(From a mom who travels with 10 kids!)
Recently I got the request on my YouTube channel to talk about some strategies for traveling with small children. This sounded really fun! I have always done a lot of traveling with my kids and almost always alone. I tell a few of those stories on the video I did (link below or here), but here I’ll just mention the 10 tips I have for traveling with children.
I want to encourage you to not be daunted about taking your kids on a long trip. You can do it! Yes, it’s a lot of work. Yes, it’s exhausting. But I never had the option to leave them behind. (We don’t have extended family nearby. In fact, going to visit them in other states was the #1 reason for trips.) So traveling with kids is what I’ve always done and have come to love it.
10 Tips For Traveling With Children
Tip #1 Keep it Simple
- Snacks:
- string cheese
- nitrate free beef sticks
- plain almonds (older kids)
- raisins
- fruit strips
- apple slices
- grapes
- carrots and celery
- Toys:
- A couple of handheld toys like Rubix cubes that kids can solve over and over, race, challenge himself, etc.
- Matchbox cars for the boys
- Dolls for the girls (one doll each)
- Books:
- Non-fiction easy readers on bugs, animals, tornadoes, trains, etc.
- 4-in-1 fiction books
- Art:
- Small clipboard with plain paper
- Small amount of colored pencils or just plain pencils
Try to avoid unnecessary things. Don’t bring pillows and blankets you don’t need (or maybe just 1-2 and kids can take turns using them.) Don’t bring stuffed animals that get thrown around and need to constantly be picked up. Don’t bring lots of art projects or games with lots of pieces. Plain paper will suffice. Kids can draw whatever they want. For games they can play tic tac toe, pictionary, or hangman on the paper. Or play games that don’t require anything like the alphabet game, I spy, charades, guess what song I’m thinking of, etc.
Backpacks only have the clipboard and paper and a few toys. That’s all!
Tip #2 Keep Your Normal Schedule
Try to keep meal times the same as you usually eat. Also keep naptimes as close to normal as possible. My babies usually wake around 7am and take their first nap 9-11:30 and their second around 1 or 2. So I get everything ready the night before and am ready to drive away at 7:30am. Then the baby is happy until 9 while the energy in the car is also happy. Then she can stay on her nap schedule and sleep at 9. We eat lunch in the car around 11 and then stop at 11:30ish when the baby wakes up. We’ll get gas, use the restroom, wash up from lunch, throw away trash, nurse the baby and change diapers. Then back in the car. Kids will play a bit then naturally fall quiet as the toddlers and baby fall asleep around 1. Older kids read while little ones sleep. After naptime we’re almost there! The kids are excited and I’m relieved the trip went so fast and flawless.
Keeping on your normal schedule saves a lot of time. Believe me, I’ve tried it! The trips we’ve gotten off we’ve had to make extra stops which adds up to a lot longer road trip. If we stop when the baby is napping and wake her up, she will be screaming and I’ll have to stop and nurse again or walk around. If the little ones aren’t napping at the same time then they’ll be waking each other up, which also results in crying and pulling over to console. When we’re all eating at different times we will need to stop and use the restroom more and wash hands. Keep your normal schedule as much as possible!
Keeping to our normal schedule was crucial when I took these 7 little kids on a two month trip across the United States and back by myself.
Tip #3 Interfere as Little as Possible.
Let your babies and kids self soothe as much as possible. It’s tempting to jump at the first squabble or peep, but try to ignore it. See what happens when kids figure out how to calm the baby down themselves, share their toys, make up their own songs. Don’t be constantly suggesting things for them to do either. Let them figure out how to entertain themselves. Listen to your own podcast or daydream and try to forget about the kids. I have to do this so I’m not micromanaging everything they do and getting all uptight about the trip. I stay more relaxed and am more fun to travel with when I’m doing my own thing and they are entertaining themselves for much of the trip.
Tip #4 Seat Kids Strategically
For some of the trip I may have the front and rear car seats facing each other. Sometimes the 20 month old is great company for the 4 month old. He will laugh and be silly and keep the baby happily occupied. This saves the older kids from entertaining either of them! Other parts of the trip we put an older child by each child in a car seat to help them. Especially if it’s during meal time. I put the infant directly behind my seat so I can jump out and grab the baby to nurse in my seat while the rest of the kids file out slowly and make their way to the restrooms. Then by the time they’re done, I’m also done nursing and can run in and use the toilet while one of the older kids changes the diaper. This way we are super efficient with our stops and are back on the road in 20 minutes!
Tip #5 Have the Kids Help Plan the Trip
If it’s a multi-day trip, have each child plan a day of it. Give them a few suggestions of things to see along the way or at the destination: a cave, waterfall, famous person’s house, museum, etc. They can also help choose the hotel or campground to stay at and which meals to have. They can make the shopping list for those meals. (Mac ‘n cheese cups for hotel rooms, ingredients for foil dinners for campgrounds, sandwiches for the car.)
If it’s just a one day trip and you’re new at road trips then let each child plan an hour of the trip. (Or half the trip if you only have 2 kids.) They get to decide what the family listens to: music, an audio book, etc. They decide which game the family plays: I spy or the alphabet game. Kids enjoy the trip so much more when they have some control over it. And they’re more likely to do what you want to do the hours you’re in charge of (or their annoying sibling) if they know they also have a couple of hours to choose what the family does.
