Car Travel with Children

My family has logged more hours in our Jeep than I’d care to count. We lived in Washington, DC while we conducted our house search in Woodbury on the weekends. Six hours each way, with a 5-year-old and an 18-month-old! It wasn’t for the faint of heart, I will tell you that. I thought traveling with kids would be a terrific topic to tackle considering that many of us are now sitting back and planning our summer vacations.

The short attention span of kids brings up the challenge of how to keep them interested with what little space you have to store items.  Small toys are a solution, and dollar stores are the best place to find these.  They cost very little and the kids get a ton of mileage out of them. For example, I bought little “slap bracelets” (like the ones we played with in the late 80’s and early 90’s) with a small Gecko on them. My daughter had a blast playing with that for a fair amount of time. My son is into “Silly Bandz”, and a package or two of those goes a long way in entertaining him.

Of course nowadays kids are pretty tech savvy, so an IPod loaded with their favorite TV show might be a key form of entertainment.  In an odd way, it can even serve as a “clock” that tells them how much more travel time we have.  For example, our kids like the cartoon “Olivia”, so when our son Chris asks “When are we going to be there?” I tell him in how much more travel time we have in terms of how many episodes of Olivia he can watch. “Chris, just four more Olivias!”

Along the same lines, using a portable DVD player was suggested by my friend Carrie, mom of 3 young children, including a set of twin sons. Have two or three movies that they enjoy on hand, and make sure there isn’t a movie in the mix that will drive you crazy if played repeatedly. My daughter’s Godmother told us that when her kids were young, they watched the film “Hook” over and over again. This understandably drove her crazy after the tenth hour of a long car trip.

A video game is another viable solution.  Our kids also have a Leapster learning system. This is a wonderful hand held device for a long trip that keeps them entertained and their minds off of the mind-numbing car trip.  For older kids, more advanced game systems are more appropriate.

Paula, a teacher and mother of two told me that music saves her! Specifically, she has gotten her kids into “The Phantom of the Opera” soundtrack. This is a terrific way of sneaking culture into everyday life. Growing up, my Mother loved musicals and we listened to the tapes in the car for our car trips. I think the first word I learned how to spell was O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A!

Of course, don’t limit yourself to technology.  Books and picture books worked well with us, especially now that our son is reading well.  Sticker books are terrific as well.  At a local dollar store I found some sticker books of racecars which have places for the kids to add sticker decorations too.

“Plan the trip around nap schedule” was the advice of my friend Wendy who has two energetic boys under six years old. Fantastic advice!  We have found that leaving insanely early, say 2 a.m. – 3 a.m., worked well for our kids. Keeping them in their PJ’s would make it easier to have them sleep in the car, and they would be back asleep by the time we were on the highway.  Endless miles of boring travel would pass unnoticed to them.  Of course, be sure that you get a good night’s sleep before trying this, so that you don’t fall asleep as well.  Since my husband is an early morning person, this isn’t too much of a problem.

Another friend of mine Sara, suggested a game from when she was a child:  “We traveled a lot as kids and we always played the license plate game. We would try to see all 50, and we got double points for two different model plates from the same state.”  She added that her Mother had found a gameboard with the license plates, and all they had to do was check them off. I need to find that game board!

Food became a “no, no” when we bought or new car and it became the primary travel vehicle, but when we were traveling in our older Jeep I would pack a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast (the baby didn’t get the cream cheese of course - it would have become fingerpaint!) My friend Soraya says “usually ‘off limits’” foods “like gummy bears help make our trips to and from PA more bearable”. Our trips also included candy, not just for the kids but also for the adults. For the 18-month-old I bought “Mum Mum’s”, which are rice crackers that desintegrate while the baby is gnawing away at it, a very good choice, since there was less of a chance that she would choke on this cracker as we drove.

These are just some ideas that can make your trips more bareable. No amount of preparation will ever make a car trip with kids 100 percent pleasant, but at least we can try and keep our sanity for as many miles as we can.