Since we had baby #1 in the Washington DC urban area, I will start with discussing the difficulty of having a stroller in a city. As I mentioned before, strollers take up space. Unless you are able to afford a large apartment, floor space is too valuable to waste on storage of a stroller. We did not have a garage for any storage so everything we owned had to be in our 800 square foot apartment unless we wanted rent a storage locker. If you rent a locker, you will get to KEEP paying for that stroller every month as you pay your storage locker fee. Then there is car space if you are travelling. We could only afford to have one car (parking spots can be pricey). It was a Toyota Corolla. We loved that car - manual transmission with great gas mileage. We called her Moya. As much as we loved her, if you are planning on hauling around a big stroller it will take up almost all of your trunk space. Which means you will not have room for anything else. Those parents you see using the strollers had to invest in bigger cars which are gas guzzlers. Which means they probably pay twice as much gas money as we ever did in our Corolla. So, when you pick out your big stroller, think about how you are not only paying for the stroller, but you are paying for square footage in your living space as well as your car.
Next, I am going to talk about using a stroller when using mass transportation. When we lived in DC, we used the busses and metro a lot. Getting a stroller on a bus is awful. Change that, unless you have a fold up one, it is almost impossible. Hard pass. Getting a stroller on the metro was a bit easier. But, if it was crowded other passengers were not always cheerful about giving up space so you could squish in with a stroller. It is difficult to get on and off the metro car quickly with a stroller. Strollers are only allowed on elevators when exiting or entering the station and at times elevators at certain stops would be broken which would mean you would have to switch to a different stop. (Which is absolutely horrible for disabled people!) Then there was also the uncomfortable feeling I always had in crowded spaces that someone could quickly unstrap my baby and walk away with her and disappear into the crowd. Hopefully this gives you an idea that strollers and mass transport do not really go together well.
Still thinking about using a stroller in the city, think about what kind of activities you will be doing if you are a tourist in a city. We discovered that many museums and zoo buildings would not let us enter with a stroller. We had to check it at the front door. Which often meant just leaving the stroller by the door. We would have to unload anything of any value and then carry those items as well as the baby. This does not work well if there is only one parent. Jim learned very quickly how annoying this was because he wandered around the zoo a lot with our daughter. And much like on the metro, other tourists in museums and monuments are not sympathetic to making space for a stroller. Then, if you feel like hopping into a restaurant, good luck finding a restaurant that wants to give you space for your stroller. (And please don't expect them to give you larger seating which is reserved for handicapped persons, that is just rude.)
So, that is what city life can be like. On to why I don't like strollers for more rural pursuits either. As we have mentioned in other places on this blog, our travel is often focused on hiking. It seems like at least once on every one of our trips we see at least one set of parents attempting to hike with a stroller. (On our last trip it was a couple attempting to do the 9 kilometer out and back trail to Stuðlagil Canyon.) It is rare to have a hiking trail paved for strollers. If it is paved, it is called a nature walk and it is usually about 1 kilometer. It will not be a long trail because paving a "trail" is expensive and the parks don't have funding for that. Yes, I am aware this extremely unfair for anyone who is disabled and needs a wheelchair. Our national parks are doing what they can to be accessible, they still have a LONG way to go. Which means they are not accessible for strollers either. You will be able to do some things with a stroller, like walk in to Old Faithful at Yellowstone and maybe around some of the hotpots. You can stroller up to the overlook at Mount Rushmore. But, the trails at Gettysburg will not happen with a stroller. If you want to actually do REAL hiking and REALLY get into our national parks, you must ditch the stroller.
Ok, so what are you supposed to do once you have recognized that a fancy stroller is a waste of your money and space and is not an asset when travelling? You do baby carriers and baby backpacks. They are amazing. Fortunately, we have a blog post about them. Baby Carriers and Backpacks
If you have read all the way to here, I do want to add a caveat. Or two. The experiences I am speaking of are of us travelling with ONE baby. If you have multiples, you are in a whole other world than me. I have absolutely no experience travelling with twins or triplets and I will just admit that any parent of multiples deserves the title "Master of Parenting". You win. You have different skill sets than I and your children have different needs than mine. This also goes for any parent of a child with special needs.
My other caveat is that if you are a runner I guess I could see wanting a running stroller. Neither Jim or I are avid runners. Maybe we would have run if had a running stroller. We will never know. We bought a treadmill instead and put a baby fence around it. And put up a TV over the treadmill so I can watch Buffy and Angel episodes while I run. So much better than a stroller.
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