Tip #6 Entertainment: No Electronics
Avoid bringing electronics if you can help it. I drove across the country by myself with 7 kids ages 11 down to 3 months for 2 whole months without any electronics. If I can do it, you can too! Or if it’s a multi-day trip, at least limit it to one movie every other day or something. If I were to do that cross country trip again I would have liked to have a DVD player and shown a movie during the most boring states (aka Nevada.) One movie the whole family likes and that I could listen to and enjoy while driving. That would have been great. But I’m glad we didn’t have different devices the kids could whine for, drop, fight over, not want to put away, sneak, etc. We were all fully engaged. No headphones, no individual devices.
- Music: Check out CDs from the library or make a playlist to play over the car radio. Listen to Disney songs, musical theater songs, Christmas songs, state songs as you drive through them.
- Games: Like I said, the “ABC game”, “I spy”, “name this movie quote”– anything that doesn’t require any supplies.
- Audio book that the whole family will love: Little Britches, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Cheaper by the Dozen, A Christmas Carol
- Tell stories: the birth of each child, how you and your spouse met, how your parents met, your most embarrassing moment, what sports or instruments you played, your favorite family vacation, your favorite birthday as a child, most memorable Christmas, etc. Kids love hearing family history stories!!
Tip #7 Keep it Clean
Going back to packing simply, if you don’t bring a lot of toys, games, snacks, or stuffed animals, the car will stay fairly clean. But make sure to teach each child to put their stuff back into their backpack after they use it. Have everyone grab trash at every stop. Having a clean car goes a long way for the peace of the car. When it feels like chaos with toys and wrappers, kids act chaotic.
Tip #8 Avoid Eating Out
If you can help it, don’t eat out. For one thing, it’s expensive. Save the money for a cool museum or national monument, cave, etc. For another thing, it’s unhealthy. You’re better off eating quesadillas or sandwiches that you made at home and brought along. A third reason is that it takes a lot of time. You have to decide on the restaurant, get off the freeway, decide what to order, try to feed the kids in the car or take time going in, etc. I’m an efficient person and I get anxious taking so much time to make an extra stop and rushing kids through a meal. If you enjoy stopping, go ahead and stop! I get cranky stopping. So I prefer to leave early in the morning and get to my destination by dinnertime. That’s usually a person’s house so we get to eat a nutritious home cooked meal with them. If it’s a hotel then we eat a container of chili I’ve brought or make Mac ‘n cheese cups in the microwave and pair them with fresh fruit and veggies.
Tip #9 Go to Bed Early, Start Out Early
I pack the car the day before so we’re able to leave first thing in the morning. The night before the trip I put the kids in the clothes they are traveling in around 6-7pm. Then I brush their teeth and let them play. Then I pack up the toothbrush bag and all the suitcases into the van. In the morning I nurse the baby, grab the insulated bags out of the fridge with our lunch and perishables, put them in the car. Then go back in and get each child out of bed and put them in their car seats. I have also braided the girls’s hair the night before and put their shoes by each seat. So literally all I have to do is grab the food and kids. So much easier to start early! Otherwise by the time I’ve gotten all the kids breakfast, gotten them dressed and hair combed, it is mid morning! This way the house stays clean, no more dishes or laundry (especially if we’re leaving the house empty for a week), no toys gotten out.
Starting on a trip early makes the drive go so much faster. Try it! When we start at 9 or 10 the trip seems to last forever. Then we have to stop for dinner and that takes another hour, making the trip an hour longer. Driving in the dark isn’t as fun for the kids, so they are crankier. They may fall asleep at like 6-7pm and then not go to bed at the hotel or family’s house. Do yourself a favor and leave early, get there by dinner. Saves a lot of work, tears, and stress. Makes the trip a lot happier.
A fun road trip where we stopped and hiked an easy waterfall. Trips with my 10 kids are a treat! They are well worth the time to plan and cost to implement. I never regret them.
Tip #10 Be Happy and Have Fun!
If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Kids of all ages, even babies, can tell when Mom isn’t happy. Throw the stress out the window and decide to enjoy the adventure. Everything’s going to be fine. If the kids cry, it’s going to be ok. Enjoy the moments of traveling with your family. My parents took us on a road trip every year and when my dad passed away he said those road trips were at the top of his fondest memories. To have so much time together as a family without the responsibility of work, or the stress of every day problems like the toilet plugged, deer in the garden, the sprinklers not working, or the phone ringing. Yes there are other problems on a road trip and we had many of them including major car break downs. But it was still nice to leave our daily life behind and squish in a station wagon and travel the country together.
Listen to audio books or family podcasts that you like, sing along to the radio, tell jokes, tell stories of your childhood, compliment your kids, and talk to one child at a time about their friends, teachers and aspirations. Do whatever you love that gets you in a good mood. Admire the scenery and just breathe in the wonderful moment of having your family all together in the car with you, going on a trip. Savor it. The kids will learn to savor it to and thank you for these memories when they’re older.
I hope these 10 tips for traveling with children are helpful!
Get ready to make great memories!! I love every adventure I take my kids on. Now that I have some in college it’s even more special when they come home and then we take a road trip together. I try to do this once a year.
Here’s a road trip we took last summer. We stopped and ate lunch then hiked Clingman’s Dome in NC. It was the best!
