Planning a trip with four children ranging in ages from 3-14 requires strategic actions to meet the diverse desires in travel goals. I knew Copenhagen would be a fun place to land after being bundled up in Iceland and Faroe Islands for a week, where hiking was the main attraction. I knew Tivoli the amusement park would be a hit with the girls. We all loved this childhood wonderland! By coincidence of my last minute planning, the Copenhagen Jazz festival was happening while we were there. So we nursed our Tivoli exhaustion by chilling in the park to an eclectic girl jazz band and making friends with some other parents coping a squat with kids running around in the grass.

We were in Copenhagen for five nights. From the airport we took the Metro to our neighborhood Christianshavan. Our Airbnb was on the canals close to Nyhavn and the open-air food market. Travel days are not easy. We pack light to make carrying our load easier as we schlep our bags and figure out new cities. On this travel day I was super proud of my girls navigating with us from the airport and through a new subway system. They were patient with me while I found the 7Eleven where the key to our Airbnb was kept in a lock box and when walked 15 minutes (some of that in the wrong direction) to find our address. It’s all part of the journey of travel.

Copenhagen is a walking city and there is a reason people love bikes there. It’s a small city. The metro train and bus system is sleek but there is still a fair amount of walking between stops. The stroller came in handy since I didn’t trust us to rent bikes and hop into the fast bike lanes. Biking in Copenhagen is really a local’s only skill! Like all Scandinavian countries, they are a pram cultures. The buses have doors marked for strollers and parents park their kids in the strollers and take a seat on the bus. So the combo of walking and a bus with a stroller works out better than underground metros with stairs and no lifts. EK spends more time walking than in her stroller. But we are a family of long fast walking legs. Expecting her to always keep up with older siblings, or everyone to always travel at her pace, isn’t always realistic. The stroller worked great for this trip.

The open-air food market was around the corner from our place and food is always our first stop. The market is like a food truck park but the restaurants are stationary and made out of old shipping containers. We ate there a few times while in Copenhagen. It had something for everyone and then some…Indian food, dumplings and noodles, chia seed pudding bowls and vegan banana ice cream made from wasted bananas.  Plus the basics like pizza, fish and chips and burgers etc. AND sun chairs by the canal. We lived like locals here and loved it.

Our first full day in Copenhagen we walked a lot, probably several miles! We set out for an interesting playground and a pretty walk along a lake with swans. By the time we decided to hop on a bus we learned we couldn’t buy tickets on the bus so we walked towards the metro station. Then the metro ticket machine would only take Danish credit cards. So we kept walking. But along the way we found a cool sidewalk cafe for lunch, the palace where the Danish crown jewels are still kept, a farmer’s market, a smoothie bar, an ice cream stand, dinner by a random New Orleans jazz band playing for the festival, and ended the day with sitting our tired legs down on a boat tour of the harbor.

We usually skip sightseeing tours but we got a combo ticket for the sightseeing boat, an open air bus and discounts on Tivoli tickets in advanced. The next day we took the open air sightseeing bus as our VIP transportation to Tivoli and walked right in, bypassing all the people waiting to buy tickets. So that was worth it! The sightseeing buses are popular in many big cities and we always get requests from the girl to ride on one. The infamous red bus was a one and done thing for us but we think we picked a good city to give it try. Getting on a boat someway in Copenhagen is a must and tour boat fit the need in the moment at the end of a long day.

The photo above was taken from the boat and our Airbnb was in the building on the left. It was a nice flat in a great location. It was the most expensive Airbnb we stayed in during out trip but I think rates were higher because Jazz Fest was in town. The kitchen was small so mostly we ate at the open food market.  The entire time we were in Copenhagen we loved the culture of all the bikes and boats. Next time we come back maybe we will find a houseboat to tour around on! Or maybe we’ll stay long enough to learn the bike rules. But truthfully, this is more my more style. If I had a boat this would be me with some kids and my dog. And the next photo would be my car plus my paddle board on the top. .

