I'm looking for opinions. I'm flying with my daughter next month for the first time, gulp. She will be 14 months. I am putting her in the car seat on the flight and I have that all worked out, but I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to have her in the ergo with carrying car seat and carry on or if the stroller gate checked makes more sense. I like having her in the ergo, but it sounds like a lot to carry? I have a stroller available at my destination so I'm not worried about that part.
Re: ergo or stroller for flight
What about something like this? It turns your car seat into a stroller. Kind of pricey, but might be worth it so you don't have to carry anything else...
https://www.theportablebaby.com/gogokidz.html
We bought ours off of eBay.
I traveled alone with C when he was 10 months old. I used the Ergo BUT we also didn't bother bringing a car seat (had one on the other end) and didn't need a stroller (don't really use strollers much). It worked out pretty well. If you're bringing a car seat for sure, I'd get this: https://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=533888&cm_ven=none&cm_cat=none&cm_pla=none&orderType=none&utm_source=none&utm_medium=none&utm_campaign=none
and then still bring the Ergo in case he doesn't want to hang out in there (but you can at least still use it to hold bags, etc.
We just flew to Chicago and back so hopefully I can offer some helpful suggestions.
What I do is this: Pack one carryon bag that has all our stuff in it, then use a bungee cord to wrap a collaspable umbrella stroller to while I wear my daughter though security, up & down train platforms, etc. That way I can carry everything myself and still have a hand free to open doors, grab the bus pass, etc. But when we're out walking around through town, visiting museums etc I use the stroller to put her in and save my back/shoulders. I don't know about you, but wearing a baby 24/7 makes this mama pretty exhausted! I just bought a cheapo stroller for $5 at some lady's garage sale and that way it's nice and compact and super light for seeing the sights, but if it gets damaged in flight it's no big deal like it would be if anything happened to my nice stroller.
That's my system which works for me; I've flown solo with my daughter six times now in the past year and never have I had any problems.
Also, ice in a cup = awesome in-flight "game," by the way. :-)