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Inflatable Bathtub Good Baby Travel Gear

SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- When my wife insisted that we needed to to carry a bathtub for our infant daughter when traveling, I initially took her to be nuts. We are travelers, how are we going to carry a bathtub? My my wife figured it out: we would get an inflatable tub. I grudging agreed. Though [...]

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SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- When my wife insisted that we needed to to carry a bathtub for our infant daughter when traveling, I initially took her to be nuts.

We are travelers, how are we going to carry a bathtub?

My my wife figured it out: we would get an inflatable tub.

I grudging agreed.

Though now that we have been easily bathing our daughter in it almost daily for the past three and a half months, it is apparent that my wife’s clearity of vision has paid off.

I cannot imagine how we would have bathed Petra under other circumstances: in the dirty hotel sinks? Holding her in the shower? Throwing her in the sewage contaminated lake?

There would be few other acceptable options.

inflatable bathtub

Inflatable Bathtub Good Baby Travel Gear

A large part of traveling long term is figuring out how to keep your self clean for very little money. I wash my clothes by hand in the shower whenever I wash my body, I make sure that I at least somewhat abide by the laws of hygine. The same should go for my baby.

I don’t want a dirty baby. It is amazing how much dirt, grit, and grim such a little biological entity can acquire throughout a day of travel. It is my impressions that babies not only collect dirt, but they have some secret capacity for manufacturing it themselves. Babies are like lint rollers, their skin is soft and sticky, they suck up every particle of dust and dirt that gets near them — their little fat creases and crevices are repositories for grit, hair, half chewed food, anything small enough to fit in them. Babies need to be bathed regularly, especially when traveling.

When we move, the tub can be deflated and rolled up and stuffed into one of our backpacks.

Petra also likes to swim.

If we did not carry the blow up tub, we would have another parameter to meet when choosing a room: is there a place for Petra to bath effectively and comfortably? Each additional parameter in travel is another level of expense. The person who has few needs or wants is a cheap traveler, the more you need or want to be comfortable dictates how much travel will cost. If I wanted a queen sized bed, a quiet room, clean bathrooms, a balcony, and room service then I would be spending hundreds of dollars a day to travel. But I know that I do not have these parameters — so I can live comfortably in a $4 room. Traveling with a baby presents new parameters, new levels of expense, to my travel strategy — I now need to either carry what Petra needs, buy it at each stop, or find ammenities that provide it for us. By carrying the blow up tub, I do not need to seek out and pay for rooms that have proper bathing facilities, I have one less parameter to meet when traveling the world.

The blow up bath tub turned out to be a piece of essential baby travel gear.

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Filed under: Travel Gear | Mommy Travel Blog

Filed under: Travel Gear, Travel With Family

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3699 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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3 comments… add one

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  • Bob L May 18, 2010, 4:22 pm

    Never, but NEVER question a woman’s judgement.

    Bob L

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  • Samui Guy March 22, 2011, 11:50 pm

    There is nothing more useful when traveling with an infant than an easy to carry bathtub, and I think with your inflatable solution you’ve hit the jackpot. My wife and I used to buy cheap plastic tubs wherever we happened to be stopping, but this is a much more preferable solution!

    Regards,
    Simon
    Samui Hotels

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