Tivoli I love you! I’m not a big amusement park mom. I have no plans of ever taking my kids to Disney World. We have had season passes to Dollywood before but as a whole I would rather spend money traveling. But Tivoli won me over. It’s a whimsical world full of cultural beauty that will bring out the child in everyone’s heart. Everywhere I looked I wanted to remember what it was like there. I was the person sneaking my phone in my pocket on a rollercoaster and being warned in Danish about dropping my phone. I wanted to remember what every detail of the place looked like. I could have ridden The Flying Trunk, a journey through fairy-tale scenes by Hans Christian Andersen, eight more times. Because twice wasn’t enough!

We were at Tivoli for 10 hours. We ate a nice dinner on the water and sat in the beer market while the kids closed down the pirate ride with EK in tow. I could live at Tivoli.

We enjoyed down time at Jazz Fest the next day.  We put our Tivoli souvenir cups to good use by filling them with wine in the park as we relived some past time memories of our pre-kid travels.

Staying on the path of diversifying our days with things for kids of all ages plus the parents, The National Museum of Denmark was a home run for all the ages.  The museum’s interactive children’s exhibits and map hunt to find all the “I’m not bored anymore buttons” which made exhibits come to life, kept our girls busy learning about Danish history and added to their already growing Viking knowledge. The museum also had a visiting exhibit on Mongolia that was amazing. Plus the most extensive displays of Viking treasures we have seen through all our Scandinavian trips. The modern Meet the Vikings exhibit was realistic, drew us in and was the first time we have seen women Vikings portrayed in history like this.

On our last day we also climbed 90 meters to the top of the Church of Our Saviour spire to catch some great views of the city. And we took a walk through Free Town Christiania, Copenhagen’s hippie commune for free living that was founded in 1971 and still lives strong with 900 people in their community. Our walk along the river inside the commune didn’t last long but I’m glad we visited.

We did Copenhagen at a easy pace but we saw a lot. The sun staying up late meant all the girls were still staying up till 11 every night. We had longer days to play but our mornings got off to a later start. Our Airbnb had a playground in the courtyard and we used it past the requested quiet time hours. There is a travel balance just like in life and going with the flow with multiple age kids. Stroller naps might happen at 5:00. We use those to our advantage, send the bigs up for much appreciated media time in the apartment and sit by the canal to catch up on some adult time.

This is the glimpse into how we travel with four kids, and still get enough experiences out of it as parents. I could have sat next to the canals and watched the boat culture for days. All the beautiful boats! I am not a camper but I could live on a houseboat. Copenhagen we loved you. If we had one more day we would have gone swimming in the harbor. Instead we’ll do that in Sweden.

Next we took a train from Copenhagen to Stockholm and hopped on an overnight boat to wake up the next morning in Tallinn, Estonia. 

You won’t find navigation signs or menus offered in English. But everyone knows English and we didn’t mind asking for help. Some people were willing to help. Some people made it apparent that welcoming tourists may not be the popular opinion. These observations are part of the fun about visiting a destination that is not yet fully discovered by tourists.

Overall we found our time on Faroe Islands to be magically beautiful, relaxed and just what I was looking for in taking my family to a remote land. We rented a passenger van with big windows to minimize carsickness as we drove around the islands. There are 18 islands and many are connected by sub-sea tunnels. It was a pleasant experience to drive there. There is a spotty public transportation system that would work fine for backpackers. For families with higher needs, we think renting a car was a must. We stayed in a harbor town called Vestmanna. When I booked our trip two weeks in advance the available Airbnb options were limited. It was a great place for us to stay. It was off the beaten path. We had wonderful views of the harbor. The house was three bedrooms and brand new to the Airbnb market. We had an outdoor balcony and it was spacious enough to do yoga! 

