How to make family travel fun and as stress-free as possible!
I was recently reminiscing with my oldest son (7 1/2) about how my sister and I traveled in the “olden days”. Ha ha! I’m only 39 and I’m already being referred to as having lived in the olden days, how funny! Anyway, I remember that we had no DVD player in our station wagon on those 10 hour journeys. We had cup holders that slid down between the door and the window (if we were lucky to have our own and not have to share!), we had one travel game (maybe two) between the two of us that we had to share and we didn’t wear seat belts most of the time. Can anyone else relate?
Since my dad was in the Army for 22 years of my life we traveled a LOT to say the least. Well, the trend continues with my family and quite frankly I don’t know how my parents didn’t lose their minds with me and my sister bickering in the back seat. Now that I think about it, we learned to share and get along! (What a concept!)
My patience level is about medium to low when it comes to dealing with children on long car rides. My husband says he prefers to have me fly and meet him and kids there because I drive him nuts!
Here are a few things I’ve found to help ease the tension in the car on those long trips:
- Go to the dollar store (or anywhere) and get a few new coloring/activity books and a pack of new crayons. On that note, I love the Color Wonder markers for younger kids. They don’t make a mess and there are several pages to keep them busy.
- I love the travel trays you see online for kids. It keeps their crayons from rolling onto the floor and their food in their lap. You can see them at www.FamilyTravelGear.com.
- Get a few new small toys or books for them to play with in the car. Anything new is going to hold their attention for a while.
- Have plenty of snacks and drinks on hand.
- MP3 players are fun for kids too! I found some on clearance at Target for about $20 each. I bought one for each of my 7 and 4 yr. old sons. I downloaded several kids’ CDs on them. They love them!! This way I can listen to my music without having to listen to theirs all day. Everyone’s happy! You can ask friends if they have kids’ CDs you can borrow and download onto the players. I use Windows Media Player to do this. You can go to any Windows or microsoft website and see how to download this software. There are other softwares available to download online as well that will work.
- Don’t plan on getting anything done. This always kills the mood for the trip. Just know that you’re going to have to deal with the kids regularly and if you get any work or reading or anything else done it’s icing on the cake. Set your expectations low so there’s no disappointment or resentment.
- Find a good book of travel games like the alphabet game and more.
- I love the hand-held travel games like etch-a-sketch, hungry hippos, etc. that are not electronic.
- I’m not a big fan of electronic games in general. However, my kids got Leapsters for Christmas with several educational cartridges. I limit their time on these to 30 minutes a day but on long trips I extend it to what I deem reasonable.
- Give the kids a map of where you’re going and highlight the route. That way they can see how much farther you have to go. A Trip Tik from AAA is good for this too.
- Of course DVD players are a lifesaver. We do limit how much they watch but on those looooong trips when they’re getting tired and fussy it’s great to be able to pop one of those babies in!
Helpful Family Travel Websites:
www.TravelingWithKids.com
www.FamilyTravelGear.com
I hope this gives you a new idea or two.
If you have a good one, please post it!
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