Travel Mad Mum’s Early Family Journey with Baby Esmé

Having a baby changed Karen Edwards and Shaun Bayes's travels, but it did not end their interest in exploring. Their early journey with daughter Esmé became widely shared through Travel Mad Mum, showing a family adapting a familiar love of travel to a new companion.

The photographs in this story belong to that first chapter in the mid-2010s. Esmé was a baby then; the images are not a description of her age today.

A family story, not a requirement

Edwards's Travel Mad Mum website grew from her experience of incorporating family life into travel. The original account described a long journey through parts of Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

That is one way of doing it. A first trip with a baby can also be a short stay near home, a visit to relatives or a few nights in one comfortable base. The length of the journey says little about how enjoyable it will be for the people taking it.

The useful question is not whether you can reproduce another family's itinerary. It is what would make your own day work well somewhere new.

Plan around ordinary needs

Begin with sleeping, feeding, changing and transport. Ask the accommodation about the actual sleeping arrangement and available equipment rather than relying on a general family-friendly label.

Choose a base where an ordinary errand does not require a major expedition. Nearby food shops, a manageable route outdoors and somewhere comfortable to pause can make more difference than an extra attraction.

Pack around the time between reliable opportunities to wash clothes or replenish supplies. Travelling with one bag may suit some families, but it is not a useful competition if it leaves you without what your child needs.

Get advice for your child and destination

Discuss a proposed international trip with a clinician who can consider the child's age, health, vaccinations and route. The CDC's guidance on travel with infants and children emphasises preparation tailored to the journey, including access to care and transport safety.

An account of one baby travelling well cannot establish that another baby is ready for the same destination or activity. It also cannot replace suitable child restraints, safe sleeping arrangements or attentive supervision near water.

With the day's practical needs arranged, leave room for the enjoyable moments together.

Share the experience and the work

If two adults travel together, talk about who handles different tasks and when each person can take a break. Sometimes one adult can enjoy a museum or activity while the other stays with the baby, then swap later.

Leave more unbooked time than you did before parenthood. A pleasant morning followed by a quiet afternoon is a complete holiday day, not a failed itinerary.

Our story of a family exploring by sidecar shows another very individual approach. Borrow the willingness to adapt, then choose your own scale. The first memory worth keeping may be as simple as breakfast together in a new place.

What the family’s account actually describes

Karen Edwards and Shaun Bayes set off with Esmé when she was about ten weeks old, rather than literally travelling from the moment of her birth. The ten-month journey described in the source included Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Later references to another Thailand trip belong to a subsequent stage of their account, not to one continuous itinerary beginning at birth.

The practical changes were substantial: the source describes Shaun leaving work, selling a car and renting out their home. Those details matter because the trip was not simply an ordinary household routine transferred abroad without preparation or cost. The one-backpack image should not obscure the wider arrangements supporting the journey.

Edwards describes taking turns with activities, a practical adjustment that gives both adults a place in the journey. One person's outing can happen while the other cares for the baby, followed by a swap rather than an expectation that everyone does everything together. Her references to meeting other children, local classes and returning home widen the account further. They show family travel as a routine being adapted over time, with ordinary needs and social contact alongside the photographs of new places. That is a more useful idea to borrow than the length of the itinerary or the size of one backpack.

The family’s feeding and vaccination references are personal history, not a general medical plan for other babies. The photographs and quoted experience can show how this family organised its time while leaving individual health and travel decisions to the circumstances of each child. The result is a fuller account of adaptation, not a promise that all families will find the same arrangement easy.