Road Tripping with Kids: How to Make it Fun and Memorable
Planning a road trip for adults is challenging enough, let alone planning a road trip with kids. Let this not discourage you, as road-tripping with kids can be fun. What matters is that you start planning your trip on time, read some blogs on how to prepare and be very organised during the whole process. Travelling with kids is an excellent way of creating valuable memories they will cherish for the rest of their lives. So, what are you waiting for?! Start planning! Keep reading to learn more about road-tripping with kids and how to make it fun and memorable.
First, the most important thing is to start planning your trip on time and carefully – you are not allowed to make a mistake when travelling with kids. Next, prepare various on-road activities to keep kids occupied. When they are occupied, they are not annoying (ouch!). Remember to pack healthy, unhealthy snacks that will keep them quiet. Plan for the breaks – include toilet and play breaks. It’s good to stretch from time to time. Moreover, before the trip, you should tell the kids what to expect. You should be smart about it and avoid overpacking when packing. You should also enable them to have screen time during the road trip. And perhaps consider trying an exciting strategy of swapping seats occasionally – more on that later.
1. Plan the trip carefully
Regarding road-tripping with kids, the number one must is to start the planning on time and in detail. That is the key to a successful road trip with kids. You need to be extra careful when travelling with kids. Firstly, they can only sit still for a short time. They get bored quickly, and then they start boring you. With that in mind, you should carefully choose your distance. Going on a long road trip with young kids would probably not be a good idea. If travelling with young kids, you should choose shorter routes, especially for a first-time road trip.
2. Prepare various on-road activities
The next thing you should do is prepare for various on-road activities. You can even allow your kids to pack their activity bags for the road – they probably already know what they like based on what they do in their child care centre. Nonetheless, you should also get involved in making sure they did it in the right way. Also, throwing in some new toys and activities to keep them extra busy and interested would be a good idea. They can bring books, colouring books, travel lego, scrabble or something similar. You can do a little online research to learn more about some popular car games for kids to prepare well for the trip. If you wish for a calm and peaceful trip, try to excel in car games and activities!
3. Pack snacks
Besides toys and activities, you should also pack healthy and unhealthy snacks. Although it would be better to try and make those healthy ones, a priority as sugary ones won’t bring anything good. That’s why you should find some way to make those healthy snacks more delicious – you can find some ideas online. Search for healthy road trip snacks for kids. Sometimes it’s enough just to cut fruits and veggies into exciting shapes or to make animals from them. You need to outsmart your kids to eat these rather than sweets. It seems like a tough job, but it isn’t really.
4. Take regular breaks
As you probably already know from your experience, kids can’t sit very still for a long time. That’s why it’s necessary to take breaks from time to time. It’s a good way to get fresh air and stretch your legs. However, there is a difference when road tripping with kids and being alone in taking breaks – when travelling with kids, the breaks should be planned in more detail. It would be great if you could also use those breaks to have a little fun. When planning the trip, look at the map and find exciting stops. You can visit some amusement parks, adrenaline parks, have a riverside picnic or something similar. You can even play some football or fly a kite!
5. Let kids know what to expect
An essential aspect of a successful road trip that is often overlooked is letting the kids know what to expect, especially if it is their first road trip. Also, you should set some special rules of behaviour, so start talking about them and practising them on time. You can roleplay the rules on returning from school or running errands. Let them know about the whole road trip plan: how long it will take, when and where you’ll make breaks, what you’ll do, etc. The more they know, the more understanding they’ll be.
6. Pack smart
Packing for the road trip is another thing parents must consider. Most often, we overpack rather than under-pack – that’s a fact. However, we probably don’t have much luggage space, considering that there are two adults and one, two or three kids in the car. So, you must be smart when packing. Pack ONLY the things you need. Use space-saving hacks (you can find them online). Packing smartly can be tricky, so be very mindful!
7. Enable some screen time
Even if you are not a big screen time enthusiast, you should enable your kids to have some screen time on the road trip. Sometimes it is necessary. So, what you can do to prepare ahead of the trip is download some cartoons, movies, kids’ TV shows, games, activities and so on. You can also download audiobooks and fairy tales if your kids are fans.
8. Consider swapping seats
Swapping seats is an exciting strategy that only a few parents practice, yet it is simple but effective. If your kids are old enough, let them sit in the passenger seat for a little while – it will be so fun for them!
Hopefully, this road trip guideline for travelling with kids helps you plan and organise your road trip to the last detail.
