Let’s not kid ourselves – a road trip with kids is a vastly different thing from a road trip with adults!
Kids are capricious at the best of times, let alone when crammed into a stuffy car, possibly next to other kids, while travelling great, seemingly endless distances.
Luckily, there are several ways you can prepare for a road trip with kids that’ll ensure the car ride runs smoothly, and that both you and the younger members of your party experience a day out to remember!
Prepare a Physical Map of the Trip Ahead
Can you remember what it’s like being a kid in a car?
Each journey seems endless and things get boring quickly. It won’t be long until they start asking ‘Are we there yet?’. Don’t forget you used to ask that once too!
One solution to alleviate the boredom and give your child some sense of control, is to provide them with a visual means of tracking the journey. This will allow for them to get a sense of both the distance they’ve travelled and how far there is left to go.
A paper map may seem old fashioned, especially when nearly every car nowadays boasts some form of GPS device, but it can help turn a mundane traverse into an exciting adventure for the little ones. If they can see how much distance is left on the map, they’ll be unlikely to get frustrated and, hopefully, will stop asking you too.
This could even double up as a means of educating your kids on geography and geometry.
Pick your Call-of-Nature Stops Before You Leave
This is another reason why having a physical map is a great idea – so that you can plan regular pitstops before you set out on your trip.
Again, if kids have something that allows them to visualize how long they’ve got to go before the next stop, they’ll be a lot more patient. Plus, they won’t get frustrated at your empty promises of ‘soon darling…’ (if you’re anything like me…!)
Thinking realistically, if you’re taking a few kids on a road trip, you’ve got to be prepared to take a lot more breaks than you normally would. Kids who never seem to need to go to the toilet will suddenly be ‘busting’ every five minutes, and it’s unlikely that they’ll all need to go at the same time. So to save your sanity just factor in an excessive amount of pit stops to cater to each child’s needs.
Sitting still for hours on end is unlikely to be the forte of any of your children, so making regular stops will also give the kids a chance to stretch their legs, and even tire themselves out if you can possibly find a rest spot with some running space. If you’re lucky this could help send them to sleep once back in the car. We can only dream…
Minimally, and especially for longer trips, you should aim to stop once every hour and allow for the break to last at least ten minutes. With this regularity in mind, you should mark off on the map ideal stopping points that’ll take roughly an hour to drive between.
Bring Plenty of Entertainment
When it comes to preparing for a road trip with kids, you can never have enough entertainment ready for them. Even if you allow your kids to pick out a toy to take with them on the trip, they’ll get bored of it at some point during the journey.
For that reason, it’s important to pack as many kid-friendly modes of entertainment as possible, from electronics to coloring-in books, so your kids will never be short on solutions to prevent boredom.
Sometimes it’s not enough to just give the child something to play with, you too may need to get involved with the playing games to distract them from the journey.
You could introduce them to old school car games, such as I-spy, twenty questions, and the alphabet game. Games like these are great if you’ve got a few kids that need entertainment, as it’s a way to keep them all occupied at the same time.
The Snack Hack
Keep the kids from going hungry, and give them enough energy for the trip ahead, by supplying them with regular healthy snacks throughout the road trip. Ideally, you want road trip snacks to leave behind as little mess as possible, so nuts, sliced fruits, and cereals would be amongst the best options.
Whatever you do, avoid sugary sweets, as this will only give them a small burst of energy, which they’ll inevitably crash from, and make them more agitated about the journey ahead. It would also be best to forgo the meals offered at gas stations. You could pack small meals, such as sandwiches, to have either in the car or during one of the pitstops.
Lastly…
Finally, make sure your kids are comfortable, safe, and well hydrated. When the complaints do start, be sure to try a few different combinations of the suggestions listed in this article and see what works best for your kids, so that you are well prepared for future road trips with kids.