This Big Milestone Means Traveling With Kids Costs More

As a parent, I love traveling with my kids. It's exciting to see new places and show them the world, and I'm always happy to break out the credit cards to buy tickets to someplace we've never been.

However, my trips have become a lot more expensive since my son hit a specific milestone, and my costs will go up even further once my daughter does the same. Here's why my bank account is now getting hit harder with each trip.

Traveling with kids gets more expensive when this happens

Unfortunately, the costs of traveling with children increases substantially once your kids reach the age of two. And there's a simple reason for that.

Children under the age of two are able to fly on an airplane for free, and they are allowed entrance to many places at no cost -- including amusement parks, buffet restaurants, and kids activities like indoor playgrounds.

However, once children turn two, the days of them flying or entering for free are over. You'll have to pay the full cost of a ticket on an airplane, child prices at buffets, and often the full cost of entry at theme parks. Having to buy another ticket can add hundreds of dollars to the cost of a trip -- or even thousands if we're flying someplace far away or doing multiple days at different theme parks.

How you can be prepared for added travel costs

Although it's a bummer that I now have to pay for my son and I'm less than a year away from having to pay for my daughter when we go on trips, I don't want to cut back on my travel. Instead, I'm just preparing for the added expenses associated with this milestone.

I didn't really realize how big of an impact this would have until my son aged out of being free, so I had to make some modifications to my vacation budget on the fly once places started charging for him. This meant changing some of the activities we participated in. We opted for one less day at a theme park on one of our trips, for example, so we could keep our total admission ticket cost close to the same even though we were now buying for one extra person.

But since I'm now well aware of how much extra everything is with an additional ticket, I've increased my budgeted amount for future vacations we'll be going on after my daughter also turns 2 years old. I've made some cuts to my budget in other areas to do this, including dining out less often while we are at home since I would rather be able to enjoy more vacations than eat frequently at local restaurants.

I'll also be looking for more free activities or for more places that don't start charging extra until our kids are three, which will at least buy me some extra time before my costs go up. And we'll be steering clear of buffet restaurants for a while since my kids rarely eat enough to justify the price of a child admission to all-you-can-eat places.

For any parents whose children are facing this upcoming milestone, just be aware of how big of an impact paying for an extra person can have and don't make my mistake in being caught off guard. Start planning ASAP for when the time comes to pay full freight for the youngest members of your family.