Why My Family Traveled in Luxury Soccer Tracksuits

When travel goes wrong, you might find yourself in all kinds of unexpected situations. This was true even when I was a single. But when travel goes wrong and you’ve got small children in tow, this changes the calculus even more. When this happens, never underestimate the lengths parents will go to keep their children warm, fed, and rested enough to hold back the I-am-so-exhausted-I-will-make-the-universe-feel-my-pain meltdowns. As we regularly see in the news, even adults can reach their limits when it comes to the constrictions and indignities of modern air travel. So, I don’t blame the little ones for showing on the outside what most of us big people are feeling on the inside. But for everyone’s sake, we have found it best to keep our kids away from that point of no return whenever possible.

Speaking of indignities, most airlines don’t count our region of Central Asia important enough to warrant flights during waking hours. The vast majority of our flights come and go between 2 and 5 am. This is of course to line up with the morning flight schedules in the “important” airports of the region. And yes, it’s brutal for small children. Mind you, this is how almost every trip to or from our region either begins or ends, standing in airport lines with bleary-eyed offspring at an ungodly hour of the night.

So, this was the typical beginning of a trip back to the US two summers ago. But something had delayed our first flight, which meant we sat an extra two hours in our departure airport, which meant we missed our connecting flight in Doha, Qatar. Having traveled through Doha before I was hopeful that they might simply put us on another flight, or in case of a lengthy delay, put us up in the hotel inside the airport.

Unfortunately, we landed and were informed that for the second of the three legs of our journey, they’d have to put us on a much longer flight (to Dallas, sixteen hours in the air), and that we’d have to wait inside the airport for another seventeen hours. And sorry, the airport hotel was full. And since we only had our vaccination cards, but not a valid PCR test, we were not allowed to enter the city to make our own accommodations. One very thoughtful member of airport staff tried to convince us that we had a decent chance of making it through immigration illegally, but we thanked her and decided that would probably make our situation go from bad to worse. Plus it was illegal. After all, the Doha airport is relatively new and clean. Surely we could figure something out.

We texted our teammates to let them know our situation and to call in some prayer support. One of them reminded me that we carried a travel credit card with trip delay coverage, up to $500 per person. I had not remembered this detail, so I thanked him profusely and tried to put a plan together as we sat on the floor and my kids played UNO. There was a quieter lounge with semi-private couch areas where we could get some sleep. We had been given access to it once before while traveling during the height of the Covid-19 travel shutdowns, when the massive Doha airport was eery and abandoned. Now that things were getting back to normal the lounge charged a lot for entry, but with all the hotel options closed off I thought we had a good chance of getting reimbursed for it through our card. If we got in for six hours’ access, that would mean fresh food and hopefully a few hours of sleep for the family before figuring out the next ten hours in the airport, and then the sixteen hour flight.

But there was one other problem. It was summer and so we hadn’t packed warm clothes in our carryons. And the airport was freezing. At the time, our kids were three, eight, and ten. They’ve always been on the smaller side and tend to get cold easily. This is especially true of our daughter who has type-1 diabetes. So, part two of my mission needed to be finding some kind of warm garments or blankets. This would make sleep more likely, and hopefully also keep them from getting sick.

Blessedly, the lounge we were hoping for wasn’t full and we managed to claim one of the semi-private couch areas. So far, so good. Thinking the more difficult part of the plan accomplished, I headed back out into the duty free area of the airport to find some warm sweatshirts or blankets. The airport had dozens of stores selling clothing, so I didn’t think it would take too long to find something reasonable.

I waved and smiled at the attendant in the first store I walked into and I went over to look at a rack of sweatshirts. My smile vanished as I looked at the tag – $450. Wide-eyed, I quickly exited that store and went into the one next to it. But the sweatshirts there were $300 apiece. In store after store I had the same experience. It seemed that luxury clothing was the only kind for sale in this airport. Where were the smart yet affordable Central Asian brands like LC Waikiki? There were no blankets or other warm things for sale anywhere. Just clothing roughly the price of a kidney.

The best option I could find were tracksuits/sweatsuits in the store of a football/soccer club, Paris Saint-Germain. These were warm, they had them in the various sizes we needed, and they ran just below $100 for the kids sizes and a little above $100 for the adults. After several rounds of the duty free area, I kept coming back to the PSG store as I slowly resigned myself to the truth that dropping over $500 on tracksuits was the cheapest option available to me. But would I be able to convince the credit card insurance to reimburse these? It was a gamble.

I thought of my kids shivering, curled up, and trying to sleep on airport couches. I thought of the dark patches beneath my wife’s eyes and the very long way we still had to go to even begin the second leg of our journey. I gritted my teeth, and bought the matching tracksuits.

I shook my head as I walked away and back toward the lounge, loaded with bags of PSG merchandise. My family didn’t even follow professional sports. Apart from a season in high school in Melanesia where I followed the Australian National Rugby League, I’ve never made the time nor had the desire to follow either American sports or those more popular globally, like football/soccer. In fact, one of the quickest ways to make my or my wife’s eyes glaze over is to turn a group conversation to professional sports.

But now, I told my wife as I returned to the lounge, now we would need to become soccer fans. Not because I had a sudden affinity for the team or for some guy named Messi who apparently played for them. No, simply because we were now financially invested in the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club. So invested, we would in fact travel the world as a family in matching luxury track suits. The kids, having been told that they were now officially fans of a French soccer team, put on the warm tracksuits, and promptly fell asleep. My wife liked hers also, though her eyes nearly popped out of her head when I whispered the price to her.

There have been times over the years when we’ve eaten at some very sketchy places, because that was what was required to keep the family going while on the road. Apparently, this was the other end of the spectrum. Sometimes you eat dodgy kebabs. Sometimes you don rich kid tracksuits.

During the rest of our time in Doha and even on the plane, fans of PSG said hi to us, gave us fist bumps, or otherwise complimented our sporty-seeming family and our matching outfits. We did our best to smile and play the part – and then shoot one another sideways glances. We were frauds, but at least we were warm frauds.

After what felt like days later, we finally made it to Dallas, where one last layover – at a hotel this time – would get us to our final flight the next day. At least being back in America meant people didn’t really know about professional soccer and would stop commenting on our wardrobe.

We walked into the lobby and were immediately greeted with a cheer by the man behind the counter.

“You fans of PSG?! That’s my team, bro!”

p.s. Thankfully, months later, the travel insurance did indeed reimburse the tracksuits.

To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.