Visiting Haiti With A Toddler In 2025
We received ALL the questions leading up to our trip to Haiti as a family in October. Mostly well meaning, worried about mine and my daughter’s safety and comfort. Along with a few nosey questions and negative comments.
I understand where those concerns come from. After all, Haiti is a very disturbed country in recent years. However, my husband and I feel it is important for our daughter Nelinah to grow up knowing her heritage, Haitian family, and second culture. We want her to be comfortable in Haiti. To know what Haiti life is like. And to be able to adapt well to life there if doors open for us to move back while she is still young.
So, we weighed the risks, made a plan, and we got on a plane. It was such an amazing trip. This was our experience taking our toddler to Haiti in 2025.
Travel Missouri - Cap Haitien Haiti
We are so thankful that Nelinah did really well on the flights! She rocked her first airport experience and did not make a fuss even when her sleep was disrupted the whole two days of travel. Because there are only morning flights to Haiti in 2025 for security reasons it’s not possible to make it to Haiti from Missouri in one day though it’s only a 2 hour flight from Florida!
Thanks to a friend we were able to stay the night in a hotel in Miami and get at least a few hours of sleep before flying out early the next morning. I’d only ever slept on the airport floor in all my 8 years of traveling. But the hotel was a life saver when traveling with a little one!
Travel Cap Haitien - Hinche
Local transportation was the BIGGEST headache of the whole trip. We had so many issues with borrowed vehicles breaking down. Not being able to find a reasonable rental. Expensive taxi rides and mechanic fees. Transportation nearly ate up our entire personal budget for the trip and caused a ton of stress. For just 8 days transportation fees totaled more than $2,000!
Obviously taking motorcycles everywhere is not possible with an infant. Because of the security situation tinted vehicles are a must for main roads! The dust and rain are also factors that make more affordable motorcycle taxis a non option. This was a big difference, going from just the two of us taking whatever transport we could find, to having our daughter with us and having to consider more pricy options.
The only road from Cap to Hinche was in HORRIBLE condition! It has gotten worse these days than I have ever seen it. Very washed out, muddy, and unimaginably bumpy. After a vehicle delay putting us on the road in the afternoon we had to make up time and go faster than I would have liked.
We expected our daughter to be unwell the following days after being bounced and thrown around for over four hours on that road. But, she was very resilient and bounced right back quicker than we did!
We finally got to Hinche and settled into a hotel around 8pm, long after dark. She fell right asleep and slept through the night, which she never does at home!
Five Nights In Hinche
Because we had so much trouble with transportation and the two vehicles we had planned to use to get around the town were both at mechanics the baby and I spent more time at the hotel than planned. My sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law spent all five days with us getting to know their niece.
We ate local food and visited with friends while Nelson was out taking care of ministry activities. Including; meeting up with our sponsor students who had relocated there, paying school fees, bringing relief funds to a few families in desperate need, and planning for the rest of the further away projects that he took care of after the baby and I were safely back in the US.
We did get to take a trip out to the countryside which we weren’t planning on initially because it is only 20 minutes from gang territory. We went out to Chevri to see the rest of our family who weren’t able to all make it into town. We didn’t want to go all that way (to Haiti) only to not see everyone. It was a sweet visit. I was also able to check in with the church we have been helping to construct their new building, which was so great.
Nelinah loved every minute of our time in Hinche. She was so excited about the food and ate everything! She let everyone hold her without being scared or fussing a single time! And she got to experience a few rustic Haitian experiences that she enjoyed; a kivet bath, drinking from a water bag, riding a moto andeyo, and being carried across a river.
While out in Chevri we were in a motorcycle crash, thankfully I was the only one hurt, sustaining a muffler burn on my leg. The baby was ok, we were so grateful and relieved! It was definitely one of the scarier moments of our trip.
Three Nights in Cap Haitien
On return we stayed at the Trois Rois hotel in Cap Haitien. This lesser known gem is an old and beautiful building on the ocean. They are expanding it at the moment to nearly double in size. While it doesn’t have as much beach as some of the other resorts in Cap and has only two breakfast options each morning while other hotels might have 4 or 5. It was perfect for our needs and a little cheaper than other options.
It is only 15 minutes from the airport and just a few minutes from boulevard, which is the city’s center. The staff was very friendly and Nelinah warmed up to them right away. The ocean was clean and warm with small waves in the mornings. This was our first time by the ocean as a family of 3. One of our biggest desires was to take our daughter to the beach in Haiti.
