Are you off on a long family road trip soon? Apprehensive about traveling with young children? We recently packed up our preschooler and spend 7 days on the road. We’ve been doing this since she was an infant so over time I’ve learn (the hard way usually) what does and doesn’t work on these family trips. Long road trips have challenges but don’t stress! I’ve got several road tested tips to help make your family road trip less stressful and more fun! Below you will find my must have supplies and sanity saving tips for traveling with young children.
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Tips for Road Trip Traveling with Young Children
We take several road trips a year. Before kids it was easy, throw in some snacks and a map then hit the road. But with you children in tow long road trips are a whole new beast. We should be veterans at road trip traveling with young children by now, we’ve done it so many times, but honestly I’m a stressed out mad man before a trip, especially particularly long ones.
We just spent a week (6 nights!) camping out in the boonies hiking, exploring, and kayaking. Overall it was a great time and we had a blast but the part I was nervous about was the time it would take to get to our destination. Our trip took us 7 hours from our house but with a toddler it usually takes about 8-9 hours to get there. None hours in a car with a young child? Let’s be honest, no one is looking forward to that and if you aren’t prepared it’s going to be a nightmare.
I know a lot of parents rely on the awesome peace create by use of tablets and portable DVD players when traveling with young children but our vacations are screen free. It does make it more difficult. There are moments when I’d love to hand my daughter her tablet and say go for it but my husband and I decided long ago to leave those time sucking electronics (poor mom leaves the laptop too!) have to stay at home. As a result I end up packing what we call the “Road Trip Busy Box.” Our busy box is full of simple, easy to pack things that my daughter can enjoy but doesn’t create a huge mess or require me turning around every five seconds to retrieve something off the floor.
This is what I ended up with in my screen-free road trip busy box:
- Washable Crayons: When my daughter was smaller (and dropped thing all. the. time.) I would tie a few crayons to the top end of the spiral notebook. This kept her crayons and notebook together. It was awesome. once she got older and wanted more complex drawing with more colors I simply put the markers in a zip-lock bag. I don’t usually buy washable crayons but they are helpful in the car, especially if your child has a tendency to wander with their art.
- Washable Markers: My daughter didn’t get markers in the car when she was s toddler, mainly because she had behind me in the car so I con’t see her and she had a habit of coloring all over her face. Once she was a bit older we just threw a bunch in a Ziploc bag and she helped herself to them when she wanted to color.
- Notebook: Spiral notebooks are super cheap (especially if you stock up during back to school season!) and are perfect for road trips. My daughter prefers the top bound books, as the are easier for her to write on in the car, but side bound are perfect too. Really you don’t need to lug large art pads or mess-free paper around. Just grab one of these and kids can use it for everything. Colors, journaling, stickers, tracing, taping leaves… so much! My husband even found them useful to start our campfire at one point as well. Ha!
- No-Spill Mini Bubbles: I got these in the outdoor/summer play toy section at our local Walmart. I’ll admit wasn’t super keen on giving them to my daughter in the car but actually these turned out to be one of her favorite things. The liquid really does stay in the bottle even when held upside down and they are easy to use for even toddlers. It kept my daughter busy for quite awhile and were the one thing that often stopped an impeding meltdown.
- Stickers: What kid doesn’t love stickers? They are easy for most young children and there is plenty of variety for a low cost. We’ve packed both fun themed stickers and bright colored label style stickers on our road trips. I grab the Avery label style stickers (usually in the office area of stores) because sometimes younger kids struggle with the edging you have to peel the sticker out of. It seems that the majority of kids stickers have that white edging around them and for younger kids when they try to remove smaller stickers it can cause frustration and they may rip the actual stickers. Because of this I also pack the simple colored label stickers when traveling with young children.
- Magnets: I brought along some of our ABC magnets and a small metal lunch box for my daughter to use them on. She really liked this but got bored quickly. If we took them again I would take more interesting or themed magnets instead of just ABC ones.
- Glow sticks: These weren’t much of a hit in the car because we were traveling by day in the bright summer light but I will say they were totally awesome at night and in the tent when my daughter went to bed.
- Toys: My daughter gets to pack a small plastic shopping basket with several toys. Usually she takes a few plastic animals, some rainbow blocks (she loves to look out the window with these as “glasses”), and books.
I put all these things except the notebook and bag of crayons (and her small bucket of toys) in a small Tupperware container and kept them in the front with me. Having them in the front meant that I could hand them out randomly like a mini surprise at first! Once she got a bit older I let her have full control but when she was younger it was great to pull out the stickers or bubbles as a surprise when she got tired of her toys. I also think it helped keep things “new” whereas if she had constant access to them it would be one more thing she’d grow tired of.
We did have a few meltdowns but really they came at times when we needed a break from the car anyway. I was amazed how much a busy bag of random items helped make the eight hour car trip tolerable, it was no where near as bad I was expecting.
Other tips I learned traveling with a young kids:
- Always pack two more diapers than you think you will need
- Bring extra wipes
- The infant/toddler snack pouches of fruit and oatmeal are a perfect on the go snack. Plus they are easy to store and clean up.
- Take gross motor toys (like balls) to use and/or play active games at rest stops
- Map out rest areas and local parks on your route
- Bring audio kids books
- Bring zip lock and plastic bags to use from
- Ziploc bags or plastic cups work well for snacks
- Fill your iPod or Smartphone with you child’s favorite songs
- Bring Magazines! My daughter loved looking through my teacher supply ones (Learning Resources, Constructive Playthings, Lakeshore…)
If you’re well prepared traveling with toddlers isn’t so scary!
What do you take when traveling with young kids?
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