Baby Carriages on Cobblestones? Trekaroo Makes Family Travel Easy

If you think traveling to Peru with a 4-month-old or to the Bahamas with a gaggle of kids is impossible, you haven't heard of Trekaroo.

A website focused on families sharing their best travel tips with other families, Trekaroo has created a lively nationwide community, helping parents realize that when that first baby comes around, their adventure-filled exploring days aren't over.

“It all started because Brennan and I we were avid travelers before we had kids,” said LiLing Pang, who co-founded the website with her husband, Brennan, and friend, Esther Lee, in Palo Alto. “When we found out we were having our first one, we made a pact and said that we're not going to stop traveling.”

Two months later, the Pang family made their first baby-packed trip out of town—to Houston. When their baby turned 4 months old, they went to Peru and climbed Machu Picchu with him.

That was when “it really hit me how much different life was going to be traveling with kids,” said Pang. “We found ourselves doing a lot more planning. There was a lot more anxiety.”

That's when the three co-founders put their heads together and came up with a solution: Trekaroo. The site launched in August 2009, and today, thousands of users across the United States are sharing family travel tips and answering other users' questions, such as, “How many suitcases does your family take into a hotel on a road trip?” (13 people replied with useful tips within two days).

When you combine kids and travel, you start thinking about strange things, like: Am I going to be able to roll a baby carriage on cobblestones? Or, what can I do in New York City with a 3-year-old?

There are parents out there who have done these things before, and on Trekaroo, you'll find them.

“I use Trekaroo to educate/inspire others. I love writing reviews and including tips that I wish I had known,” wrote Trekaroo user nataliesmom86.

“So many people think travel with babies and toddlers is a disaster waiting to happen, and I enjoy proving them wrong with this website!” (Nataliesmom86 was one of four enthusiastic users who replied to Pang's query, “How are you using Trekaroo?” within hours of her post. To see the continued discussion, click here.)

Aside from the endlessly helpful Trekaroo parent community, the site boasts a few special features, such as the cost and age meters, which allow users doing a destination search to narrow activity results by defining how much they want to spend, or how old their kids are.

Planning a road trip and seeking a fun stopping point? The interactive map allows users to drag the map in the direction they will drive, and destinations along the way—like local zoos or national monuments—will pop up on the map.

Trekaroo is working on iPhone and Android applications for Trekaroo and, in particular, the interactive map. “If you're right in the middle of downtown San Franciso, and you're, like, oh my gosh, I need to find a playground, you can pull out a phone and see playgrounds nearby,” said Pang.

A grassroots effort that was “bootstrapped together," Trekaroo does not receive venture capital funding, but no one is too worried. Advertisers seek out the site for marketing, and new users across the United States are signing up every day (it's free—you just need an email to log in). We're not going international yet, said Pang. The three founders and a few added team members have their hands tied with one country's destinations, alone.

To help expand their reach, designated “destination gurus” help organize reviews of travel destinations in other states. Each month, a few lucky “superoos” get paid vacations to check out travel spots and review them for the site.

“Start-up life is really unique,” said Lee, who first met the Pangs in school at the University of Pennsylvania. "Never in my life have I had a list of things to do that grows faster than I can complete them. I am a travel fanatic, and after having my son, I was totally lost as to where to go. Trekaroo was born out of a selfish need to educate myself with the help of lots of other parents on what fun things are out there for families.”

Lee, who hatched the idea with Pang after they realized that a third of travel is family travel, sees the biggest challenge that lies ahead is getting access to more new parents.

“Every day new parents are being born, and how they find information on family fun is constantly changing as technology evolves,” said Lee, who uses Twitter, Facebook and blogging to market Trekaroo. “We need to make sure that Trekaroo's valuable content is available through the most channels most relevant to parents.”