It’s summer here in Australia, which means that for most us, January is prime-time to take a break.
Some families go camping. Others take a flight to a spectacular destination. My little family does an annual road trip. We travel over 1,000kms (or 621 miles), each way. The trip usually involves a beach holiday vacation, and stopovers with family and friends. Two long weeks of pure, exciting family-time.
And everything that goes along with that!
So having done this mega road trip on numerous occasions, here are my top 10 tips for enjoying the experience with two active, high-spirited, pre-schoolers in tow. Note – I don’t actually tow them, they are strapped safely in their car seats 😉
- If departing for the trip in the wee hours of the morning, let the kids go to bed dressed. This saves having to wake them fully and dressing them before putting them into the car. This also saves an embarrassing PJ’s change as you pull in for breakfast somewhere.
- Pre-plan the day before you leave as a play day. This tires the kids out and they are more likely to sleep for greater periods of time during the car trip the next day.
- Choose designated car seats prior to leaving. No changing. No upgrading. No way. This avoids the whine of “but I want to sit in that seat”, and will save your sanity.
- Prepare the kids with a “Hold On” strategy. Clear warnings need to explained that we cannot stop quickly when nature calls. Advising them that not waiting until you are busting to tell me you need to go will mean we can stop when convenient and safe.
- Snacks and drinks. This point really goes without saying when travelling with kids, but I always keep it healthy on the trip up. Once you’re away from home and your usual routine, it is much harder to enforce healthy eating options. However, stocking the car with fruit and healthy sandwiches for the trip is a good start.
- Portable DVD players. OMG. What a fantastic invention! Our car does not have them equipped, so with each road trip we lovingly install the portable DVD player and listen to movies rather than whinging!
- Motion sick bags. Sadly, I learnt this trick the hard way. I now always carry a motion sick bag for the kids, which depending on the brand, can also be used as mini-garbage bags. Bonus!
- Baby wipes are a must! Not only to clean up any messes caused by point (7) but also for sticky fingers, messy mouths, spilt drinks, impromptu toilet tissue or wiping dirty feet before re-entering the car. Yes, I make my children wipe their dirty feet. J
- Are we there yet? Advise the kids how long the trip will be. Mine are too young to understand it, but they like to be told in ‘minutes’ how long it is going to be before we arrive. Often if I can put it into movie-length terms ie you need to watch Toy Story three times and we’ll be there!, then this seems to appeal to their sense of time management.
- Let them pack their own toy bag. Getting them to fill a small backpack with a couple of favourite toys and books makes them responsible for their choice and more willing to play with them during the car trip.
Now it’s your turn! Jump in and help me out. What are your best tips for surviving a road trip with the kids?
Don’t forget chocolate-;#
So at the risk of sounding incredibly old fashioned perhaps and maybe even mean, what happened to looking out the window, playing games, drawing up a list of things to look out for in their own individual notebooks prior to leaving (like a mobile scavenger hunt, crossing off the items as you went), punching your sister every time you see a certain colour car etc. We even had our kids trained not to ask “are we there yet”. We did this by allowing them to bring along their piggy banks and promising not to interfere with the choice of spending when we finally got to wherever “there” was, the flipside being everytime one of them asked “are we there yet” it would cost them a gold coin or equivalent. We did a lot of audio books which was great for listening while they day dreamed out the window, and lots of the time, we just plain talked or sang and listened to the radio. Please don’t be offended and I am not critisizing as such, but sometimes I wonder if parents these days (and I’m only 46 not an old finger waving granny) are so dedicated to getting their kids sorted and occupied, they forget to just experience “the experience”. It’s ok for kids to get bored sometimes, they will always make something up to occupy themselves, and as long as we encourage the right behavior when they do, they get used to the experience. It always seemed to help that we reminded our kids, that almost always, the endless hours on the road led to a positive, happy, or exciting experience. So it was definitely worth doing again.
I just did Darwin to Alice springs and on to Uluru and then all he way back in 8 days. 4200km all up with my 9 and 11 yr olds. They were fab, IPad minis helped a lot, DVDs, playing games such as i spy and guess the person, keepingt rack of the wildlife, talking about the changing ecosystems and lots of good music and laughing along the way helped. I kept the travelling to ant 600 Kim’s max until the last day
Well, Leonie, I am a finger waving old grannie and I agree with you. I travelled with small children before DVD players. We would make up a bag with a few new items – coloring books, crayons, travel games, paper and pencil or pen, dot-to-dot, etc. Since they had never seen any of these things before, it was something to look forward to. We also did not allow “are we there yet” type questions. The question was “where are we” which brought out the map. On the map was marked “home” and “there”. We would then look for signs which would help us find where we were on the map, then we would use a color marker to draw a line of how far we had gone since the last request. The kids all know how to read a map, learned a bit of geography, and it took the “how long till we get there” out of play. We also played license plate games – most states, abc, 123. And car color games – pick a color then count your color cars and see who has the most in a given amount of time. We drove a 1955 Chevy with a 16 gallon tank that got between 12 – 15 mpg (we were pulling a trailer and had 7 people in the car), gas stops were pretty regular. However, no food or drink until the gas guage read 1/4 tank. By the time we were done snacking or eating, we needed gas – and a pit stop – 6 girls, two door car – we got some looks as we poured out of the car and raced for the restroom! Good times!