Adventure Travel With a Toddler: Basic Gear for a Fun, Active Getaway

When my family road trips, we go all out. Bumming it on the beach or lazing around the Airbnb just isn’t our speed. Don’t get me wrong, I love a solid beach day, but maximizing our exploration is our top priority. To put it simply, the more miles we cover, the better.

A common fear is that kids spell the end of carefree travel. And in fairness, we’ve certainly changed some things. But patience, a willingness to try new things, and the right gear have kept us on the move!

This year, constant snow and bitter temps in Minnesota had us looking south. The jungles and coastlines of Costa Rica felt like the perfect spot for a new adventure, and we were excited for our toddler to join.

But from a gear perspective, road-tripping with a toddler felt a bit like a backpacking excursion. You want to have all the essential amenities but also cut your weight (and items!) as much as possible. The best pieces of gear will serve multiple purposes.

During our 10 days in Costa Rica, we explored five towns, traveled 300+ miles, and stopped at every beach possible. We brought a lot of gear with us. But the gear below proved absolutely essential to our trip. It helped us see as much of the country as our 4×4 rental (and kid!) could handle.

Essential Gear: Adventure Vacation With a Toddler

Backpack Child Carrier

If we could have only brought one piece of gear, it would be a backpack child carrier. Let’s face it — one of the most daunting realities about traveling with toddlers is that they are both very mobile and also want to be carried at the same time. Oh yeah, and they weigh about the same as a 20-pound kettlebell.

Using a backpack child carrier allows you to carry and contain your kiddo with ease. It also allows a great bird’s-eye view for them! For us, the best part about a backpack carrier is that it became a mobile crib. Our little guy would doze off and rest while we continued to explore.

We used The Osprey Poco during airport layover naps, jungle night walks, busing through cities, a coffee and chocolate tour, hiking to waterfalls, and much more.

The Poco carrier comes in a couple of different models, but we found the standard Poco worked best. Functions we appreciated included the built-in sunshade and the storage section within the base. The two grab handles at the top and the easy-to-access kickstand made picking up and setting down the carrier easy.

Don’t skip out on the extra accessories if you can manage it. For us, that meant the Poco Carrying Case. The Poco itself is a bit clunky when not in use, and this case allows you to carry the Poco more easily and check it on your flight!

Travel Tent

Our family took a 10-day road trip in California a couple of months prior to our Costa Rica trip. While the trip was a delight, we went through a pretty dramatic sleep regression. We don’t normally co-sleep, so it was really challenging for all three of us to be in the same room.

We even tried putting the travel crib in the bathroom and small closets, but our little guy wasn’t here for it. For this larger trip, we wanted to set us all up for success, so we brought a tent for the travel crib.

The Slumber Pod is a blackout tent that goes over your travel crib. Or, if you have older kids, they can use it just like a tent. The tent takes about 3 to 5 minutes to set up and is super flexible. Wherever the crib fits, you can put the tent over the crib. There is a main zipper where you have access into the tent, and two small pockets up top.

Food Containers

After several road trips and flights I’ve learned my lesson on food containers: Bring them!

We wasted way too many leftovers because the to-go box didn’t fit in the cooler or was dropped and spilled all over the floor. And a fed baby is a happy baby, am I right?

Having to-go containers allowed us to always have meals and snacks with us. This was essential when a hike or a drive took longer than expected.

The Kleen Kanteen Food Box set came in handy on day one, in the first hour of our trip. We had a 6 a.m. flight, so we grabbed some egg bites and pastries for the three of us right before we boarded. We thought that we’d eat right away once we got settled on the flight, but his nap schedule had other plans.

The egg bites and pastries fit nicely in the food boxes until we were ready for them a couple of hours later. And when it was time to dig in, they weren’t smooshed! Better yet, the food boxes are made of stainless steel so they were still a little warm!

Water Bottles

As a dyed-in-the-wool gear junkie, there is one thing I have a lot of — water bottles. And it is no different for my toddler. For our trip, we actually brought two.

This might seem excessive but it was nice to have a bottle for milk and one for water. That way, we always had access to whichever beverage he wanted (fewer tantrums?).

There are a million different water bottle types, so how do you choose?! For us, we switched to a CamelBak Eddy+ for kids right after we weaned our kiddo off of nursing and bottles. With its well-known “Flip-Bite-Sip” function, it seemed like a natural option. We also received the recommendation from several other parents. We use this bottle for both milk and water, and it’s been great.

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