The Solo-Mom-of-a-Teen International Travel Checklist (Annotated)

My actual checklist for international travel with a teenager, with footnotes on why each item is there — usually because something specific went wrong, once, that I am not getting over.

By Emily Rosen·

This is the checklist I actually use. It lives in a Notes file called “TRAVEL (real)” and I edit it on the plane home from every trip, while the trauma is still fresh. Every item is here because of something specific.

Sharing it for the other moms flying solo with a teenager who would prefer to learn from someone else’s mistakes. The footnotes are the part you came for.

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Documents (6 weeks out)

  • Check both passport expiration dates. Most countries require 6 months past your return date. Lila’s expired in 2022 and I found out the same week we were leaving for Stockholm. There is a passport agency in Manhattan that can do same-day if you cry just enough.
  • Notarized consent letter from the other parent. Jayson and I have a standing one, updated every six months. The one time I forget it, we will be questioned.
  • Two physical copies of the passport data page. One in my bag, one in hers. The Madrid pickpocket incident, which I will not discuss.
  • Email yourself trip confirmation, hotel address, consulate phone number. Subject: TRIP — COUNTRY — DATES. For when your phone is at 4% with no WiFi.
Window-seat ritual. Pretending to read. Actually thinking about whether I packed the consent letter.

Money and phones (2 weeks out)

  • Call the cards and the bank. The app is wrong thirty percent of the time. I learned this in a Rome ATM at 11pm with Renato politely pretending he wasn’t watching me have a meltdown.
  • Lila as authorized user on one card. $300 monthly limit. Saved me twice when we got separated in a museum gift shop.
  • $100 USD in local currency before you leave. Kept in a small envelope inside the eBags cube with the passports. For the cab when the arrivals ATM is broken.
  • International plan on both phones. Verizon TravelPass. $10/day. The price of not being tired.

The carry-on, sacred

The principle: if the checked bag goes to a different country than I do, I need to survive 36 hours on what is in this bag. That has happened twice, once on the way to a 14th-birthday trip. I do not recommend it as a parenting experience.

  • Both passports. In a zippered inner pocket. I check seven times between the Uber and the gate.
  • One full change of clothes for each of us. Lila’s lives at the bottom of her backpack and is not optional.
  • All medications. Including her allergy meds, which she will accuse me of being paranoid about and then need at hour three.
  • Anker PowerCore + three cables. Two lightning, one USB-C. One gets left at security. One will not work for unclear reasons. The third saves your life.
  • Sony WH-CH520 headphones. Survive being shoved into a seatback pocket.
  • Loop Quiet earplugs, because if there is a screaming infant in row 22 I would like to be the parent I want to be in Paris.
  • Snacks. Nuts, pretzels, two Kind bars, the emergency Clif bar that lives in the inner pocket and gets rotated out every six months.
The systems pouch. Cables, adapter, power bank. Lila calls it the brick.

The checked bag

  • Béis weekender, packed flat inside the suitcase. For the inevitable moment Lila buys a tour hoodie that doubles the volume of her bag.
  • An AirTag in each checked bag. The Madrid incident involved one doing its job in a way I will be grateful for forever.
  • Travel adapter with multiple USB ports. The European hotel will have one outlet behind a piece of furniture.
  • Flat shoes for me. Even on a beach trip. There is always a cobblestone.
  • Compression socks for the flight back. Learned from my friend Astrid, who is Swedish and a tennis coach and the most efficient person I have ever met. Not optional.
Arrival shot in Paris. Bag is intact. AirTag is pinging. We are functional.

The teenager-specific section

  • Her own zip pouch for documents. Lila keeps her passport on her body in a small crossbody from gate to customs, then hands it back to me.
  • Period supplies. The first time we traveled after she started, we were not prepared for the time-zone shift to mess with her cycle. I now pack a ziplock for both of us.
  • Cash for her. 20 euros or 20 pounds in her own pocket. If we get separated, she can buy water and a metro card. She thinks it is overkill. She will be grateful at twenty-four.
The little pouch. The little crossbody. The fourteen-year-old who is more competent than I was at twenty-four.

Booking

Hotel goes on the list when we book the flights. I default to Booking.com for the free-cancellation rates — used three times in the last eighteen months. Always two beds, even though Lila ends up in mine around 4am the first night, jet-lagged and quietly furious about it.

The list exists not because travel needs to be a spreadsheet. It exists because traveling solo with a teenager is essentially traveling for two people who are both me, except one is fourteen and will lose her phone in a museum gift shop. If you steal one line, steal the second charging cable. If you steal two, the AirTag in the checked bag. If you steal all of it, send me a postcard, ideally with a stamp she can stick in her journal next to the boarding pass she insisted on saving.