch up. After World War II, emergent middle classes in the USA and Europe turned the beach vacation right into a cultural touchstone because of disposable income, paid time off, affordable passenger flights, and vaccines against tropical diseases.

Global travel exploded in the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1950, 25 million people traveled internationally. In 2019, nearly 1.5 billion did. Tourists gravitated to shorelines from Thailand to Hawaii. Their airplane flights alone contributed to many of travels growing carbon footprint.

By the late 20th century, paradise needed help. Sustainable tourism emerged, an idea that essentially means adopting practices to lessen negative social, economic, and environmental ramifications of mass tourism.

Travelers might help by choosing, supporting, and being conscious of how tourism is impacting shorelines, along with by reducing their very own carbon footprints. Listed below are six sustainable travel ideas that you ought to consider before the next escape to paradise.

Sleep from the beach

High-rise hotels along with other concrete structures built directly on the beach impede the flow of sand, inevitably causing erosion. After the sand is fully gone, resort owners face difficult choices: create a seawall to secure the land, continually replenish the beach, or abandon the building.

Resorts ought to be problem from the beach, ideally made up of several smaller buildings rather than single immovable one, using materials and techniques that facilitate future relocation and repairs after storms.

Green idea: Nicaraguan law requires that new buildings be problem 164 feet from the high-tide line. It has motivated resorts like Maderas Village to create cabanas up in the hills amid the trees. The resort used native wood and palm fronds in its construction. This all means better views and breezes for guests, faster recovery from storms, and preservation of the shoreline ecosystem.

Reduce long-haul flights

For a beach vacation involving lengthy flights, the flight can take into account three-quarters of its total carbon footprint. This implies regardless of how sustainably a remote resort is run, the entire impact of one’s stay there can’t be considered green. Instead, consider going to a beach town nearer to you (maybe one it is possible to reach by train or other public transit) rather than the Maldives.

In a few countries, these decisions may soon be produced for travelers. Already, Europe are enacting laws to discourage flights. France has banned domestic flights in which a train could cover exactly the same route in two . 5 hours or less, and Austria has banned flights that cost a lower amount than 40 euros. The UK has considered a ban on frequent-flyer programs, which reward travelers for long-haul flights.

Smart and sustainable: Selecting a resort nearer to home could make an enormous difference for the vacations carbon footprint. Should you choose fly, buying carbon offsets for the trip helps. In the event that you stay away from flying, you wont be alone. In Sweden, where flight-shaming has turned into a societal force, passengers in the countrys airports decreased by 4 percent in 2019.

Break your palm tree habit

Palm trees are enduring symbols of beach culture, as apt to be planted on the sands of Cancn as across the Mediterranean in the French Riviera. But coconut palms are native and then elements of the Malay Peninsula and India, and theyre almost useless in creating sustainable shorelines. Their shallow roots do little to curb erosion; they dont absorb just as much carbon as much other species; provide little shade; and require plenty of water.

Because the coconut palm became ubiquitous at hotels all over the world, many native plants disappeared, chief included in this the mangroves fronting many tropical beaches which range from Florida to Central America to South Africa to Fiji. Regrowing mangroves provides ample natural protection for shorelines.

Planting with purpose: West Palm Beach, Florida, now requires parking lots to possess trees planted inside them, 75 percent which should be shade-producing, i.e. notpalm trees. Some resorts are joining in this shift. The Six Senses chain, for instance, is incorporating mangroves into some resort landscaping, notably in Thailand, hoping to greatly help redefine the idea of a perfect beachfront.

Search for resorts that empower locals

Its hard to comprehend both culture and the landscape of a shoreline if youre an outsider. Thats why, even though foreign resort companies have good intentions, they often times misunderstand and mismanage the problem on the floor, and also have trouble getting buy-in from the neighborhood population. In case a new shoreline protection program inhibits local fishermens work without understanding their needs and helping them adapt, for instance, it really is unlikely to ultimately achieve success. Locals understand the nuances of such situations and really should be empowered to donate to their solutions.

Whats more, local agency and ownership in the tourism industry means that more tourism revenue stay in the neighborhood economy, instead of being channeled to foreign companies.

