Tips For Surviving Car Travel with Kids

As the veteran of various long road trips with kids, starting when my 4 1/2 year-old daughter was 18 months old (we also have a 2 1/2 year-old), I’ve managed to come up with a few tips, tricks and activities to help keep my kids occupied on the road. I’ve compiled them here to share with you! Here they are, in no particular order (except for #1 – that’s non-negotiable for our family):

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1. Travel fairy gifts – wrap everything you’re planning to give them and let them know that the travel fairy will have little gifts for them along the way if they’re behaving appropriately (You can skip that last part if you know you’ll be using them as bribes to get them to be quiet for 5 minutes!). Remember to keep some things held back for each leg of the trip – I try to stash them in a box or bag that the kids don’t know about and then pull out the day’s gifts each morning. On a long travel day (8-10 hours) I might have four little gifts for each child.

2. Lots of little snacks individually packaged and if your kids are like mine, try to have the same snacks at the same time for each kid. If you’re really feeling ambitious you could even wrap these in gift wrap!

3. Water bottles for each child – and it helps if their car seats have cup holders.

4. Music that is fun for both kids AND parents. Some of our family’s favorites are Recess Monkey, Justin Roberts, Caspar Babypants, the Not-Its, Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants. Putumayo World Playground and Latin Playground are great too!

5. A folding travel potty seat for toddlers who are just toilet trained can be a great thing – plus then they don’t have to sit directly on the gross public toilets in rest stops or gas stations.

6. 1/4 size sheet pans for each child – these can be used as an eating tray, lapboard, and magnet board. Glue felt to the back side for use as a felt-board as well.

7. Portable DVD player – we have one in our car but we only let the kids use it on long car rides (over 2 hours) which makes it more special.

8. Kindle Fire (our favorite), iPhone, iPod touch or iPad loaded with entertaining apps.

9. A map to color in the route along the way. I’ve found this really helps kids to visualize that no, we’re not there yet, and how long halfway there actually is. Older kids could follow the route on a real map, drawing or coloring the line from town to town. Here’s a link to one I made for our last road trip.

10. Think about investing in a Leappad or Innotab tablet, or a Tag Reader, Tag Junior, or Vtech V.Reader system so that pre-readers can read books to themselves and play games in the back seat.

11. Lots of children’s websites have printable activities – puzzles, coloring pages, games etc. Some of the sites I’ve used are Nick Jr., Sprout Online, PBS Kids, and Disney’s Family Fun.

12. Light blankets, especially for kids in car seats with 5-point harnesses. Its better to dress them in cooler clothes with a blanket handy than to have to deal with the inevitable “I’m hot – get this sweater off me!” at some point in the trip.

13. Find fun spots for your rest breaks. Even smaller towns might have a children’s museum or a really great playground. If you have a membership to your local zoo, aquarium or children’s museum check your membership; you might be able to get reciprocal admission to a museum en route or at your destination. Some research ahead of time will make a great deal of difference. Here are links to the National zoo directory and children’s museum directory.

14. Stickers. ‘Nuff said.

15. Puzzle books – hidden picture puzzles, mazes, connect the dots books are all fun. With my pre-reader I’ve found that the funnest for her (and me) are ones that are one type of puzzle only, so that she doesn’t need me to read her new directions every 30 seconds.

16. Don’t reveal the snacks and treats and printables ahead of time – make everything a surprise.

17. These foam cutout puzzles do double duty as easy puzzles for toddlers and stencils for preschoolers’ drawing time.

18. Alphabet game – spot letters of the alphabet (in alphabetical order) on roadway signs, billboards and businesses. For younger kids give them a printout of the alphabet and let them mark letters when they see them – out of order allowed!

19. License plate hunt – spot license plates from as many states as you can.

20. For littler kids instead of the alphabet or license plate game, try a rainbow bingo game using car colors. Make it a little more difficult by asking them to find the car colors in rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).

21. Travel bingo – you can buy these sets, make your own or download the ones I’ve drawn for my kids. Make sure each kid has a different card filled with common sights along your route (farm animals, farm equipment, construction equipment, gas stations, fast food restaurant signs, etc).

22. Find-It bottles are always good for at least a few minutes of fun. First just let the kids explore them, then ask them to find specific items – you can even make it a race. If you put a lot of items into the bottle you might want to keep a list for yourself so you know what to ask them to find.

23. Consider letting even young kids pack a backpack or bag with toys they’ve chosen themselves (if there’s room). We usually have to supplement what they’ve picked, especially with the younger one, but it lets them feel more ownership about their own entertainment.

24. Travel journals – I found notebooks at the dollar store and pasted a lot of the printables in them, along with a faceplate that had the kid’s name and the trip information. It was nice to have things in one place, plus the kids had plenty of room for stickers or postcards or other things they picked up along the way.

Also, check out my post on tips and tricks for airplane travel with kids for more travel ideas!