First vacation of my 9 months old daughter

Seawater. Image courtesy: pixabay

This was just another evening. I had put my sweetie on the bed. I was taking my relaxing breath after a long tiring day. Suddenly a thought jumped into my mind. “This is the longest vacation I have been on but I have not planned any trip yet. How can I do that with me?” I immediately started checking random places and unexpectedly found a very cheap deal for Vizag. This is how it started.

Destination Selection:

Even though I found the discounted rate for Vizag, I used a few criteria to finalize the destination. They were:

• Inside city: I prefer to avoid outskirt locations while traveling with an infant. It has to be a proper city/town with medical shop availability. In that way, I can make sure I can arrange emergency medicine (if anything required) which I am not carrying.

• Weather: As infants do not have a strong immune system, it is better to avoid any location which has a huge altitude or temperature difference from their usual environment.

• Food: How can I manage food for my baby? If the local food is similar to what she used to eat, then there won’t be much struggle to arrange food for the little one.

Itinerary and Commune Selection:

Once the place and duration are finalized, now it’s time to chalk out the itinerary. Our trip was for 4 days. We stayed 2 days in Vizag and 2 days in Araku Valley.

• Flight: We boarded an early morning flight for both to and fro. The reason to select a flight in the early morning was that she would sleep during the journey. So it will be easy and peaceful for us. For the flight I would like to share a couple of tips:

  

  Baby on board

1. Keep extra clothes, diapers, food (in case of flight delay) in your hand luggage.
2. If your baby drinks from a bottle or sippy cup, you can offer milk or water during take-off and landing, it will help ease ear pain. If s/he is not a milk lover or not willing to drink at that time, you can offer some cookies or chewing food.
3. Carry some engaging toys to keep your baby busy (this is applicable for all types of transport modes).

• Local Transport: Our personal preference is to roam around a place like a local, instead of booking a car and just visiting some tourist attraction. And we were sticked to that this time as well. This gives us lots of flexibility in choosing places and times. 

Rushikonda Beach

On the first day, we visited Ramkrishna Beach, Rushikonda Beach, Kailasagiri, Submarine Museum through local auto. The best part was most of the attractions are on the beach road. In the evening, we were just walking on that road with a breathtaking view and refreshing breeze. 

On the second day, we spent our morning in Indira Gandhi Zoological Park. We had a plan to go to Dolphin’s Nose in the afternoon. But my daughter’s nap took a long time so we had to cancel that. And we had captured another wonderful evening with a musical fountain show in a nearby Central Park.

• Train: Next day we headed to Araku valley by train. It was more than 100km by road which would take around 4 hrs. So we chose the train as the beautiful landscape would be more enjoyable from the train than the cab. The most interesting part was during that route our train crossed more than 50 tunnels. On that day we visited the botanical garden, tribal museum, and coffee museum.

  
  

  Borra Cave

• Cab: On day 4, we returned from Araku to Vizag via cab. This time we did not take the train, because we visited places like Borra cave, Ananthagiri, Coffee garden on the way back to Vizag.

Packing Checklist:

There are four types of things to pack.

• Clothes: You have to choose baby clothes wisely. You always should have a backup as you never know when they will spit, vomit etc. And please make sure to keep that backup dress super handy.

If you are going to a cold place, you should prepare for multiple layers of clothes rather than a single bushy jacket.

• Medicines: It is highly recommended to talk with the pediatrician before the trip. Tell your doctor about the location and let him/her suggest to you the required medicines and any additional things to keep in mind.

• Food: It is necessary to pre-plan for the kid’s meal and you can have some alternative food ideas in your mind. For example, my daughter likes butter or honey with roti. So I carry both on every trip so that I can offer those as an option when nothing else is working. One key thing to remember, try to maintain the mealtime, otherwise, they will become cranky which is enough to spoil your vacation mood.

• Other Essentials: This category includes stuff like baby cream, soap, sanitizer, wet wipes, diapers, toys etc.

Bonus Tip:

If you love to enjoy your trip with a group of people, you better find another couple with a kid. You will get added benefits if that kid is in the same age group as your kid.