Traveling with kids. Do you feel tired just hearing that sentence? :) If you’ve read my blog for a while you know that Kenny and I travel often with our kids. Especially to our home town in southern Utah to visit family. The drive is exactly 6 1/2 hours from our doorstep to our favorite retreat (my moms house) if there is no traffic. We have made that trip with our kids so many times in the last ten years (and many other trips) that I feel like I’ve learned a lot about how to make traveling with little ones as pleasant as possible. I’ve had several people ask if I have any tips on traveling with kids and I do! Here are just a few things that we do to make our road trips go as smooth as possible.
{TIPS ON TRAVELING WITH KIDS}
Tip 1) Don’t travel with kids if you can at all avoid it.
Kidding.
Kind of.
Tip 1 for real) If you’re driving to your destination, do a bit of homework ahead of time to make sure that you aren’t going to be on the road during heavy traffic times. If possible, avoid traveling on Fridays and Sundays if you are driving in areas with heavy traffic. It’s hard to do, but by leaving really early on a Saturday morning vs. a Friday afternoon can save hours of time on the road. There is nothing worse than being stuck in traffic with small children! You don’t want to make an already long trip even longer. We usually leave early on a Saturday morning and if Kenny has to be back to work Monday, we wake up super early Monday morning to drive home and Kenny goes straight into work. Often he will take Monday off as a travel day so we don’t have to drive on Sunday in all of the traffic.
Tip 2) Pack the car the night before and leave early in the morning when kids are in their calmest state. I mentioned we leave early in the morning to avoid traffic. We also do this because kids (at least our kids!) travel best in the morning. We pack the car the night before and as soon as everyone rolls out of bed we hit the road. The morning hours are always calmer times when everyone is rested and the kids are more content to relax in the car. Parents often think “let’s leave in the evening so the kids will sleep on the drive…” This usually backfires. I know because I’ve done it. And it usually backfires. Because kids are so excited about the trip and are out of their normal routine they don’t sleep and instead are overly tired and hyper and much harder to travel with.
Tip 3) Allow plenty of time for stops along the way. You really have to learn to “enjoy the journey” when traveling with little ones. Knowing you will make more stops and planning that extra time into your trip will make for a more stress free travel day.
Tip 4) Pack each child his/her own little bag of snacks and fun things to do on the drive.
I always pack my girls their own bag full of snacks and things to do on the trip. This way I’m not handing stuff back to the them and they are always excited to see what I’ve put in their bag. (They also get to pick out a few favorite toys to play with that go in their bags.)
Because Kole is still little, I keep a small bag next to me of things to occupy him on the drive. A few of his favorite books, his favorite train, snacks, water, etc.
This is a fun little book that we took along with us whenever we traveled this summer. Kole uses it in therapy and he LOVES it. It’s a simple matching book/game for Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? It would be so easy to make your own if you have a toddler who enjoys this book. Just download matching pictures of the animals in the book and attach velcro so your child can match the pictures.
Kole finds the small animal that matches and places it on the big animal. He “reads” the book while he does it and it’s the cutest thing. He’ll say “bear.. what you see!?” :)
A homemade matching book like this is perfect for traveling because it keeps little ones busy for a while. It would be so easy to make a matching book with all sorts of pictures that little ones recognize. I’d love to make similar books like this for Kole. If only I didn’t need to sleep! :)
Here are a few things I load the girls’ bags with: coloring books, word searches, crayons, clip boards with blank paper so they can write letters or draw pictures….
Sometimes I toss in some homemade flashcards of whatever I’ve been working on with them. For this trip Addison was working on adding doubles and Ellie was working on her three times tables. Practicing their math facts isn’t their favorite travel activity, but sometimes I can get them to quiz each other and make it into a fun game.
I also toss in their Boogie Board Pads. Same concept as an etch-a-sketch. A fun writing tablet that you use a certain pen for and erase with the touch of a button.
Music is always fun for a long trip so we make sure to bring the kids’ favorite songs along. This Wicked CD has been a staple in our car for a while now. :)
I always pack the girls a few snacks of their own and just tell them when they can eat them along the way. Wet wipes are a staple for dirty hands or spills and the black case holds our DVD’s – the ultimate survival tool for a successful long trip! We are so grateful for our DVD player in the van. We usually try to go as long as we can without a movie and then toss one on when the kids start getting restless and are tired of doing other things. They aren’t a necessity but boy do they make traveling with kids (especially our two year old!) much easier.
Tip 5) Don’t swear at the other cars on the road because your kids will hear and they won’t forget and they will remind you over and over that you said a bad word. (This tip was brought to you by my husband. Thanks to my girls he is working on his road rage.)
:)
Happy Traveling!
xoxo, Erin
