We found that simpler was better. While it’s been well over ten years since we last bought a stroller, we traveled with our daughter in her stroller until she was 11 years old (and in her car seat until 13 years old which we carried through each airport).

While we know nothing of the current range of strollers, our suggestion would be to look for something simple, durable, and safe. Most importantly, we would recommend considering how the stroller can help you travel. When our daughter outgrew her first stroller, I remember we spent a long time looking for a replacement that would be suitable for traveling. We started with a long list of features we wanted for our daughter and ourselves (recline, canopy/hood, compact when folded, etc.) but the more we looked, and later tested, those things became less important. Instead, we found that durability, sturdiness, and simplicity were much better.

We found that the more features, storage, and options a stroller had, the more likely it was they’d become inadequate solutions for certain things and/or excuses to be less organized. We ended up choosing the Maclaren Major which was (is?) very basic – an umbrella type stroller with no canopy, no complex folding, nor attached storage features. While it was the opposite to what we had thought we wanted, once we had tested and asked our daughter if she was comfortable in it (which she was), it made the most sense.

Being a simpler design, it was very sturdy and durable, and along with having less parts, the chances of serious damage was pretty low. It also helped us to minimize what we took with us, and created a consistent and simplified routine where we wouldn’t be resting jackets over it, sliding bags onto the handles, or taking too many things for our daughter which we might drop or misplace. The only storage it had was a basket underneath the seat (which, being a much larger stroller designed for older kids, was quite large). Perhaps most importantly, it was also very safe (obviously all reputable strollers pass safety tests but not all are equal!); the folding mechanism was really solid and the footplate locked the stroller open. It also had a 5-point harness (which, having seen too many kids jump out of strollers, tip them over, etc., we always adjusted and buckled properly. Before she was 9 years old, our daughter was buckling herself in the stroller and reading her book before we’d left the jet bridge!).

It might sound overly simple, but we found that the simpler the stroller, the simpler our luggage, and the simpler the rules, the easier and better traveling became. We always made sure to use her stroller as much as we could through the airport; the only times she wasn’t in it were going through security and getting on and off the plane. That meant we knew she was safe and happy, we knew what we could take with us, and we knew our routine which we could focus on - especially in new places. With a complicated stroller with lots of features, it’s unlikely we could have simplified our traveling as much as we did with a simpler stroller. While a stroller is obviously only one thing of many, thinking about how it can help and simplify things might be a good way to approach your choice.

We were fortunate that our daughter traveled very well (most of the time!), but some kids will obviously not want to sit in a stroller, so it may take some working out what works best for your situation. We hope this helps!