I’m a sucker for gadgets that claim to make your life easier… and that goes double for products that claim to make traveling with children easier. So recently, as I was traveling through an airport and saw a child sitting in a folding chair attached to a suitcase being pulled by her mother, I immediately said, “I need one of those.” I didn’t get the chance to track the mother down so instead I spent weeks trying to find the product online. I finally found it on a website featuring baby specialty products.
For all you mothers with small children planning a trip through an airport, train station or bus terminal, here is an item you might want to consider purchasing. It is called the “Ride-On Carry-On” and it allows you to turn your suitcase into a stroller. It’s basically a little red chair (it looks like a lawn chair with armrests) that straps on to any 18”-22” high suitcase with wheels. (The standard carry-on suitcase with wheels–you know the ones that practically every traveler owns.) The chair comes with a five-point harness, similar to the ones found on carseats for toddlers. This way you can navigate through busy airport foot traffic without worrying that your child is going to fall out. You can also tilt or stand the suitcase up and the chair and your child will stay attached.
Another nice feature is that the chair’s removable headrest doubles as a tray table. Which means that when you aren’t on the move your child has a place to put her snacks and a drink or she can use it as a table for reading, coloring or drawing. The chair holds up to 40 pounds and folds flat to fit in an airplane’s overhead bin. It retails for about $40. My two–year-old daughter is small for her age and doesn’t quite fit into it yet, so I haven’t been able to take it for a test run. The only drawback is that in a really crowded area, navigating may be a little challenging, since it cannot pivot the same way a stroller can. Otherwise, it fits on my suitcase perfectly, and I look forward to seeing if it really makes traveling with a child easier.