While staying in Cap we also took a day trip to visit the Citadel, the largest old war fort in Haiti. Built in the 1790’s this fort stands on the second tallest mountain in Haiti overlooking miles and miles of land in all directions. The fort played a large roll in Haiti’s fight for independence and was built by Haiti’s slave turned king, Heri Christophe.
Riding a horse up and down the steep stone roads to the mountain top was one of Nelinah’s highlights. On top of the fort she kept posing for pictures and saying “cheese” with a big grin. Everyone got a kick out of the little American-Haitian.
Leaving Haiti
Nelson stayed behind in Haiti for an additional two weeks while Nelinah and I headed home. Travel went smoothly. We left Cap Haitien around 3pm and pulled in our driveway around 1am the next morning. I found out that traveling alone with a toddler is pretty exhausting and travel as a family is much easier! But overall it was a pleasant experience.
Everyone in the Haiti airport were really helpful letting me take the front of lines and keeping an eye on my luggage. I was the only traveling with a little one in the entire airport!
Traveling to Haiti With A Toddler
At the end of this trip looking back there were a lot of things I am glad I thought of and a few I wish I’d done. I want to share with you in hopes that it might be helpful for those of you who aren’t able to be in Haiti right now but want to visit with young children. Here are some recommendations and tips.
Stay In One Place as Much as Possible
Getting from area to area was the biggest challenge of our trip. Unless you have your own vehicle, transportation in Haiti has become increasingly difficult. The less bumpy car rides with littles, the better! In the future, if things aren’t improved and we take our daughter down to Haiti we will probably just stay in Cap Haitien and send a vehicle to bring our family to visit us rather than going to them. Unless we are able to partner with the missionary airline that can drop us at the Pignon airport, which is past all the rough roads between Cap and Hinche.
Bring a Convertible Carseat Stroller
Since our daughter is under 2 it was really helpful having her Douna carseat. Not only were we able to push her in it through the whole airport, she was able to take naps in it, and we also strapped it in to all the vehicles to add extra safety and comfort on rides.
Download Some Cartoons
Having to stay indoors a lot of the time for the first few days of our trip for security reasons, I was glad that I had downloaded a few episodes of a wholesome cartoon on my laptop. Though I don’t often play cartoons for Nelinah at home, it was a good way to entertain her in the afternoons when we couldn’t take our usual evening walk.
Bring Enough Diapers
While diapers can be purchased on the streets in Haiti, they are quite expensive. Additionally, you won’t always find good brands and a lot of them tend to be a sort of plasticy material that I don’t prefer to use on sensitive skin. I brought almost enough diapers. When I ran out on the last day we bought a few for the trip home. They were $1 each if bought by the piece from a street vender.
Let Them Have Experiences
The whole point of bringing our daughter to Haiti was to give her a glimpse of her second culture. So we did not treat her like an American tourist and let her do what other Haitian kids around were doing. We did not bring American food besides a few airport snacks and gave her all the local foods (she really enjoyed the food!). We let her drink water bags. Took her on a horseback ride and to swim in the ocean. Let her talk to and be held by strangers if she went to them. She even got to ride a motorcycle, though we limited that to when we were far out in the countryside. All that to say I think it is such a beautiful thing when traveling with toddlers to let them have experiences and not keep them in an American bubble when overseas.
Bring Mosquito Repellent
This is one that we did not do and wish we would have! I have never used bug spray in Haiti. I always preferred to stick out the mosquitoes and forgo spraying chemicals on my skin. However, since this was Nelinah’s first exposer to tropical mosquitoes she got covered in bites. They ate her alive despite sleeping with a fan every night and her dad and I getting very few bites. I wish I had found a natural repellent and brought it for her. Poor thing!
Budget for Extra Expenses
Traveling with a toddler made for much more unexpected expenses than traveling alone ever did. In the future I would budget in an extra $400-$500 for those expenses so that we wouldn’t be caught off guard. Two examples; transportation is a lot more expensive as a family of three and the Sunrise Airways airline (the only one flying to Haiti at the moment) charges for a lap riding infant.
Closing Thoughts
Overall it was a great first trip to Haiti as a family! I hadn’t been in 2 years and had been looking froward to taking our daughter there since she was a few months old. There were no significant issues traveling in Haiti with a toddler and she adapted so well. It was so sweet to see her Haitian side really come out and her excitement over the food and meeting family. I look forward to taking her back again soon.