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If you ask a lot of parents, the last thing they want to do is strap their kids into a car seat for days at a time. After all, sometimes trips to the grocery store and back home are enough to make you want to pull out your hair! So when the idea of a road trip comes up, it can be a scary thought. But it doesn’t have to be! If you plan correctly, everyone will have a great (stress free) trip with NO whining! Here’s how we pulled it off on our last trip…
Snacks
You can never go wrong with snacks. I packed about 20 different kinds of snacks for our trip – some sweet, some savory, but none of them were candy or chocolate. My kiddos are uncontrollable when they have too much sugar, so I wasn’t about to be stuck in the car with them like that!
Another tip around snacks is that everyone got the same snack when we stopped. The kids took turns getting to choose the snack of the moment, but they had the same snack at the same time. This cuts down on fighting because they have the same thing and aren’t wanting the other one’s snacks!
Breaks Every 2 Hours
Whether we felt like stopping or not, we stopped somewhere. Whether it was a playground so they could climb a jungle gym or a short trail for us to go hiking, we were all happier when we got to stretch our legs and wander around a bit. If you do your research beforehand, you can find some really cool places to stop. Some of our favorites on our last trip was a farm where the kids got to pet and feed animals and a city park that had a huge playground with a river running right next to it.
We made sure that every place we stopped at also has a restroom. They were allowed to skip potty stops along the way, but never 2 in a row. The last thing we wanted to was have to pull over on the side of the road to have them drop their pants there. No thank you.
Activities for the Car
Just like with the snacks, we brought a wide assortment of activities in the car for the kiddos to play with. We had coloring book bags (this one is great for older kids), books for reading, road trip bingo, action figures, sticker books, and a *few* of their favorite toys. Here’s something important to note: make sure you have two of everything. I have two kids and inevitably, they will always want something that the other kids has. Oye. So we had two sets of every coloring book, road trip bingo, and they got to pick an equal number of their own toys to bring. It’s got to be fair, or else you’ll hear about it all the way there and all the way back!
Pedal to the Metal!
Don’t try to travel more than 10 hours in the car in a day. Yes, you could probably do that pre-kids (I know we did), but they can’t handle sitting in the car that long. You want them to have fun after all, so make the whole trip enjoyable – not just the destination!
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