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Traveling with your family this summer? As a mom, I am always looking for ways to make traveling with kids easier. These 25 travel hacks for kids will help you as you prepare for your next family trip…. from packing for a trip to the ride itself.
My family and I are planning some fun vacations for the next few months, but with four kids, it can get hard to go more than just a few hours. With that being said- it is getting a little easier now that the kids are getting older. They can keep themselves entertained with electronics, notebooks, crayons, and toys, so that has made our trips much easier!
Here are some travel hacks.. that make traveling easier! 🙂
1- I love the idea of having each outfit packed in a ziplock bag by day, so you just grab a bag and it is filled with everything that you need (shirt, pants, underwear, socks…).
*Put a dryer sheet or 1/2 of a dryer sheet in the ziplock bags to give the clothes a wonderful smell when you pull them out for the day!
Don’t forget this tip–>> Buy travel-sized items for the trip & toss it in the trash when you are done (toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwash, body wash…)! It makes the trip so much easier for just a few dollars.
2- I also love to keep the car organized!! I recently ordered these backseat organizers on Amazon (I love that our kids can keep their drinks, tablets & toys in them.): The one that we have (pictured below) is the Luxury Car Back Seat Organizer with Thermo Pockets, DVD Player & Tablet Holder – Touch Screen Pocket up to 11″, Multifunctional Back of Seat Organizer.
3- To keep boredom at bay, try making your own travel binder. Put everything into your little pencil case and place it into a binder. Print out their favorite character for them to color on the way. Our kids loved it.
4- Keep a first aid kit in the car. A DIY first aid kit is easy to make when you throw in some bandaids, Tylenol, cleaning spray for boo-boos and other things you might need to help your family be prepared for the unexpected.
5- Road trips can easily become pretty expensive with gas costs and food costs. One way to help save money on road trips is by packing your food and planning things out ahead of time- plan out rest areas that have room to run or stop and have a picnic at a park.
6- Give your kids times to watch for. Get a wake-up light and use it to your advantage. When the light on this turns GREEN, we will be stopping to get lunch soon. When it turns GREEN again, we will be stopping to take a break.
Ps- you make need a car adapter to plug it in. I don’t know what I would do without mine!
7- If you have a long car trip, grab a bucket and string and make a bucket pulley system ahead of time- fill it with things they will need.
8- Have books on tape and listen to them during the trip. This one is our favorite book on tape, by far!
9- When we aren’t listening to a book, we actually watch Netflix on my laptop because you can connect your laptop to the internet while in your car, so it makes it easy. I set the laptop on the console area in between the driver & passenger seat and everyone can watch.
10- Keeping a variety of toys and games flowing is always helpful when you are traveling with kids. Having some clever travel games for little ones makes it easier and can see how they would be a great distraction.
11- Kids love countdowns of any kind so the idea of doing a countdown to arrival is just brilliant, like this one where each hour they get a new activity to complete (you can write them on the back of the numbers).
12- Break out some Road Trip Bingo for your kids. This fun game will give some variety to the trip and is a great distraction, looking for things and marking them off as you go.
13- It can be hard to avoid all the junk food when traveling, which is why I love the idea of using tackle boxes or rainbow loom box-kits to hold a variety of healthy snacks from pretzels to cheerios to Chex Mix.
14- Use a cookie sheet to create an instant activity tray for your little ones when traveling- it is like a mini desk in the car! All that you need to make this is a cookie sheet, a Dremel tool, and some velcro!
15- Legos are always fun but can be hard to keep track of when traveling (especially traveling with small children). This is why, when I saw the idea for a Portable Lego Kit, I just loved it. Just a little tote or lunch box and some legos! So simple and creates wonderful playtime opportunities.
16- When the time in the car or airplane is going to be long, a scavenger hunt is a great option. Let the kids look for certain landmarks, cars and other things!
17- Print off this cute license plate checklist and look for the license plates along the way- see who can cross them off first. Do they see one from PA? What about NC?
18- Use an empty DVD case to create a coloring case. It can hold a notepad and pencils. You could also grab your DIY crayon roll or this little portable drawing kit to keep the kids busy.
19- Create an I Spy Bag for the kids to enjoy during some quiet time during travels- fill it with rice and a lot of little trinkets. Give them a list of what is in there and let them search for it.
20- Make some Road Trip Behavior Clips– this is a great way to encourage good behavior on the trip: Its a really easy concept- if the paper clip with your letter on it stays up, you are doing great. If the clip comes down for misbehaving, you miss out on the next fun thing (ice cream, running break, etc…)
21- Prep some Are We There Yet? bags ahead of time to use during those moments of near breakdown- they will buy you an extra thirty minutes when you pull them out and surprise the kids.
