Car Trips w/ Kids
- February 27th 2008
- Uncategorized
Car trips with young kids can be either heavenly learning opportunities or they can be Hell on 4 wheels. How you plan a road trip is what will make the difference. While my husband and I have not yet had our own ‘blessed event’ I’ve been privelaged(?) through out the years to be both a take-along nanny and a suffering backseat child on many such trips. The longest car trip I’ve ever been on? 4,500 miles in 18 days. Not for the feint of heart. Suffice it to say, I consider myself a bit of an experienced car tripper.
If you’ve been designated ‘Car Trip Planner’ by your family, be it to San Francisco or New York, be prepared to plan out more than just your route and hotel stays. The key to a happy family, if you’re traveling with kids, is lots of stimulation. Frankly, this is key even when not traveling with children. Of course, the parent in you wants to show them the great landscape of the Western United States. Remember, however, that this is only interesting, if you’re lucky, for about 1/2 an hour. Here are some suggestions on how to liven things up:
- Find cool roadside stops. Use www.roadsideamerica.com to find cool, unusual things along your route. Having something weird to look forward to will greatly improve your child’s patience.
- Turn your trip into the classroom. Going to the desert? Take the opportunity to teach your kids about rock formations. Going through the California Central coast? Teach your kids about identifying different crops and perhaps even stop by for a picking event.
- Turn your roadside classroom into a field trip. Stop at such places as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Field Museum to stretch your legs and your minds at the same time.
- Let them be kids. If they’re younger, find a local park where you’re stopped for the night (www.kango.com for searching for local parks) so they can run around and play. If they’re older, or teenagers, give in and go to an amusement park.
- While kids will be happier if they have electronic toys to play with and DVDs to watch during the long car hours, consider instituting a ‘no electronics’ hour or two each day. After all, if you wanted to watch TV for 5 days, you’d have stayed home.
Remember, planning will make or break your trip so make sure to include plenty of things to do and see for everyone. If your kids are old enough, they’ll probably enjoy helping you plan things to do, perhaps consider giving each person one ‘choice’ of things during your trip so that if Dad wants the model train museum he has to also go to the Roller Coaster World Headquarters.
Good advice! When I was twelve (and my youngest brother five), my parents took me and my three brothers on a road trip from Kentucky to California and back. I can’t think of any day in which we didn’t stop to do something…even if it was just visit Wall Drugs. We had a ton of fun and got along for the most part. I think for my parents one of the big things was knowing what fights to pick. For instance, after a day or two they decided that if my brother really wanted to eat chicken fingers every single meal, it wouldn’t kill him. Fighting about it everyday, however, might have pushed us all over the edge.