As soon as we knew we were going to Faroe Islands I booked a boat tour to Mykines island to see the puffin birds. It departed from the harbor we could see from our kitchen table.  There was one restaurant where the boat departed and one cafe in town. We ate at both and also went to the grocery store to make a taco night at home plus pack lunches for our day trips around the islands. The girls mistakenly chose licorice ice-cream at the store when they thought the photo was mint. We laughed about that when everyone got an unexpected taste. There was also a sweet little yarn shop and cafe where we bought handmade wool socks and had cake and coffee served to us in the grandma’s kitchen cafe. The cake was actually thin waffles you layer with whip cream and jam and fold like a sandwich. The girls remembered the treat from our visit to Norway and knew just how to eat them. This local gem was a highlight of our stay in Vestmanna.  

Mykines Island has 80 people living there in the summertime. Now days they get 300 tourists a day to see the puffin birds perched on the cliffs of the island. This season some locals got together and started making hotdogs, cakes and coffee and selling it out of a makeshift cafe. The day we were there the fish soup was sold out but they told us they were making a fresh batch – that would be ready the next day. They are definitely on island time. There are no hotels. They do have one public bathroom where you can also fill up your water bottle. The tap water on the Faroe Islands is amazing! The night before our day long boat trip to the island I got an email saying the boat might no be able to make it to the islands due to rough seas. The “skipper” would decide about the voyage in them morning. The wind outside our Airbnb was howling like a winter storm was brewing in, and the neighbor’s sheep were actively saying baa. All the public ferry tickets to get to the island were sold out when we booked our trip. The only other way to the island is by helicopter but those book up fast as well and are mostly reserved for locals in need of transportation. We showed up at the dock at 11:00 and the news was the boat will go out and test the waters to see how far we can get. I doled out the Dramamine and we got on the boat. It holds 36 people. Six decided to get a refund and replan their day. Not us. We were going to see those puffin birds! And we made it! Then the skipper left us and said he would be back in five hours to pick us up. And he did.

We must have taken 500 photos in five hours. Here’s a select few from that amazing experience.

The next day we hiked to Saksun beach. It was a perfect, flat hike for us where we could take as long as we wanted. The girls enjoyed the wide open spaces to run and climb on rocks. EK collected a pocket full of sea glass and the black sand beach was amazing.

Next we drove a scenic drive to the city of Gjogv, where we had beautiful views of the island Kolsoy. That island is known for hikers hiking to Kullar lighthouse. We decided not to do that because we would have needed to take a car ferry with our car to get there. Space is limited on the ferries and locals have priority, as they should. We would have to get inline 1-2 hours before the ferry departed to ensure we got a spot. The kids were not onboard with this plan of a lot of waiting, and a very long day to hike a narrow ridge to a lighthouse. There is nothing else on the island. I was game. But with EK in tow I was a bit nervous about her unpredictability regarding getting tired and being a safe listener because the narrow ridge is a cliff on both sides. And as you can see from the Where’s Waldo picture above of Lydia scaling the waterfall, my girls need wider open spaces to run. Maybe in a couple years we’ll go back. We settled for views of Kolsoy island from safer ground at Gjogv where we enjoyed a cafe and ice-cream. But first, everywhere we drove had scenes like this. You can’t help but stop and look. 

On our last full day the girls wanted to visit the capital city of Torshavn. We had lunch on the harbor, visited a bookstore/toy store that was like a real life Nova Natural catalog of amazing natural toys. We also shopped a secondhand shop and scored four handmade sweaters for $65.

Next we visited Kirkjubour which is Faroe Island’s oldest village, an old church and a 900 year old house that is still in the same family. One half is open to the public. Someone still lived in the other half and even had their laundry out to dry that day.

Our Florida beach souls made one last stop to put our toes in a sunny (but cold) beach.

We felt like we got a good overall view of Faroe Islands for what our crew was capable of accomplishing. For the extreme hikers the options are unlimited. If you are a planner, I suggest you book ahead and use guides booked through the Faroe Islands tourist website. I personally think it’s the direction the country is steering tourists to go in, in order to control the amount of people coming to their home and preserve it’s pristine, untouched beauty.

