The Cost of Taking a Toddler to Mallorca
Every dollar spent + the anxiety tax paid
What do you get when you combine a toddler mom who works full-time in media sales, a years-long fascination with the Financial Independence movement, and a desire to travel that can not be squelched by the addition of a child to the equation?
Answer: someone who tracks their hard-earned travel expenses meticulously and is not afraid to talk about them.
Today, you are the beneficiaries of my down-to-the-dollar expense tracking.
This newsletter will summarize all of the money we spent to travel from California to an island off the coast of Spain with a 16 month old.
Why? There simply is not enough information available about the cost of travel after adding another person to the itinerary.
Other parents will certainly spend more, and some less, than we did. That’s great. My only hope is that this information helps to put into context the type of trip we had for the amount that it cost to pull it off.
So that we can continue to shed light on the realities of traveling as a new family.
As you will see, sometimes I pay what I’ve deemed an Anxiety Tax…
These are expenses that would not be considered 100% necessary, but that I personally incur to appease my postpartum anxiety and to mitigate some concerns that come along with traveling with a young child.
Maybe you can relate :)
The Basics
Who Went: Mom, dad, toddler (16 months)
Timing: late September - early October 2023
Trip Location: Mallorca, Spain
Reason for Trip: Family Vacation
Trip Length: 9 nights in accommodations + 2 travel days
Outbound Flights: British Airways - Los Angeles to London (10 hours) + London to Palma (2.5 hours)
Inbound Flights: Iberia - Palma to Madrid (1.5 hours) + Madrid to Los Angeles (12 hours).
Expenses Paid Before Trip
Flights [$5,259]
Our rule: on flights over three hours, we buy our toddler her own seat.
Though she was technically lap-infant eligible under two years old, and would have cost a fraction of the price by flying as a lap infant (usually 10% of the ticket for international carriers), the additional space and security of traveling with her car seat is well worth it for us at this stage.
Attempting to hold our active toddler on a 12 hour flight would have been impossible.
Plus, we needed her car seat for the rental car upon arrival and I felt more comfortable having it with us rather than the possibility of it getting banged around in the checked luggage.
Even so, I was not happy with this flight price. It was much higher than anticipated . A few factors ultimately played into this:
Booked 3 months in advance. With heightened flight prices this summer, we should have booked much farther in advance but, you know, parent life. We actually saw the prices increase by almost $1,000 in the weeks leading up to deciding where we would go on this trip. I had to call British Airways to book the flights over the phone as it was not possible to add a child to the itinerary online and when they put me on hold, the agent legitimately said “Well, the prices could increase while you wait.”
Flew economy. We almost always fly economy. This helps dampen the blow of paying for a third seat. I see the value of other flight classes but my husband does not, so I compromise on this.
Paid to book our seats in advance, which was around $50 per seat (included in the total above). Anxiety Tax: the airlines could not guarantee that we would be seated together without pre-booking seats and I was not willing to leave this up to chance for such long flights.
Accommodations [$3,108 total, $345 per night]
When comparing hotel options, in which the three of us would share a single room or small suite, with Airbnb options, where we could have an entire home to ourselves, Airbnb won out.
I found a simple Airbnb apartment with three bedrooms (one for us, one for Mila, one for our friends who were meeting us halfway through the trip), two bathrooms, a full kitchen, laundry, dining area, living room, and large outdoor space.
From the second floor view it felt like we were on top of the Mediterranean Sea.
I would not describe the Airbnb as luxury, though it was child-friendly, well located and highly functional. Not only would we love to return to Mallorca, but we would choose to stay in this same exact Airbnb again.
Prior to the trip I was able to negotiate a discount, which got the price down to about half of what we would have paid for a hotel on the island.
Rental Car [$520]
Picked up upon arrival in Palma Airport, this small SUV was well-suited for our trip and the amount of luggage we had.
In retrospect though, a smaller car would have been advantageous. Parking in Mallorcan towns is very tight, not to mention the challenge of driving an SUV through tiny ancient streets.
We rented from Sixt which was a positive experience, except when the desk agent attempted to upsell us into an even larger vehicle - which would have exacerbated the parking problem!
Toddler Passport [$195]
The passport cost breaks down to:
$100 application fee
$35 acceptance fee
$60 expedited service
With expedited service over the summer, it took exactly 9 weeks for Mila’s first passport to arrive.
Anxiety Tax: there is a chance her passport would have come in time (we applied 12 weeks before the trip and processing times are 10-13 weeks) but I did not want to risk it and therefore paid to expedite.
Airport Parking [$163]
We live one hour from LAX. Typically, we prefer to drive there and park the car in a nearby lot instead of dealing with Uber.
Travel Medical Insurance [$90]
This entire section is Anxiety Tax! While I found traveling with a 16 month old to be easier than earlier ages due in part to her higher level of confidence with eating (less choking risk) and a stronger immune system, I still fear the possibility of something unpredictable happening on the road.
To mediate this, I decided to acquire Travel Medical Insurance for the three of us which included coverage such as virtual access to a medical team 24/7 and, for the unlikely but financially crippling worst case scenario, coverage for medical evacuation.
Expenses Paid On Trip
Eating Out [$924]
Our routine was to eat breakfast at home, get coffee out, eat lunch out most days and eat dinner out every day. With some gelato thrown in there.
In an upcoming newsletter I will share all of our restaurant and activity recommendations for the area.
Shopping [$260]
A glass bud vase, a large tin of Mallorcan olive oil, a handcrafted ceramic bowl, a little sheep for Mila, a children’s book written in Catalan, and a logo sweatshirt from a local shop all came home with us to California.
I could not resist a small shopping spree at de moniö, a unique little store & coffee shop that I had been eyeing online for weeks leading up to the trip.
Groceries [$176]
We made two big trips to Eroski, the local supermarket chain, and a few side trips to local markets for one-off items.
This included food as well as baby items like wipes & diapers and personal care items like shampoo and hand soap which, unfortunately, the Airbnb lacked.
Beaches [$90]
In Mallorca, as with many Mediterranean destinations, beach access is free but you can rent lounge chairs and umbrellas from the local municipality which we did several times. Also, we had to pay for some beach parking.
Gas [$69]
Just one fill-up, our 6am visit to the gas station near Palma Airport before returning the rental car.
Cash [$38]
Our cash reserves started with $85 worth of Euros left over from my last trip to Greece.
I fully expected that we’d need to take out more cash while we were in Mallorca but every place, even the local beach chair guys with their tappable machines, accepted credit cards.
While I can’t remember exactly what this was spent on, I came home with $47 worth of Euros so some cash was used!
Total [$10,892]
The breakdown:
Not included in the total?
All of the gear. This includes travel stroller, car seat, pack & play and many more items which are additional costs to the other trip expenses.
Gear costs are highly variable depending on the products you choose and which items are already provided at the destination.
Also, the cost of gear is amortized over many uses, not just a single trip, therefore I did not include it here.
For more on the gear we travel with, you can read here.
Still to come on Carry On; vote below!
Thanks for reading!
p.s. you can always see all posts on the website