Hello, world! Welcome to our blog! We are excited to share with you our passion for traveling with kids and the ways we try to savor life, both home and away.

So what inspired this blog? Tyler and I have loved travel since the beginning of our relationship and enjoyed many trips together before kids. There are so many elements of travel that we love, especially experiencing other cultures, expanding our worldview, and just getting out of our daily routine and living in the moment. As we started to grow our family, we made a promise to ourselves to continue traveling and not only keep this important passion alive, but also share it with our kids. What we did not expect was how, like many things, our perspective on travel would change after kids — and for the better.

After a few domestic trips during our daughter’s first year, we were thrilled to book our first big trip with her at 14 months old — a 10-day trip to Italy. We started by choosing a low season for travel — February — to avoid the crowds (and score on cheap airline tickets). Rather than packing a full itinerary of multiple cities and sights, we decided to take a much calmer approach. We poured through Rick Steves’ Italy travel guide looking for a not-too-big but not-too-small city within driving distance of the Rome airport. We landed on the quaint hilltop town of Orvieto, in the Umbria region, just an hour-and-40-minute drive from Rome Fiumicino. Our plan was to take it slow and keep it simple.

This new slow-and-simple mode of travel was a game-changer, and enjoying it with our daughter, together as a family, was nothing short of magical. We meandered through the streets of Orvieto. We stopped for cappuccini and treats as our hearts desired. We connected with locals (a baby is a wonderful icebreaker!). We shopped for local produce and groceries at the market, and cooked them back at our apartment. We relaxed while our daughter napped. We took drives around the countryside and to nearby towns, sometimes with a destination in mind and sometimes not. And of course, we enjoyed some vino.

This change of mindset from doing as much as possible to just being was the key to unlocking an unforgettable experience and a new mode of travel. It is the MO we have carried forward to all of our travels since. It is our best (not so) secret tip for traveling with kids, allowing travel that is deeply fulfilling rather than stressful (at least on balance!). And best of all, it has also shown us a richer way of living at home as well.

We look forward to sharing more with you here about our adventures, both near and far, and tips that we’ve learned for making travel with kids as smooth as possible. It is our hope to inspire more families to explore and travel, and to connect with and learn from other families with the travel bug too.

Travel well!

– Carly
The Holstein Family

P.S. What’s with the name “La Mucca Family”, you might ask? It is an homage to our favorite place to visit, Italy. “La Mucca” is “cow” in Italian, and “Holstein” is a type of cow. There you have it. 🙂