You can DEFINITELY find care for your kid(s) when traveling!
Perhaps you’re in Paris and you’d really like to have a date night (wine! Good food! A nice dress! No screaming!).
Maybe one of your kids is just driving you so batty and making the trip so un-fun that you wish you could leave them at the hotel tomorrow. They could get some more rest and you could re-set…this is no joke.
Maybe there’s just some amazing exhibit you want to go to that wouldn’t work well for your 2.5 year old.
Really, you don’t need an excuse. There are gagillions of reasons why being able to find babysitters in different cities when you’re traveling can be really good for you and for the kids. Some parents feel guilty – don’t.
Here are some pro tips on finding babysitters:
Find local facebook groups for moms, parents, families, or parents/sitters/nannies. Often these are private groups but you can request to join – and we’ve never been denied. In Facebook, go to “Groups” and search for the city name along with “parents” or “families”, etc. Scroll through the results and play around with your search terms a bit. You’ll know the right groups when you see them! Then ask to join. Once you’ve been admitted, you can post asking for babysitter recommendations or just post the date/time you are interested in and babysitters/nannies in the group will respond. Then do the same level of vetting that you would at home (you can ask for resume, references, etc) …whatever makes you comfortable. Examples of groups we’ve joined: “Whistler Parents”, “English Speaking Parents & Babysitters in Paris” , etc. We have had great success with this. Also, we have found sitters for as soon as the next day; it’s often one of the fastest ways to find a sitter.
Do an internet search for local babysitting agencies. Many cities have companies/agencies that have professional babysitting services. You contact them with your needs and they will match you with a sitter – and their pricing is generally VERY transparent. If you decide to go this way, I’d reach out with plenty of advance notice as most of them aren’t on-demand and would require some lead time. We have found these websites both abroad and in the US and have had no regrets!
Ask your hotel for a recommendation. Some hotels have babysitting services (in which case this is quite easy!), but if they don’t, they may have connections to local sitters.
Ask your tour operator. If you’re on an organized tour, or parts of your trip are organized, ask the organizers! It never hurts; they may have some vetted leads and great connections. You can also ask them before you even leave on your travels.
Use an online babysitter marketplace like Care.com. Care.com is huge in the US and also has a presence abroad too, though it can be more challenging to find the international sites when you’re in the US. If you go here https://www.care.com/en-ca/ (it’s the care.com Canada site), and then scroll down to the very bottom, it will show you the list of other countries and you can select the one you want… (Oddly, the country drop-down doesn’t show up if you’re on the regular US care.com site)
And a few additional things to keep in mind that may/may not be similar to sitters at home:
Be sure you know the rate in the local currency
Make sure you know HOW you will be paying them… cash? Venmo? Credit card? etc
If there are any cultural differences you think might be important to mention, definitely do so
Make sure you know whether they expect you to cover the costs of their transportation (sometimes if you are coming back late and public transportation isn’t running frequently, they may expect you to pay for an Uber/taxi/etc)
Be sure the sitter knows if they’re allowed to take the kids outside, like to a park (the kids will often learn about hidden gems you may never have discovered on your own with them!). And if they can leave, be sure they have a key/way to get back in 🙂
If there are any super important things to your child that a non-native speaker may not know, call those out to her (Ex: if your kid LOVES corn dogs and is going to want one for dinner, for heaven’s sake, tell the babysitter what a corn dog is!)
Best of luck and ENJOY the time you take for yourself!
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