Our fly by the seat of our pants plan worked out, this time. But finding a car to rent was tricky. The demand is high and the quantities are low. We spent more on our rental car than we did on our Airbnb. So if you go, be prepared to spend a lot on a car rental. We had heard Faroe Islands is the most expensive place to visit in Europe. But the way we went about it, we did not feel that way. Some people book all private tours and I can see it being expensive that way. But when you go to local cafe’s where the menu and the scrabble game are in Faroese, you pay fair prices. Finding the balance of tourism planning and getting off the beaten path is the key to visiting the Faroe Islands. Grab a sense of adventure and wonder through the secondhand shop for sweaters. Farewell Faroe Islands. We’ll be back!

Here’s a link list to each post from our Scandinavian Trip

2o Countries in 20 Years, Adventures for Six

Iceland, The Golden Circle

Faroe Islands

Copenhagen, Denmark

Tallin, Estonia 

Stokholm, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

Norway trip from 2013

Here’s a link list to each post from our Scandinavian Trip

2o Countries in 20 Years, Adventures for Six

Iceland, The Golden Circle

Faroe Islands

Copenhagen, Denmark

Tallin, Estonia 

Stokholm, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

Norway trip from 2013

After landing in Iceland we got our rental car and headed straight to the Blue Lagoon. It’s the Eiffel Tower of Iceland and we had tickets for 12:00. It was a great jet lag remedy since we barely slept on the 5 hour red eye flight over. Since the tickets are sold in limited amounts per hour the Blue Lagoon was not crowded and it was well worth the cost. It is touted as a premier spa. There were people in bath robes enjoying premier services but we found it very family friendly.  Ages 12 and under are free so we only had to pay for half our family. From the showers, lockers, to complementary arm floats for young swimmers, face masks and drinks in the lagoon – we all loved it and agreed it lived up to the hype.

The owner met us at our Airbnb to welcome us. It was his summer house where he grew up and he now shares it with his grandchildren.  I think it was my favorite Airbnb I have ever booked for our family. I booked it two weeks in advance and it was $1000 for three nights – a bargain for a family of six in Iceland. We had a hot tub that filled up with fresh geothermal water straight from the earth below the house. Getting through jet lag so far north where it never got dark was tricky. We were all prepared to sleep with eye masks and I made sure the place I rented had shades on the windows. But it was still like taking a nap versus getting a good night sleep. By dinnertime the kids were way too tired to dine anywhere nice. We went to the grocery store and ate easy smoked salmon dinners on the patio by the hot tub. I loved the chill in the air. It’s pristine and some of the cleanest air you will ever breath.

We like to travel as locals as much as possible. We went to the grocery store which is always fun in another language! We spent $82 and ate off of it for three days. We had dinners at the house and bought car snacks from the local bakery.  One day we took the kids to the grocery store and told them to pick a car treat to try. The packaging could not be in English (no Oreos) and it had to be something they had never had before. And that’s how we roll. We pack lunches as much as we can and buy what we need along the way. When in France we eat out every meal because the food everywhere, even a takeaway sandwich on baguette, is amazing and always worth it. In Scandinavian countries the culture is to eat in. Good restaurants are rare and expensive. The best thing Iceland had to offer was fresh caught, smoked salmon. And hotdogs. Like we found in Norway, people in Iceland love their hotdogs! 

We rented an economy range SUV that was $550 for three days. Packing carry on luggage helps with large families renting small European cars. That was the bulk of our Iceland expenses. We visited public parks that were free. We visited a geothermal pool in Fontana where we spent more renting towels than we did on admissions to swim. We were the only Americans there. 

We visited the Great Geyser, and Strokkur which is the active geyser located in the same park.

The same day we visited Gullfoss falls.

Mostly a wet day and we were layered up with all the layers we brought for the cold and rain.  But we didn’t let that stop us! Not everyone was enthusiastic about it the whole time. But we made the best of it.

Just as the sun came out, we made a quick stop at the crater Kerio, known for Bjork once performing a concert there from a raft. We hiked around the crater.

We spent the Fourth of July in the Pingvellir National Park, where the Vikings of Iceland held the first freely elected parliament in the world. We also saw the tectonic plates where North America split from Europe.

