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Spring break and Summer vacations are just around the corner! Many family’s will be hitting the road and taking some memorable trips during these two seasons of the year.
If you are like me and travel a lot with kids, you need to be prepared! Kid’s need to be entertained and kept busy, otherwise boredom and bad behavior sets in. Today, I wanted to share some of my personal kid-friendly traveling tips with all of you.
1. Pack a lunch! Kids often get cranky when they are thirsty and hungry, so always pack a few sandwiches, snacks and beverages. Along with your lunch packing, include some handy-dandy hand wipes and a roll of paper towels in case any accidental spills occur.
2. Invest in a portable DVD player and take at least 5 new DVDs with you on your trip. The DVDs need to be new ones that your children have never seen before. If you take ones along that they have memorized, they won’t hold their attention as much as completely new ones will.
3. Pack each child an activity bag and load it up with travel-sized games, activity books, coloring books, puzzle books, artist pad, colored pencils, etc. Anything that you think your child will enjoy.
Every few hours when you are on the road, get a new activity out of the bag for your child to play with. Do not give them the entire bag at one time, spread out those activities throughout the day.
4. Pack a change of clothes for each child in the back seat of the car. If an accident occurs, you won’t have to dig through the trunk looking for clean clothing. If you are traveling during the night, dress each child in comfortable pajamas. If children are not kept comfortable, no one else in the vehicle will be comfortable either!
5. Every few hours you need to stop and take a break. Let the kids out of the car and let them run around to burn off some of that pent up energy! We pack an outdoor goodie bag that includes a small ball, jump rope, sidewalk chalk and a few other things for them to use outdoors at a rest stop. Kids need some fresh air and exercise while traveling too.
These 5 tips have really helped us over the years when we are traveling with kids. Today, I would love to hear your kid-friendly travel tips too! Please leave them in our blog’s comment form below. Thanks!
I agree with all these tips and also old ones such as “I spy” and singing songs. Nowadays with all the electronic gadgets available it does make it easier, especially if as you said there are new ones for the trip, and perhaps state that they are only for the car ride.
As someone who has been on way to many road trips (especially long ones), I can safely say these are some really good tips on how to keep kids occupied during a long car ride. These days, luckily, there are electronic devices to keep their attention and keep them busy for up to a few hours at the most, but even then, it’s always good to have frequent breaks. I think everyone gets a bit of that car fever (opposed to cabin fever), so just getting a chance to get out and walk around is always welcome from my experience. We always made sure to pack enough tasty snacks and drinks so that hunger and thirst would be taken care of right away. Other ways would be taking books if your child doesn’t mind reading and likes to read a lot! Packing a change of clothes is a good idea since sometimes the climate changes or there are accidents that somehow happen. Another suggestion would be taking pillows or thin blankets. If your child likes certain music (and is okay with taking turns), taking music along for when it’s too dark to do anything is a great idea. Also it would be nice to learn some voice games so that again, if it’s too dark, everyone in the car can play along to a game like 20 Questions or I Spy!
My folks believed in all of these except for #2 because there wasn’t any such thing in the 1950s & 60s when we traveled. We sang a lot of songs and played with an etch-a-sketch.