A recycling breakthrough: On Tioman Island off the eastern coast of Malaysia, beach tourism has been an economic driver because the 1990s. Residents were frustrated both by the growing piles of tourists beer bottles and by having less available sand for mixing concrete in building projects. Both problems were met with an individual ingenious solution by way of a local NGO: a little machine that turns glass bottles into sand.

Ask your eco-resort to back up its promises

No law prevents a hotel from labeling itself an eco-resort, even though it doesnt run sustainably. Where eco-certifications like LEED and Green Key exist, their exorbitant costs exclude many smaller resorts. Slick marketing often convinces guests of a resorts environmental cred. Theres a good term because of this: greenwashing. Dont allow image fool you.

Instead, search for small buildings problem from the water, local ownership (or locals in senior positions), windows that available to lessen the necessity for air-con, single-use plastic bans, and menus featuring local drink and food. Some responsible hotels provides information online about electricity sources and waste management practices.

Avoid golf courses. They guzzle thousands of gallons of water each day, often in places with water supply problems, and the fertilizer used to help keep them so green wreaks havoc on nearby ocean ecosystems. They obliterate natural vegetation and frequently displace locals if they are designed.

A beach beacon: At the plush Nihi Sumba resort in Indonesia, most guest living and dining areas are outdoors, minimizing the necessity for air-con. All buildings are set well back from the water; natural vegetation remains largely intact; and locals work in numerous higher-level positions. Plus, a fresh on-property water desalination and bottling plant has eliminated all single-use plastic containers.

Avoid overdeveloped places

When beach tourism initially arrives, most residents start to see the financial and social benefits far outweighing the drawbacks. But as development increases and control falls to outsiders, a tipping point comes when local tourism industry is perceived to accomplish more harm than good. In places like Italys Cinque Terre, residents are actually attempting toreduce tourism, after watching it impede the standard of life and the fitness of the encompassing environment.

Preventing overdevelopment before it happens requires limiting tourism numbers within an official capacity. Local governments can restrict new building permits or ban future construction on the beach altogether.

Travelers can disrupt the overdevelopment cycle by choosing less-trafficked destinations. Rather than Santorini, visit a sleepier Greek isle such as for example Folegandros. Bypass Costa Rica and head north to Nicaragua. Less swamped destinations also need visitor revenue a lot more than over-touristed meccas.

Paradise protected: The pristine white-sand beaches, stunning rock formations, and year-round 80-degree temperatures on the Brazilian islands of Fernando de Noronha remain intact because of the neighborhood government limiting tourism. Only 420 travelers may land on the hawaiian islands every day, and all revenues fund conservation efforts. The hawaiian islands 3,000 residents have observed their quality lifestyle increase, without suffering the drawbacks of overdevelopment.

Travelling during monsoon can be so much fun. It’s that time when the rain settles down all the pollution and dust around bringing out clean green surroundings. However, without proper planning and preparations, it could easily be one of the worst travel experiences.

Here are tips to make your monsoon travel beautiful:

1. Check the weather forecast

Probably the most important thing in the list, the weather forecast. Always check the weather forecast for the day and the following day, depending on the nature of your trip. If the forecast says extreme weather conditions like heavy rainfall, hailstones, or storms, it’s best to stay put.

2. Waterproof Bag

While travelling in the rainy season, one must make sure to carry a waterproof bag. The reason is that it will keep your belongings dry and safe. You may add a secondary layer of a synthetic and lightweight rain cover or liner for protection.

3. Flashlights

You must never forget to pack a flashlight during your monsoon trips. It is often observed that even the most developed cities of the nation, experience power cuts due to heavy rain or wind.

4. Insect Repellent

While planning a monsoon getaway, always keep in mind that flora and fauna bloom best during this time of the year. And therefore, there are good chances that you will encounter a bug or few during rainy days. You must always carry a suitable and strong insect repellent for protecting yourself from the bugs.

5. Avoid street food

It would be best to avoid street food because it might be exposed to germs in the rainy weather, increasing your chances of falling sick. You can surely carry your own hot soup in a flask and other munchies to snack on when you’re traveling in the monsoons.

6. Slippers for footwear

While traveling in the monsoons, you can forget about your expensive leather boots or fancy sneakers because all of them will get soiled in mud and get spoiled. Carry your most sturdy sandals and floaters because they dry quickly and are easy to manage while walking amidst puddles of water and slick pathways.