When our first daughter was born last April, we saw a rare window in our lives when we could travel a lot and get our baby some passport stamps before she turned 1.

My wife was on maternity leave for a year, and I was about to leave my full-time job to start a company that would allow me to work from anywhere (at least during the setup phase).

So, we set ourselves the very vague and quite ambitious goal of visiting 10 countries with our daughter before her first birthday.

As soon as we register your birth and take a half-adequate photograph, we apply for a child passport. At that time he was about 14 days old.

We waited until he was a month old and then our journey began.

Our trips were off to a great start, especially when we limited ourselves to short flights.

We started off easy by booking a single night at an inn in the English countryside just over an hour’s drive from our house. Before moving forward, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could stay in a hotel with a baby and live to tell the tale.

With the exception of a small spit on an expensive green velvet sofa, the stay was a success. We even managed to enjoy a tasty lunch outside while the baby slept in his stroller, and a much-needed massage for my wife just before heading out.

The next big challenge was trying to fly with a baby, something we were quite worried about.

When he was two months old, we boarded a roughly two-hour flight from London to Pisa, Italy. It was surprisingly easy, as he slept practically the entire way. My wife fed her during takeoff and landing to help our daughter’s ears adjust to the pressure.

After realizing that relatively short flights were a good fit, we booked a trip from London to the Isle of Man to introduce our little one to some of our friends and family. The one hour flight was very easy and we stayed with my mother after landing.

In October we traveled to the island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands of Spain. Once again, the short flight (just under three hours) wasn’t bad.

On all of these flights we also saved money by only needing two plane tickets instead of three, since our baby could sit on one of our laps. Packing a few essentials also really helped us make these trips go more smoothly.

A blackout bassinet cover, for example, allowed our little one to sleep in complete darkness in his stroller on brighter days, while a portable sound machine blocked out background noise.

On our longest trip yet, our luck seemed to run out.

After a successful holiday in Europe, we decided to embark on a big trip to Australia, which is half a world away from our home in the UK. The trip lasted five weeks and took place when our daughter was about 8 months old.

The first leg of the trip from London to Singapore (a 13-hour red-eye flight) was an absolute nightmare. We had booked business class seats with our airline miles in hopes of getting some sleep.

But when we boarded the plane, the bassinet the airline provided our daughter looked more like a car seat than a cot or crib, and we couldn’t put an opaque cover on it for safety reasons.

We instantly knew he wasn’t going to sleep well and we were right. It was a somber flight and we were all ready to rush off the plane when we arrived in Singapore. Except we couldn’t.

A huge storm hit Singapore’s famous Changi Airport just as we were preparing to land and plans changed.

We circled around once or twice and then the pilot told us he was diverting the plane to Kuala Lumpur. The weather in the area meant a bumpy ride, so the seat belt signs were on and our daughter was on my wife’s lap.

We sat on the tarmac in Kuala Lumpur for about an hour, waited out the time, and then headed back to Singapore.

The 13 hour flight turned out to be more like 17 hours, and there may have been a diaper malfunction at some point, but I’ll spare you the details.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip was much calmer.

In Singapore, we attended a Jurassic Park exhibition in the iconic Cloud Forest, strolled through the famous Raffles Hotel, took a river cruise, and visited the large Aquarium on Sentosa Island.

In Australia we visited Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. We loved watching our daughter learn about the local wildlife and play with our friends and family.

Our flight home was via Doha with Qatar Airways. We used airline miles, which meant we could afford to fly on a business flight on the 14-hour leg from Melbourne to Doha.

It was much smoother than the other long flights we have taken. And when we got home, we were ready to continue traveling.

We finish our first year of life with 8 countries

We were on track to reach 11 countries by the time our daughter turned 1 until global conflicts led us to cancel one of our longest trips. So while we technically didn’t reach our goal of 10 countries, we came close.

Traveling so much is a challenge for a baby, but we hope that one day he will thank us for all the stamps in his passport – he has many more than other babies we know.

We are interested in you growing up meeting people from as many different ethnicities, cultures and countries as possible. And while she won’t remember any of these trips, we certainly do.

These trips were difficult at times and some parts of them were pure chaos, but we would do it all again. Maybe we can see 20 countries with her when she’s 2 years old.

However, I hope we do fewer long distance trips between the ages of 1 and 3 since our daughter runs around a lot more. It’s hard to imagine trying to contain her for more than a couple of hours.

That said, we’re already planning to fly to St. Lucia in economy class in January and travel to Australia for a wedding in 2028. So if anyone has any advice on flying with young kids, I’m all ears.