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The holiday season is nearly upon us and for many families that means driving up and down the country to visit friends and relatives. If you’ve got young children you’ll know how important it is to use a proper booster seat to keep them safe and comfy, but hauling a bulky chair in and out of cars and taxis can be a massive hassle.
That’s where our Trunki BoostApak comes in handy. It’s super lightweight and doubles as a portable rucksack, perfect for carrying all those Christmas presents in! ;-)
We asked one of our favourite parenting and lifestyle bloggers, Mary Proctor, to put it through it’s paces and share her tips for hassle free Christmas travel. You can also WIN a BoostApak for your family over on her blog now.
Mary is a 40 something mum to a five year old son who writes about parenting, lifestyle and travel over at her blog Over 40 and a Mum to One. With a passion for reading, nature and history, she shares family adventures as well as thoughts on books, toys and games.
In her own words, “I love sharing my own passions with my son. Writing on my blog has given me the opportunity to share our experiences with a wider audience. Whether it be talking about my son and I as we both learn to swim, the trauma of miscarriage or the glee of jumping in muddy puddles on a nature walk-if it happens to us, I talk about it; the good, the bad and the norm!”
Top tips to take the hassle out of family car trips this Christmas!
Like many people today, we live far away from family and friends. I have friends spread across the country and parents living in Spain. So over the Christmas period we’re often found packing up the car and setting off to enjoy new adventures with our nearest and dearest.
These days when we travel to Spain we normally fly and now that my son is a bit older, we usually take our own car seat with us. Of course, it goes in the aircraft hold and it’s not always so carefully handled as I would like. More stress! Will it arrive on the carousel? Will it be in one piece when it does appear?
Now, I don’t need to stress any longer about car seats when travelling abroad! Because we have the BoostApak, which is great. We can use it as a backpack as part of our hand luggage and fill it with toys, books and colouring pencils to keep my son amused on our flights. Then on arrival we can just set the BoostApak up in our hire car and quickly be on our way. It’s so quick to fit and I know exactly where it’s been – no more stress. It also makes my husband rather happy as it’s going to be saving us a fortune in hire costs over the coming years! I’ve found it really comfortable to wear, and as my son gets older he’ll be able to carry it himself.
Back on home turf we’ve been putting the BoostApak through it’s paces in different cars as we’ve been out and about. It fits as well in my little hatchback car as it does in my husbands’ large 4×4. No rocket science is needed to install it either, you literally put the base on your car seat, loosen the velcro fasteners and pull the back support back against your car seat and unfold the two green arms until they click into place. Literally seconds, which in this family is ideal as my husband is always running late. All you need to do then is fit the adjustable seatbelt support strap and the BoostApak is ready to take a young adventurer out and about.
I love the flexibility that having the BoostApak with us this Christmas means. If we’re going out with friends and my son wants to travel with his best buddy, he can. It’s no longer a hassle to transfer a car seat from one car to another. This also comes into it’s own if my son is going for a sleepover. I’ll be able to leave my son with his BoostApak and know that he can be easily brought home the next day; again, without the need to transfer a big, bulky car seat. It’s great for family member’s whose own children have long since flown the nest! He can also take his own familiar toys along for the ride too – the BoostApak covers it all.
This new found freedom works two ways. My son has been desperate for his best friend to have a sleepover during the holidays, and then join us on an adventure the next day. So now there’ll be no need for the boy’s Mum to leave her car seat, we are sorted! Roll on Christmas adventures!
The flexibility of the BoostApak also means that eating out is covered too. We sometimes find that my son isn’t quite big enough to feel comfortable sitting at a dining table. Not only can our BoostApak be used in the car, but it also works really well at the dinner table and will come in very handy when we visit family on Boxing Day this year. Perfect.
If you want to win a Trunki BoostApak for your family, don’t forget to head over to the Over 40 and Mum to One blog now!