Tips for Traveling with Kids

Spring Break is almost upon us!

What are your plans, Mamas?

Anyone else have plans to buckle all your children into a tiny metal box and all stay inside said box for 7+ hours? No, I’m not talking about a roller coaster. I’m talking about a road trip!

Now, I’m no expert on this, but I thought I would share some of my favorite tips and tricks to making a long road trip work with kids. The last road trip we took was 9 hours there, and 13 hours back. It was long, and with three kids strapped in the back, it was quite the adventure! We also have no DVD player or phones on our road trips, although if I did have one, we would have used it! I have employed some tricks to make these trips actually work, and I thought I would dump all those ideas into a post here.

  1. Drive during prime sleeping hours. My #1 trick to making a road trip work with kids is to plan the drive around sleeping hours. If all the kids are conked out in the back, it makes for a road trip that involves a lot less whining and a lot less stops! We have tried leaving around bedtime, but this does not work for me as I am not a night owl. Instead, we decided to go to bed early the night before, get a decent nights sleep, and wake up EARLY (like 3am) to hit the road. The kids will sleep from 3-7, and that’s already four hours of the trip down. When our kids were babies, we would just leave around lunch time so they would take a good 2-3 hour nap in the car.
  2. Plan ahead. Before leaving home for a vacation, I go a little crazy. I clean the entire house, clean out the fridge, change the sheets on the beds and wash all the dishes. This gives me more work before the trip, but when I come back to a clean home with fresh sheets…its so worth it! I also make sure to pack the car the day before so that all we have to do in the morning is hop in and drive!
  3. Communicate. Children usually catch on to far more than we think! Before leaving for a road trip, I make sure to talk to my kids about where we are going, about how long it will take to get there (age appropriate language of course- hours for older kids, significant events like “after lunch” for younger kids). For my oldest child, I dug up an old atlas and highlighted our route across the state. We taught her how to read the signs along the road and find where we were so she could see how far we had come and how far we still had to go. This helped reduce the “how much longer?”, “are we there yet?” questions.
  4. Plan snacks. Is a road trip possible without snacks? I think not. I always try to avoid candy and super sugary snacks while road tripping because we are already enclosed in a small space and a sugar high is not helpful for all the other members of the family. However, that does not mean that I don’t bring along treats! I always pack a small cooler bag with cold snacks and then an additional bag with pantry snacks. I take the kids to the store and let them each pick a special road trip snack.
  5. Plan entertainment. As I mentioned above, all our road trips are device free. This means that I have to be on my game with entertainment. I found some fabulous road trip games that I printed out- our favorites were the License Plate Coloring Game (for Heavenly), Road Sign I Spy (for Heavenly and Tera), Spot the Car (for Heavenly, but playing this game with a police officer was SO FUN because he knows the make and model of most cars from a mile away haha!). I also made a trip to the dollar store to pick up some fun markers, coloring books, activity books and small toys to break out in the car. The day before our trip, I took the kids to the library and let them pick out a bunch of books, audiobooks and magazines for the road trip.
  6. Let them be bored. At some point, even the most interesting activity book or toy is going to lose its magic and the kids will start to complain about being bored. And you know what? That’s just fine! Let them stare out the window for awhile, watch the clouds, elbow their siblings and have absolutely nothing to do. That is the beauty of childhood.
  7. Pack a Potty. A road trip game changer for anyone in the midst of potty training and/or small bladders is a small, portable potty. We still have to pull over on the side of the road in order for the child to sit on it, but it’s SO MUCH EASIER than finding the sketchiest gas station in all of Pennsylvania and trying to get my toddler and all her winter gear into the bathroom without touching anything. Seriously. The portable potty is a game changer. Just pull over on the side of the road, have the child sit on the potty in the van/car, then dump the waste. So easy.
  8. Plan stops. Last but not least, don’t use a road trip as a way to torture your children. Instead, plan stops. If possible, look for fun landmarks or tourist attractions to plan your stops around! We always try hard to limit our stops but make them worthwhile. We make sure to get food, gas, a bathroom break and a leg stretch break all at the same time!

So you tell me…what are your favorite road trip tips?

And just in case you didn’t get enough information from my tips, I collected several other blog posts on traveling with kids. Check them out below!

Before Travel

The Ultimate Packing List for Kids by Go Travel

10 Helpful Tips for Traveling with Young Children by The Rambling Ramnaths

Air Travel 

Tips For Flying With Toddlers/Kids by Busy Little Izzy

Flying with Twins by Fueling Mamahood

5 Tips to Survive Your Next Flight with Kids  by The Salty Mamas

Tips for Traveling Internationally with Toddlers by Ali-ish

How to Actually Enjoy Traveling with a Toddler on Your Lap by Making Motherhood Matter (love her idea for snack necklaces!!!)

10 Items You Need to Travel Internationally with a Toddler by Scenes from Cedar Street

Road Trips

Traveling with Kids: Poop Happens by Nicole Baneulos (such good potty tips for road trips!)

Road Tripping by The Salty Mamas (hysterical! And such good advice!)

Road Trip Tips by Heart, Home and Travel

How to Make a Roadtrip Memorable and Tantrum-Free by Raising World Children

5 Must Haves for Road Tripping with Little Ones by All Work and Play

While On Vacation 

How to Keep a Schedule While Traveling with Kids by The Journey of Parenthood

Tips for Potty Training on the Go by Get Your Holiday On

Returning From Vacation

Getting Organized After a Road Trip by Coffee, Pancakes and Dreams

Tips for Traveling with Children

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