FOR THE KIDS : Trip Tips : These helpful hints can make your excursion memorable and even fun for both you and the children.

So you’re flying to Chicago over Thanksgiving to visit Grandma. It’s not the visit that has you worried. It’s the flight. With the kids.

Or, you’ve finally planned that train trip to San Francisco. With the kids.

Travel by plane or train during the holidays is hectic enough. But with a restless kid, a cranky baby, armloads of kid-stuff you can’t leave home without--there must be an easier way.

There is. A few helpful hints can make your trip memorable and even fun for both you and the kids.

First off, Amtrak recommends that you equip the kids with backpacks and fanny packs to carry all their paraphernalia. You end up carrying less, all their things are in one place, and they still have their hands free. (Of course, this works for airplane travel too.)

Amtrak also has some suggestions about what to load into those backpacks: a tape recorder with earphones, for stories and songs; a camera; books, including an activity book; sketch pad and markers, and maybe a diary and map with which to track the journey. Backpacks also are a good place to store a change of clothes for that inevitable soda mishap.

For airplane travel, Arlene Kay Butler, veteran traveler and mother of five, has compiled a stack of helpful hints. Butler, who lives in Moorpark, published a book last year titled, “Traveling with Children and Enjoying It.” Here are some of her gems:

* When you make your reservations, consider requesting bulkhead seats, which have extra leg room and no seats in front of them. The extra floor space is a good place for toddlers to play. On some flights, a bassinet can be hooked to the wall here. The disadvantages? Bulkhead seats don’t recline and there is no under-the-seat storage.

* When you make reservations, request a special “kids meal”--usually a hamburger or hot dog, chicken nuggets, or peanut butter and jelly with chips and dessert. (United Airlines even gives kids actual McDonald’s Happy Meals on some of its flights.)

* Once at the airport, flight crews will let kids see the cockpit before or after a flight--not during. It’s something to keep in mind if you’re waiting for a connecting flight. And they still give out those little wings.

* The airlines allow families with small children to board early, which can be good if you have lots of paraphernalia, or it can just make the trip that much longer. If possible, have one parent board early with the gear, while the other waits for a later boarding call to bring the children on board.

* During takeoff and landing, have a bottle or pacifier handy for infants, and gum for older children. The sucking and chewing action relieves any ear pain. Flight attendants will warm a bottle. For nursing mothers, the seats nearest the window afford the greatest privacy.

* If you have small children, don’t bring toys with lots of little pieces that can fall on the floor and find their way under someone else’s seat. If you want to preserve your sanity and keep the skies friendly, don’t bring noisy toys either. Some airlines have activity books for children.

From her traveling experience, Butler has some advice for parents flying with two or more children.

“Don’t seat the parents at either end with the children in the middle,” she said.

Separate the children with a parent. “It avoids squabbles.” And a final word of advice: Get pillows early, they go fast.

If, after all this, it sounds more appealing to send the kids to Grandma’s without you, most airlines have an “unaccompanied minor program.”

All of them are slightly different, but most require the child to be at least 5 years old for nonstop flights, or at least 8 for connecting flights.

A flight attendant is assigned to see that the child makes it from point A to B. At some major airports, airlines have special holding rooms for kids who have to make connecting flights. These rooms have televisions, toys, books and snacks.

American Airlines charges $20 to $25 for this service depending on whether the travel is domestic or international. United and TWA only assess a charge ($25) if the child needs to make a connecting flight.

United shuttles more than 100,000 kids a year this way, most of them during holidays or summer, according to Joe Hopkins, United’s media relations manager.

“We have 5-year-olds in our frequent-flier program,” he said.