You decide to save some money on a vacation and will be driving to your destination. One thousand miles of family packed fun one way. This is manageable, right?
Road trips can be a fun way to spend part of your vacation. It will also serve as testing grounds for patience levels for adults, but it’s worth it. Time spent together will be cherished in year’s to come, even if it’s to remember the bickering over the gameboy.
There are several tips to follow when packing for a road trip. They are all adjustable for miles traveled, kid’s ages, season and destination.
Travel Tip #1
Take travel games. Whether these are games you make up, play on paper or video, or do only from a car, you need to have several at your disposal. Every child will have a game style preference, so take a couple of each type. If one likes to play tic tac toe all day long, have lots of blank sheets of paper and pencils handy. One child can’t pull their nose out of the gameboy, have a battery charger handy. And last, one likes board games. Many regular games now come in travel sizes with travel holders. They fold shut to easily store dice, cards or place markers without a mess.
Keep a few surprise games under your sleeves in case a traffic jam strikes. Make up games that use surrounding elements in them like the ABC game, the license plate finder and road sign game.
Travel Tip #2
Pack snacks and drinks for everyone. The road you take may be less traveled, meaning no gas stations for munchies. Keep a supply on hand for whenever hunger pains strikes. Thirst is also unpredictable with little ones, so have water, juice boxes or whatever else they choose in a cooler.
Travel Tip #3
Have empty plastic bags. Plastic bags can be used for trash, separating children’s items or sealing up dirty diapers or clothes. Accidents and spills happen, so they need to have a place to be stored until they can be properly disposed or taken care of.
Travel Tip #4
Bring all the necessary medicines and keep nearby. If you have a child prone to motion sickness, keeping their medicine packed in a bag at the bottom way in the back won’t do anybody any good. The same goes with Tylenol and Pepto Bismo. Headaches and stomach ailments may strike at any time. Quick relief beats living through misery of waiting for the next rest area to dig for the cure.
Travel Tip #5
Carry a map. Writing down a route or printing an instruction sheet off the computer won’t do any good if there is a closed road, construction or traffic jam. The good old atlas book is the only way to accurately look for an alternative route. Delays sitting on the road waiting for directions or openings will only frustrate everyone. If you are moving on a side road, passing stopped traffic you are saving a world of headache later.