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Auden is gurgling on a picnic blanket when I meet her and her mum, Kate Ivory, in a local park. <\/p>\n
Tower Bridge looms behind, the midday sun glinting off its gilded tips. It\u2019s a postcard-perfect setting, but I imagine at this point, it\u2019s just another landmark on a long list for this well-travelled seven-month-old, who has seen a huge arc of Europe already. <\/p>\n
The mother and baby have just returned from an epic rail voyage across the Continent, a journey that took them from their home in east London to King\u2019s Cross St Pancras and finished in Pisa, stopping in Germany, Austria, Slovenia and northern Italy on the way. In all, their route took 25 days. <\/p>\n
When most new parents would rather, understandably, stay at home and work out how to keep their brand new human alive, single mother Kate booked an Interrail pass, loaded up the pram and took her first-born on a debut tour of the EU. So what made her do it? <\/p>\n
Kate’s practical advice for globetrotting parents<\/p>\n
\u201cTravelling the world after uni changed my entire outlook on life\u201d, explains 38-year-old Kate, who works in advertising. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went on mat leave, I knew I\u2019d never have this block of free time again. I wanted Auden to come into the world with her eyes open and experience different things. Plus, we were about to start weaning, so it was a good time to go. Her first food could be pasta in Italy!\u201d<\/p>\n
From pasta in Italy to schnitzel in Austria, and all between breastfeeding, Kate filled Auden\u2019s baby passport pages as much as her stomach. Even more astoundingly, she did it solo. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted Auden to come into the world with her eyes open and experience different things\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got friends, family and a partner, but I chose to have Auden on my own. I wanted us to have high-quality bonding time, just us,\u201d Kate explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterrailing is a good way to experience lots of different things at once without boarding a series of flights. Plus, from a money perspective, it\u2019s budget-friendly. I bought the Global Pass<\/a> (\u00a3320), which gives you seven days of travel to use within a month,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n With so many possible destinations and routes on offer \u2014 33 countries are covered in the Global Pass, including overnight trains \u2014 I wonder if working out the route was the first challenge. <\/p>\n Bitesize: Auden tries her first foods abroad<\/p>\n Kate Ivory<\/p>\n \u201cI used ChatGPT to plan the route\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Kate turned to the AI tool, keeping her prompts specific, with requests for pram-accessible trains and quieter departures to avoid rush hour. Mostly, the responses were helpful, she says, but not always infallible. \u201cThere were a few times here and there where ChatGPT told me to get a train, but there wasn\u2019t one \u2014 only buses.\u201d<\/p>\n Does a trip with an infant in tow require military-grade logistics? \u201cWe only had the first two nights and the first train booked\u201d, Kate reveals. \u201cAfter that, I booked the next leg as we went. It keeps things exciting, it keeps you free. If you arrive somewhere and think, I don\u2019t like it here, you can just get up and go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMost countries are way more baby-friendly than the UK, and people I encountered on the trip were so helpful\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t worry about safety at all\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s this free-spiritedness and iron confidence that makes Kate fearless. When I begin to ask if she worried about safety, she tells me it didn\u2019t cross her mind before I\u2019ve even finished my sentence. <\/p>\n \u201cWe live in London!\u201d she chuckles. \u201cMost countries are way more baby-friendly than the UK, and people I encountered on the trip were so helpful\u201d. <\/p>\n Though there were some exceptions: \u201cWhen I crossed into Italy, it was like, \u201cOoh beautiful baby! Okay, bye!\u201d and they left me with the pram at the top of the stairs,\u201d says Kate.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, I didn’t worry at all,\u201d Kate says as Auden wrestles with the picnic blanket next to us. \u201cLots of people worried about it for me. They\u2019d ask, \u2018Why are you going?\u2019 \u2018<\/strong>Have you really thought about this?\u2019 \u2018You’re going to be on your own, where will you stay?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n So where do you stay with a baby when you\u2019re travelling on a budget? Not hostels<\/a>? Actually, yes. \u201cI just booked a private room instead of a dorm, because honestly, who wants to share with a baby?\u201d says Kate.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to get cots, but if not, we just shared a bed. The only thing I wanted – which I wouldn’t have cared about had I gone on my own – was air-con, because it was so hot.