Halle Bailey Wants You to Take a Vacation This Year

Halle Bailey knows how hard it can be to make those group chat travel dreams a reality. You know the ones: those constant back-and-forths with friends or family about a vacation you’ve all been saying you want to take for forever, but life keeps getting in the way. While there’s lots to savor about the trip-planning process, there comes a time when you just have to take the leap and go.

Bailey’s extended family was recently texting about a group trip to Mexico, she tells PS. Everyone was excited about it, but no one would take the first step. “It happens so much with my family because we’re all over the place, we’re all working, we all have different schedules,” she says. It took a while, but finally her brother-in-law dropped his ticket in the chat — causing a chain reaction. “Sometimes, someone just needs to kickstart it,” she says.

While that Mexico trip was pure vacation, 24-year-old Bailey has been traveling for work since she was a kid — and at 16, she and her sister Chloe joined Beyoncé on the “Formation” World Tour. Since then, the singer-turned-actress has more than made a name for herself in Hollywood, starring as Ariel in the 2023 live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”

This year, Bailey gave birth to her first child, Halo. And while motherhood has changed a lot of things in her life, her passion for travel remains the same — except now, she needs to make sure she’s always got space in her luggage for baby soap and hand wipes.

Ahead of the launch of her partnership with Marriott Bonvoy and the new Bold Credit Card from Chase, Bailey sat down with PS to talk about her favorite travel moments, travel tips for vegans, how to take international trips with a baby, and the new travel memories she hopes to make this year and beyond.

PS: What was it like being on tour with your sister in 2016?
Halle Bailey: I have so many childhood memories of my whole family traveling together, but especially my sister and I performing so young on the “Formation” Tour. We went all over Europe, which was so special to us. It was our first time being on a tour bus and having our own bunks, and still doing school on the road. I remember thinking how cool that was.

PS: What are some of your favorite travel memories from being on tour with your sister?
HB: One of the fun parts about discovering a new place was trying all the new foods. Chloe and I were both vegan at the time, and I remember we were really surprised at the vegan options in Amsterdam. I’m not vegan anymore, I’m all over the place diet-wise after pregnancy. I eat what I want now, but I still love eating vegan.

PS: Was it stressful trying to find good vegan options while on the road?
HB: No, it was actually cool. We went to these little hole-in-the-wall places that you would never think to go. We used the HappyCow app that would tell us all the cool vegan spots wherever we were. It honestly wasn’t stressful, it made it kind of more fun.

PS: How did you keep each other entertained while you traveled?
HB: Reality TV was our guilty pleasure. We watched a lot.

PS: You recently went to Italy with your baby, Halo. How did he do?
HB: He’s such a good flier, he’s been flying around very, very, very early because of the nature of my work. He’s now used to being on airplanes and he just loves looking out the window.

PS: What tips do you have for new moms traveling with their babies?
HB: I always bring my melatonin and ashwagandha gummies to make sure I’m getting my rest. I always bring my own hand wipes because I’m a germaphobe, and I have to make sure everything is clean on the plane [for me and the baby]. That was always a priority with my mom who wiped down everything when I was a kid. And now with my own baby I do the same thing.

When you have a baby it’s about planning, organizing everything, making sure you don’t forget anything. It’s easy to forget something as simple as, like, baby soap, but that’s so important. Planning out and organizing helps with little things like that. And my partner and I do a pretty good job of splitting that up.

PS: Will Halo be traveling with you again soon?
HB: I bring him everywhere with me now. It’s my greatest joy to be able to see the world through his eyes, especially when he sees stuff for the first time.

If you could drop everything right now and go to one place in the world where would it be and why?
HB: Back to the Maldives. I’ve been there once, four years ago, and it was my favorite place ever to visit. It’s like an alien planet, nobody was on it, it was so beautiful, and it was the best scuba diving experience I’ve ever had.

PS: Oh, so fun! When did you get scuba certified?
HB: I got certified around the time of [filming “The Little Mermaid”]. It ignited this passion for diving for me, doing that whole film.

PS: I can imagine! So on a trip like that, how do you generally balance your time between business and pleasure?
HB: That trip was just vacation. It’s definitely a priority to have those moments of zen and relaxation when I’m traveling for pleasure, because when I’m working all the time it’s like go, go, go. I prioritize special trips like St. Lucia or the Maldives where I’m strictly going to relax and sleep. It’s so essential to get that time. I’m really good at shutting off.

PS: What advice do you have for someone who struggles to “shut off” while they travel?
HB: Give yourself breaks. That’s a theme I’m giving to myself a lot these days. We sometimes overwhelm ourselves with so much in our brain, all the things we have to do, that we don’t stop to just breathe for a sec. You are allowed to just chill.

Emma Glassman-Hughes is the associate editor at PS Balance. Before joining PS, her freelance and staff reporting roles spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, travel for Here Magazine, and food, climate, and agriculture for Ambrook Research.