22- Creating a diaper changing station to take on the road with you. Keep diapers, wipes, and a plastic bag for dirty diapers in the back of your car. It can be a lifesaver of an idea when you are traveling with little ones.
23- Use this checklist for packing tips. This way, you can be prepared ahead of time.
24- While traveling, it can be hard to keep kids entertained, but this list of non-technology activities are perfect to keep any child busy- the idea to look for drivers wearing sunglasses is a great tip and so much fun! You can vary these ideas to include drivers wearing hats, kids with blue shirts, minivans, motorcycles, etc..
25- Grab your Kindle! We fill our tablets with new apps before we leave and we go about 1-2 hours without turning them on. After we decide to get them out, the kids are so excited and they play on them for a few hours, giving the driver some peace and quiet to concentrate on the drive.
I hope that these tips were helpful!
Ps- This Summer Survival Kit and get a TON of free printables for your trip.
NEED MORE IDEAS? Check out my favorite tips for going to Disney with your family…
Great suggestions. We have done many of these before with our family of 6. On our last 24 hour road trip to Sydney we did bring along the map so the kids could see where we were. This was great. It reinforced the benefits of a paper map (being able to see the whole trip at once) and provided a start and end point.
Generally, children are excited to go somewhere different, whether it is visiting grandparents, a vacation or even if you need to get somewhere for a business appointment, you can still turn it into a great adventure.
My favorite family activity is when a family member starts a story. Each family member will then add a sentence to the story to help fill in the details. You will see just how great of an imagination kids can have through this game.
Great Ideas! 🙂
These are some wonderful ideas for keeping kids entertained. I’ll have to figure out which ones to try since it’ll probably take a few hours to drive my nephew to his new home. His parents are planning to fly ahead and make sure the house is in order before we come. It sounds easy enough to find a lunch box and fill it with legos. I’m also debating about whether it might be a good idea to have a video player installed since my nephew will be with me for a couple weeks as well.
My wife was reading about some different children’s travel trays, and I think that being able to have some sort of activities for our kids for an upcoming road trip would be really helpful for us. We’re going to be shopping around for different travel tray options for our kids, but I think that being able to have some ideas to add to whatever we buy could be helpful! I really liked how you talked about legos being something that could be good for kids while traveling, and I think that my boys would really enjoy having something like that to build and play with while we’re on our road trip! Thanks for the help!
Some travel hacks that also make traveling easier! One of them is I like the idea of having every clothes packed in a ziplock bag during the day, so you just take the bag and fill it with everything you need (shirt, pants, panties, socks) Put a dryer sheet or 1/2 sheet the dryer in the ziplock bag to give the clothes a beautiful aroma as you pull it out for the day! Thank you for sharing these tips Your tips are very useful Do not stop to write on your blog yes Well, occasionally vacation to Bali .Because Bali is one of the islands in Indonesia that has many tourist destinations.If you are on vacation in Bali do not to stay at Latalianavillas.com .. Here we provide various facilities untu you and your family.
I simply loved the tips you mentioned in your post. These are some really wonderful ideas to keep our children engaged during the trip and also to enhance productivity among them. I am so going to implement them in my next trip.
keeping the kids engaged is one of my biggest stress when our family is on a vacation, will be sure to remember these tips for the next big trip. thanks
There are many techniques for children to be entertained during the journey. Thanks for sharing such a nice idea to keep kids busy and entertained during a journey. Really nice ideas.
Great article! very interesting information. Thanks for sharing the great tips
These are some wonderful ideas for keeping kids entertained. We are thinking about our next tour with my family. We have a 3 years old son. And i was tensed how can keep my baby busy in travelling time. Now i am happy to see this post here i found some useful tips about it. Hope so it will work for us. Thanks for the sharing such a useful article.
I am glad you said that keeping a variety of toys and games flowing is always helpful when you are traveling with kids. I am traveling with my kids this season. Thank you for the tips on activities for traveling children.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful blog, this blog is related to the traveling-kids-hacks. we are learning from you and podsquad.
Awesome Tips!!! All of the 25 tips are important and great ideas. Thank you . Especially the number 23 Tip( Use the Checklist for packing tips) this is awesome, i have 4 kids and i always forget something behind whenever we started a trip. I gotta start using the checklist.
I loved your blog! You had some super cool ideas I had never thought of. Loved the Ziploc bag for clothes with the dryer sheet idea! The bucket pulley system was ingenious. Our family will play roadtrip Bingo ~ always fun! And I had never thought of the snack organizer. That was a very cool way to have a variety of snacks in one place. Loved it!