Vacation season is officially here! Traveling via road trip with kids has its pros and cons and is the preferred method of travel for our family. We are seasoned veterans of the short road trip (4-6 hours), and recently loaded up the minivan with our 3 young kids to drive the 14+ hours from Ohio to sunny Florida!
Surprisingly, we made it back and forth with very few meltdowns (both from kids and adults). Here are some helpful things we did that made the trip go a bit smoother for everyone.
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Make sure to save this page for later so you can read all about how we road trip with our family of 5, but CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JUMP TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE to the links and photos of everything I mention so you can stock up for your trip too!
1. Prepare, prepare, prepare!
The more you can prepare to treat your vehicle like a little home-on-wheels, the better! For us, this includes:
- 1. Vehicle maintenance: make sure your vehicle is properly serviced. Oil is changed, tires filled with air, etc. We fill our gas tank the night before we leave.
- 2. Clean the inside: it’s much easier to travel a long distance in a vehicle that isn’t filled with trash, old water bottles, and dirty clothes just to start. The easier it is to find things quickly, the better! We vacuum clean and sanitize ours ourselves, but you may opt for a professional car detail. My minivan has a built-in vacuum that we use constantly on-the-go. You may find it worthwhile to have a little car vacuum to keep some of the crumbs at bay. We also kept cleaning wipes handy to do little wipe-downs.
- 3. Ensure your printed documentation is up to date: depending on your insurance provider, you may need to print out an updated auto insurance card or make sure you have any appropriate documentation in your vehicle.
- 4. Safety: make sure you have a roadside emergency kit (like this one!) and supplies in your car in case you end up stranded for a significant amount of time. If you are traveling through different climates, make sure you have supplies for both cold and hot weather, rain, snow, dry heat, etc.
2. Stay Organized
If you are going to be spending a significant amount of time in an enclosed space with multiple people, the more organized you can keep things, the better! That way whenever the kid in the backseat urgently needs chapstick, you know exactly where it is and can grab it. Better yet, if your kids are old enough, provide them with the supplies they may need to cut down on the “I need…”
Check out my previous blog “20 Things Every Mom Should Keep in the Car” to get a few ideas of how to organize your car and the supplies to keep on hand for your road trip! Below are some things that helped get us to Florida without losing our marbles.
- 1. If you have more than 1 row of passengers, try to give each row supplies to minimize having to continually toss things back. We have these car organizers that we fill with basics like tissues, wet wipes, napkins, barf bags (just in case!), and hand sanitizer.
- 2. Give each row their own car trash can, and empty EVERY TIME YOU STOP. We got our kids in the habit of collecting all their trash every single time to cut down on wrappers and trash on the floorboard.
- 3. Keep change for tolls separate and handy. If you are passing through tolls, having change and dollar bills in a separate spot and ready to go makes it quicker and easier.
- Watch the video below if you’d like to see how I stock my car organizers for a long trip!
3. How to Pass the Time
This seems like the most overwhelming task to conquer with kids in the car, and different things will work better for each family depending on ages and length of trip, electronics accessible, etc. Below are a few different ideas.
- Electronics: If you will be using electronics AT ALL (phones, tablets, computers, etc), make sure you think about how to keep them charged for long periods of time! This power inverter was well worth the money!
- Road trip goodie bags: my kids LOVED this idea. We had a 14-ish hour drive, and I planned it so they would get to open a bag in different locations about 3 hours apart, so they received 4 bags each way. In each bag, I put some type of little activity (small coloring book, tiny puzzle, little surprise toys), a fun snack (Goldfish, Teddy Grahams), and maybe a little piece of candy (like a sucker). I got most of these little trinkets at the dollar store and started accumulating them around Easter. You can either set this up for them to receive at certain times (10:00, 12:00, 2:00, etc) or at different locations.
- Road trip backpacks: I filled a backpack for each child with fun non-electronic activities. They each had a couple coloring books, some new crayons/colored pencils, books to read, headphones for movies, and these electronic doodle pads, which were the biggest hit of them all!
- Travel Games: There are so many travel games you can purchase! Everything from board games to card games. My kids loved this iSpy Travel game. There are also so many options for fun printables, like these from The Crafty Working Mom.
- Portable Lego sets: these are such a great idea! I didn’t end up using them for my kids because they aren’t huge fans of Legos anymore, but wanted to share! Here is a great DIY option from Hip2Save.
- Movies: our minivan has a built-in Blu-ray player, but make sure your movie/streaming service is up to date and ready to go! Our kids love to watch movies in the van.
- Podcasts: podcasts and music are a great way to pass time on a trip. Here is a great list of some family-friendly podcasts to choose from!
4. Stay Comfortable
- If you are going to be sitting in the same spot for a long time, make sure that spot is comfortable! Dress for comfort, and prepare for multiple climates if you are driving through them. Make sure shoes can be easily taken on and off (we love our !).
- Pack blankets for your cold family members, and mini fans or car fans for those that get hot. Most large size vehicles have vents in each row, but temperature can only be regulated so much!
- Pillows: regular pillows can be bulky and take up too much needed space in the car. My kids LOVED these neck pillows and got so much use out of them! Bye-bye stiff car-seat necks!
4. Road Trip Snacks
Other than figuring out how to keep kids from asking “How much longer?” or “Are we there yet?”, the next thing no parent wants to hear is “I’m hungry!” Kids love to snack, so we made sure to pack a ton of snacks and also planned some stops around meal times. And, there are ways to pack healthy options on-the-go!
- How to travel with chilled items: you can purchase a small USB-powered mini-fridge for the car, like this one, or you can travel the old fashioned way! We freeze water bottles (stay frozen better than just ice cubes) and use a cooler to keep chilled items or drinks cold.
Chilled Snacks
Cheese
Yogurt-go-gurt
Chopped veggies
Chopped fruit
Lunch meat (to eat plain or take bread to make sandwiches)
Non-Chilled Snacks
Fruits (oranges or mandarin oranges, bananas, apples)
Nuts or trail mix
Pretzels
Applesauce cups or pouches
Crackers
Chips
Popcorn
- One way to save money on the go is to decrease the amount of fast food you are consuming. By taking loaves of bread and packing the sandwich fixing of your choice (PB&J, lunch meat, sandwich spreads, etc), you can significantly decrease your cost.
- Another way to budget your spending on food is to use gift cards. We accumulate a significant amount of restaurant and fast food gift cards throughout the year for various reasons, so we like to save them and use them for travel! This last trip, we didn’t spend any actual money on meals, just used our gift cards!
5. Plan and be Realistic
Traveling is unpredictable in itself, and traveling with kids is even more so. The more you can plan and also be flexible, the better!
- We plan to stop for bathroom breaks every 2 hours (we stopped at every rest stop because they are easiest to stop at and usually the most decent bathrooms). However, sometimes nature calls sooner, and kids cannot regulate their bodies the same as adults. I did purchase these disposable urine bags, which come in handy in the event of a traffic jam, or if you’re traveling at night with minimal bathroom accessibility.
- Exercise/stretch your body at every stop. Every time we stopped, we played little games like “Follow the leader” or “Simon says” just to get the kids to move their bodies after sitting in the car for so long.
The best piece of advice for any type of traveling with kids is to just take things as they come and expect the unexpected. Everything will not go as planned, there will be some meltdowns along the way, and everything is okay. The most important part is that your family stays safe and enjoys the ride!
What is the longest road trip you’ve taken with kids? What are your favorite road trip hacks? Make sure to subscribe and follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
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