Travel Gear Review: Micro Maxi Foldable LED Scooter

[terriko]

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

My kid is in that awkward age where he’s too big for a stroller but walking across some of the larger airports can be a lot. I’d originally wanted to get scooter luggage, but after some research I decided we’d get a lot more use out of a folding scooter that would be useful for jaunts to the park and dog walks too.

What is it?

A folding 3-wheeled scooter for kids (max weight 110 pounds). It’s even got light up wheels!

Product link: https://microkickboard.com/collections/children-ages-5-12-maxi-scooters/products/maxi-foldable-led-scooter

What problem did I need it to solve?

My kid’s too big for a stroller but still short enough that walking all over larger airports is a chore. He can walk for 3 hours at the zoo without problem, so I think it’s more of a mental exhaustion than a physical limitation.

I’d seen some kids with scooter luggage in Chicago on a previous trip and totally coveted it. After a bunch of research, though, it seemed like the quality of scooter luggage was mixed, and for around the same price we’d likely get a lot more long-term use out of a regular scooter. My kid was on the edge of outgrowing his toddler scooter and doesn’t yet love his bike, so this was something he wanted anyhow and would use multiple times a week and not just on trips.

How did it work out for me?

It was great!

Kiddo loved the scooter from the moment it arrived and it got a lot of use on dog walks even before our trips. Hatch was a little less excited about this as he’s afraid of people on wheels, but he’s mostly used to it now and it helped him with exposure.

I was a little worried that we’d have trouble with checking in at the airports or on the train (which has new luggage restrictions), but most gate agents didn’t even question us about it and neither did anyone on the train. Note that we were traveling first class on all flights and the train trip, so they might have been less inclined to give us trouble as a result, and there was typically ample overhead space when we boarded.

We did have to gate check it like a stroller on one of the smaller turboprop planes, and we did have to demonstrate that it folded once. No one gave us a hard time about him using it in the airport (I guess it’s just another accessibility device), we had some fun conversations with other parents, and one of the Canadian customs agents jokingly offered to set up an obstacle course so he could scoot through the line lanes since we were the only family going through at the time.

With the scooter, kiddo moves significantly faster than I do with the cane (probably close to my husband’s walking speed) so we did have to make him slow down or give him a point where he should wait for us. When there was traffic or lots of people, it could be a bit nerve-wracking and we had to get him to hop off and walk, but it was pretty good in safer streets and the emptier parts of airports.

When he got tired, he stood on the scooter and had one of us push him as if he were another piece of wheeled luggage. This worked even better than I expected and it’s pretty stable with the 3 wheels. He also just didn’t get tired as much. Scooting was more fun, I think, and took less energy for him to go at fast adult speeds.

As well as in the airports and train station, the scooter got a lot of use for jaunts to the local community swimming pool, parks, open houses, and “look at the fireflies” walks around my mom’s house. We didn’t use it in Iowa because my inlaws live in a significantly less walkable area.

Things that could be better

The method for locking/unlocking the folding is a big plastic sleeve that you pull up and down to release a clip inside. It tended to get a bit stuck and needed jiggling and two hands to operate most of the time. Not a deal breaker, but I do wish it was less finicky. We’re pretty fast at getting off the plane through experience and it felt bad to get hung up on a piece of recalcitrant plastic when you’ve got a grumpy travel kid and passengers streaming by you.

This scooter is technically a bit over our airline carry on limits in the longest dimension, but so much smaller in the other two that I don’t think anyone even noticed. If we’d been forced to put it in a luggage sizer that might have been an issue, but we flew first class so they weren’t really examining our luggage closely. We treated this as kid’s larger carry on and we only had one other small carry-on suitcase between the three of us, which may have contributed to it feeling like we weren’t carrying “too much” in the eyes of the gate staff. It would have been nice if the manufacturer had made the scooter just a little shorter, but I don’t think they designed it with carry-on in mind. (Their ad copy mentions putting it in the trunk or school locker. Plus they actually sell scooter-luggage for carry-on.)

My kid is very safety conscious but it was still nerve wracking to let him use it in Toronto street traffic or some of the busier parts of the airport so we had him hop off and walk in some places even though he really didn’t want to. This could have been more dangerous with a younger or less careful kid.

Overall

Kid loves it, I love it, and it made out travel easier!

I was surprised by how infrequently anyone challenged it. Some of that may be privilege, but it drew so little attention that privilege may not have played a big role. We did see some other kids with scooter luggage and similar so it’s obviously something airlines have seen before.

Even if it hadn’t been a travel win, it’s been a win at home in similar situations: it’s great for going to the park where kiddo might otherwise get tired on the walk home after playing, especially since he can stand on it and get a push from an adult.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

What a cool solution!