Monday August 12th, 2019 // Afternoon Nap
Current situation: trying to get into Nap Jail but I’m in Fussy Jail instead blaring white noise from my phone and getting stabbed by tiny sharp fingernails.
A couple weeks ago my wife and I started planning a trip for us and our newborn. He’ll be a little more than two months old when we go. We’re nervous but know we have to rip the bandaid off some point because we want to continue our lifestyle of semi-frequent travel.
Pre-baby we averaged one big trip a year that’s roughly 2-3 weeks and usually international. On top of that we general get two smaller trips in each year that are about a week long and are domestic. And we also have a couple long weekend trips mixed in when we can. Almost all of our vacation time is dedicated to traveling.
Asheville is about a 7-8 hour drive from where we live in Virginia. We’ve never been and have heard great things. We’re not super outdoorsy people but there still should be plenty to do for a laid back quick trip with a baby.
Traveling with a baby is unique. We’ve slowly been able to become minimalist travelers — we did France for two weeks last year (while pregnant) with one backpack a person. You can’t quite do that with a baby though. My wife wrote out his packing list and I swear it’s half our house. Good thing we’re driving.
The first question when planning our trip we needed to answer was hotel or Airbnb? I documented my thought process in Part 1. We landed on an Airbnb.
We wanted to stay somewhere we can walk to almost everything and Downtown Asheville near the South Slope Brewing District seemed to be the right spot. It just so happened there was a great looking Airbnb available for a decent price. We pulled the trigger and booked.
The things that sold us were:
- Close to a bunch of the good breweries
- Free parking
- Superhost on Airbnb
- Extra bedroom in case our friend tags along
Besides all the extra gear we need to lug down with us, the other challenge traveling with a baby presents is that we can really only do things in 2-3 hour chunks. He’ll either need to feed, mama will need to pump, we’ll want to get him down for a real nap, need to handle a blowout, yada yada yada. We don’t want to be far from our home base — not yet at least. We’re still new to this whole parenting thing and it’s just as much as a challenge for us as it will be for him.
This means we need lots of things close by. The Funkatorium, Wicked Weed, and Burial are all nearby. We can walk to one or two, head back when we need to, then walk back for dinner or shopping or exploring. Repeat the next day. Worst case scenario is we have a super fussy kid and have to grab to-go beer from Wicked Weed and takeout from somewhere and chill at the Airbnb. I could think of worse evenings.
One day we will venture out to Sierra Nevada. It’s a drive but hopefully the large facility will lend us some privacy for a feeding and diaper change instead of some cramped stall in a downtown restaurant or coffeeshop.
Btw made it to nap jail!!
City Bakery and Vortex Doughnuts seem to be close and should cover breakfast for us. We don’t want to do too much research to save room for spontaneity but we could still use some more baby-friendly restaurants recommendations from Asheville folks / past travelers. Leave us some suggestions below!
Hmm I’m thinking Part 3 should be about the baby packing list. Have you subscribed to get emailed new posts yet?
– Josh // #havekidswilltravel
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