We topped off the day with a swim in a thermal pool over looking a Fontana lake. It rained all day and it was cold. But the girls and Brian still took a dip in the freezing lake water. We saw very few Americans all day. It was cool to celebrate in a different country and be reminded that our little corner of the world is very small indeed.

We flew out early the next morning but were pleased with our quick Iceland visit. It’s easy to drive there. It’s not as expensive as people say and like all travel in Europe, there is always a cheaper way to visit when you get off the guided tours and the hotel track. With a family of six it does add up but you can control costs and make it doable.

Being flexible when traveling with children is the key. Sometimes kids sleep at odd times while traveling. Not everyone will want to take a photo when you want them to say cheese. Someone’s eyes will always be closed in the photo even when you think you got a perfect shot. And sometimes you just have to go out for pizza, get a beer and let the kids roam a cool playground to blow off steam. 

In 2013 we went to Norway to visit friends living abroad for a year. In 2017 we went to the Dominican Republic for spring break. In 2018 we went to France for Lydia’s French art exchange program through school, and to London to visit old friends. As we move past the years of having babies, family travel feels like the next best thing. I’m calling this next chapter of parenting, Adventures for Six.

For 24 days we will travel to five destinations and technically, four countries.

The itinerary is:

Iceland and the Golden Circle

Faroe Islands (technically owned by Denmark but runs as it’s own country and is not part of the EU)

Copenhagen, Denmark

Tallin, Estonia

Stockholm, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

How did you pick these destinations?

On a boat ride yesterday through the rocky waves of the North Atlantic ocean in the Faroe Islands, I met a lady from Czech Republic who looked at my family and said, “That is not your typical Europe trip.”  No it is not. Because we have done the typical Europe trips, I am seeking out places we have never been. Pre-parenting days our typical trips included overnight trains to Prague and Budapest with only a guide book and a pay phone to figure out where we would sleep when we arrived.  We were adventurous travelers then, and we want to be adventurous travelers now.

I picked these destinations and planed this whole trip two weeks before we boarded the plane to Iceland. I like to be spontaneous but really I was having a hard time committing to a big trip for other reasons. The backstory is my girls were begging to visit a new continent this summer.  I considered Australia but two of my girls failed my cold water test in May when we visited spring fed rivers in Florida with 72 degree water. Visiting the Great Barrier Reef during their winter season was going to be a bust. Visiting Africa and South America is going to take getting extra immunizations. We are working on that so we can open more travel doors.

Therefore we decided on Europe because it’s the only continent we can easily visit four different countries. Iceland is the cheapest way in and out of Europe. It’s summer and we traded in beach time for this trip so I wanted to always be around water. But I wanted to avoid the heat and crowds of Europe on the coast in July. My blonde headed daughters blend in perfectly with the Scandinavian countries, known for being family friendly. When my Brazilian friend decides to visit Brazil, we’ll tag along. For this trip, I decided for a safe adventure plan. On the day before the trip I presented this itinerary to the girls and told them what to pack. 

We pack carry on luggage only, which sounds impressive but really it’s still a lot of stuff to shlep around. Everyone carries their own load. Sometimes even little Esther Kate pulls her weight. It’s probably the last trip for the 14 year old Bugaboo stroller. If we don’t find it useful we’ll give it away somewhere on our journey.  The last stroller found a new home in Normandy when it didn’t fit in our rental car. A soon to be aunt was happy to pass it along to her expecting sister. It was a happy ending to that stroller we bought in Norway when LJ couldn’t keep up with the walking at age 4. EK is not much for the stroller life. She’s got too many people willing to carry her. She rolls well with our lifestyle as we expect a lot of her to keep up with older sisters. But that stroller has been through all these girls, so a final spin around Europe felt like a perfect ending to our baby days.

Here’s a link list to each post from our Scandinavian Trip

2o Countries in 20 Years, Adventures for Six

Iceland, The Golden Circle

Faroe Islands

Copenhagen, Denmark

Tallin, Estonia 

Stokholm, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

Norway trip from 2013