\u201d<\/p>\n Other beds for the night included local hotels<\/a> or Airbnbs<\/a>. With overnight trains an option, Kate and Auden tried that too. \u201cOur longest train ride was seven hours. After that, I swore we\u2019d never do more than four hours at a time,\u201d Kate admits. <\/p>\n All aboard! Kate and Auden wait for their next ride<\/p>\n Kate Ivory<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn’t love it, I didn’t love it. Was it worth the stress to catch an overnight train? \u201cWe were going to go directly from Munich to Ljubliana, but I changed the plan to stop in Salzburg to break up the journey, and it ended up being one of the best bits of the trip,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Along with Austria, Kate\u2019s highlights included hiking up an Alpine mountain with Auden, taking in the view from her baby sling. \u201cI wanted to take my proper hiking backpack<\/a>, but I just couldn’t carry it along with the pram<\/a>. We had one backpack<\/a> between us that could fit under the pram, another little bag for her stuff, and that\u2019s it, because I needed to be able to fold the pram up.\u201d<\/p>\n Kate and Audnen in Venice<\/p>\n Kate Ivory<\/p>\n Anyone who has holidayed with kids in tow knows that travelling light isn\u2019t an option. Kate stripped her travel wardrobe right back to the basics. As for Auden, \u201cIt was 80 per cent her stuff. I vacuum-packed<\/a> everything down into our backpack<\/a>.\u201d She bought essentials like nappies and wipes as they went, cleverly buying a pack after a long leg so she wasn\u2019t weighed down by carrying a huge supply.<\/p>\n For food and activities like museum entries, Kate stuck to a bootstrap budget of \u20ac20 a day, in addition to accommodation, which was about \u20ac60 a night. It helped that her Interrail pass had been pre-purchased. <\/p>\n Kate\u2019s recommended baby essentials<\/p>\n I’ve got this UV blanket that has magnets on it, so Auden couldn\u2019t get sunburnt. I\u2019d wrap her up like a burrito in it.<\/p>\n The Bugaboo pram<\/a> was amazing, because you can put everything on it and clip things to it. I was umming and erring about getting it, but the strain I put on it saw us through the trip. <\/p>\n The Rockit<\/a> because it rocks the pram by itself and helps Auden sleep. And a little bag of toys<\/a> so she could play. She doesn\u2019t need much at six months. <\/p>\n \u201cI was strict, but anything that didn\u2019t get spent would roll over to the next day\u2019s budget, so there were funds to play with\u201d. With Auden still breastfeeding, Kate would give her small snacks to try from farmers\u2019 markets. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you ask, in Italy they\u2019ll sometimes do a baby aperitivo; a plate of things she could eat – breadsticks, small bits of melon, things like that,\u201d explains Kate.<\/p>\n It all sounds very Eat, Pray, Love: the baby edition. Surely it can\u2019t have all been plain sailing? \u201cThere were a couple of times in Slovenia, where the trains kept getting like cancelled or switched to buses\u201d Kate recalls.<\/p>\n \u201cThen you\u2019re trying to get on the rail replacement, put your pram down, get your backpack in. It was stressful, but I enjoyed us getting through the gnarly bits together,\u201d she adds. \u201cIn the future, when Auden doubts herself, I\u2019ll remind her we went around Europe when she was six months, so she can do anything. This trip is now part of the fabric of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI could have gone for another couple of weeks. I just ran out of money. And pants.\u201d<\/p>\n The Slovenian episode also had a silver lining: a new friend. \u201cWe met Elenka, 82, on a train leaving Salzburg, and ended up spending the day travelling to Ljubljana together. When we had to switch to replacement buses, this 82-year-old charged off with Auden to hold our seats, throwing her suitcase out of the window for me to stow away with the pram, yelling in broken English as she went\u201d. <\/p>\n When they eventually arrived in the city, Elenka walked Kate and Auden to their hostel, and they swapped numbers. Later, Kate found out Elenka had booked her dinner in Ljubljana \u2014 and had already picked up the bill. <\/p>\n They probably wouldn\u2019t have crossed paths if it weren\u2019t for the baby. \u201cShe\u2019s 82, so what do we have in common?\u201d Kate agrees. \u201cBut that\u2019s the magic of travel\u201d.<\/p>\n Other friends included an Irish couple in Trieste who were in town for a James Joyce convention, one of Kate\u2019s favourite poets. \u201cThey invited us along, so we ended up joining a James Joyce festival for the day,\u201d Kate laughs.<\/p>\n Kate Ivory<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t want her to be scared of the world\u201d, Kate explains, bouncing Auden in her lap. \u201cWhen we were in Strasburg, a fire engine screamed past, and she, naturally, burst into tears. But later on, a loud helicopter went past and she looked up at me for reassurance and then smiled. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s learning that things aren\u2019t scary just because they\u2019re loud. I\u2019ll always have her back. As my friend Leah said, \u2018Isn\u2019t it nice that she wakes up in a new place and sees all these new things, but then she looks at you, and she knows she\u2019s home?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Of the trip, Kate says \u201cIt was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve travelled to so many places, with work, and in life. There’s something so magical about doing it with Auden. I\u2019m seeing it through her eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I could have gone for another couple of weeks. I just ran out of money. 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