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I’ll never forget my first flight with my then 20-month-old and 2-month-old boys. It was short, only Detroit to New York, but it was intense. I’m talking blowouts, a bit of crying, and being severely under-prepared with snacks. It was on that trip that I realized the importance of packing really well when traveling with littles. I started to see The Getaway Bag ($235) from No Reception Club all over my Instagram feed, but struggled with the idea of spending a few hundred bucks on a bag for my kids. I recently got my hands on it, and boy, do I have thoughts!
We like
- Incredible quality
- Mission-driven organization that gives back to the community
- Designed by parents, for other parents
- Sized perfectly to fit as a personal item on flights
- Lifetime warranty included
We don't like
- Higher price point than other diaper bags
- Limited product selection
All Things NRC
Similar to my family, the founders of No Reception Club, Daniel and Gemma Ng, love to adventure with their two small children. In fact, their mission is to “empower families to travel together” because they believe “travel becomes more important with little ones, not less.” On a flight to Hawaii after becoming parents, they had a frustrating experience with a diaper bag and quickly saw a gap in the market: there was actually no travel bag designed for parents on the market. So, they decided to make it themselves!
In an exclusive with TQE, the duo shared, “That defining moment ultimately led us to leave our career paths in fashion and tech to create our first bag, the Getaway Bag on Kickstarter in 2021. Four years later, the bag has won several awards and developed a devoted following among traveling parents, while our company and product collection have grown a little each year.”
Speaking of the product collection, in talking to hundreds of parents and on many flights themselves, they created their other signature bags over the last few years: The Hideaway Carry-On Duffel and The Sidekick pack. Both were also designed to make finding the essentials while traveling easy, because every parent knows the struggle of digging to the depths of your diaper bag for that one thing your kid needs.
If you haven’t traveled with kids yet… allow me to shed some light. My kids have taken probably 15-20 flights in the last 2 years, as well as numerous road trips, so I’d like to consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area. When you’re flying with little kids, you’re trying to keep them in their seats, entertained, fed, rested, and happy… which requires a lot of planning and packing. On our last trip, just a 4-hour flight to Texas, I think I probably packed around 20 snack servings, 10 toys, 6 diapers, 2 changes of clothes, water bottles, medicines, headphones, a sound machine, and a pack of wipes… all in our diaper bag. You never know what travel is going to throw your way, be it a blowout, a massive delay, time on the tarmac, sickness… so you’ve just gotta be ready for anything.
Meet the Getaway Bag
The folks at No Reception Club have seen and experienced all of those things, so they made a bag to meet the needs of nearly all of those scenarios. For example, The Getaway Bag includes:
- “Side doors” to the main compartment to ensure nothing ever gets lost in the bottomless pit of your former bag.
- An insulated lunch bag to keep breastmilk or other perishable snacks in.
- Detachable stroller clips and a luggage pass-through, because you’re going to need your hands free to help your kiddo and haul all your stuff!
- 2 customizable shelves that allow you to separate your kids’ changes of clothes from each other.
- A flexible, waterproof compartment on the bottom of the bag because… blowouts, potty training accidents, and other messes just happen.
- A dedicated technology pocket for easy laptop or iPad storage.
- A small, organized front pocket for small travel items, like passports, tickets, hand sanitizer, and keys!
- A fanny pack (extra) that fits a few diapers and a pack of wipes so you don’t have to haul the whole bag to the tiny airplane “potty.”
Beyond these thoughtful features, the bag is compliant with airline personal item requirements. This is so key if you’re *frugal* like us, because this means the bag can be your personal item (or your kid’s personal item) and you can bring a diaper bag on top of this… for free! If you can carry it all, this really opens up the possibilities for how you can pack.
I also love the way the bag looks. Currently, it comes in 3 colors: black, olive green, and blue. I’m a bit of a plain Jane (also read: beige mom), so I got the black. I don’t think you’d pick this bag out as a diaper bag if you didn’t know it was. It just looks like quality travel gear, which is something I really admire. The leather accents are beautiful.
The Travel Test
I have to admit that I was a little overwhelmed when I first got the bag. There are a LOT of compartments in the bag to explore and figure out the best way to pack. After sharing that I was a little overwhelmed, a friend shared that I’d learn what works best for our family on each trip we took it on, which has been very true.
I don’t think I did a great job packing the bag on our first trip. Despite watching a few videos and scouring the website, I still could’ve done it better. But… I think this might be Type A mom talking here because when we got to our destination, my mom was able to quickly find everything my boys needed without my assistance – a feat we’d never achieve without having clothes explode all over the floor.
You’ve Got This… in the Bag
$235 isn’t a small investment for a bag, so in this day and age of tighter spending, would I buy this again? My answer to you is absolutely. I wouldn’t classify myself as a “gearhead” or someone really into cool gear, but this bag simply just makes sense for families. Whether your kid is 2 months or 12 years old, I think this bag will offer something special for your travels. For our family, I don’t see this getting replaced anytime soon as our go-to bag for travel. Plus, with NRC’s lifetime warranty, I have great peace of mind knowing that should it wear out, my investment is covered.
Travelling with kids, especially babies and toddlers, is tough. There’s no way around it. But if you can make your life just a little bit easier in the chaos of travel, why wouldn’t you? Stop digging to the bottom of the bag for their favorite toy. Stop putting dirty clothes in with the clean ones. Start packing smarter with No Reception Club – because you’re forming special memories you’ll have forever.
Bonus: Get the Founders’ Best Tips for Traveling with Kids!
- Pack more than you think you need for the journey. We’ve found that a good rule of thumb is to bring about 1.5x what you think you’ll need for your journey — door-to-door from your home to your destination.
- Pack less than you think you need for the destination. We find that over-packing usually happens when we’re operating under the assumption that we can’t purchase or launder anything at our destination — which is rarely the case. Items that we know we can easily buy at our destination (e.g. diapers, kid-friendly snacks, etc.) we do not bring more than we would need in transit plus one day’s worth of extras to be safe.
- Organize items by category. We always pack and organize items from the same category together (e.g. tops together, bottoms together, diapers together, snacks together, toys together, first aid together, sleep items together, etc.). Having a designated spot for each category makes it easy for you — or the non-packing parent or child — to find exactly what’s needed rapidly.
- Bring the right gear to make packing easier. While packing styles can range widely based on personal preference and through experiences learned along the way, we designed our bags with easy packing in mind to take some of the guesswork out of what goes where.
