5 Road Trip Essentials For Young Families
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We are a family who has seen many roadtrips. Even before COVID, we were rockin’ the loaded down SUV driving cross country to visit family and vacation. Along our travels with young kiddos, these are the 5 Essential items to have in your vehicle to make the long-haul much more enjoyable and stress-free 🙂
1. Portable Potty
Why: because you are not always close to a gas station and because sometimes it is too dark, cold or busy to safely drop trou roadside. We have used a couple different ones over the years. With our first kiddo we stuck to one like this. Several bonuses to this one…the first being that there is a removable seat for you to carry into all of the rest stops/public potties, or even just at home! Another bonus is the deodorizer and closing lid. We moved on to this one by Oxo with our second kiddo and haven’t looked back. Super easy – just let them do their business, then tie up the bag to be disposed at the next trash can. You could even carry your own small trashcan in the car to store these lovely bags of waste when you are between gas/dump stations. Don’t forget the baby wipes!!!!!!
2. Healthy(er) snack options
Why: not only is this more cost effective, it is also less time consuming (no stopping everytime one of your crew is hankering for a snack) and way easier on your gut than consuming fast food or pre-packaged gas station food on a long car ride. When you are traveling on a long or multiday roadtrip, fast food really catches up to you. If you are lucky enough to own a car with a built in cooler, USE IT! If not, there are some great options for keeping things fresh in the car along the way such as this cooler that can plug into your car‘s “cigarette” lighter. Some go-to items: apples, oranges, loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, squeeze pouches of fruit, applesauce, or veggie and grain combo sauces, granola bars, individually wrapped cheeses, fruit chips, and trail-mix for older kids to name a few 🙂
3. Hand sanitizer
Why: because sticky hands for no apparent reason…also for after using the portable potty or a variety of other things touched along the trip that make you cringe. Do yourself a favor and buy a some moisturizing sanitizer for the family to share 😉 I keep ours in the door jam.
4. Audiobooks and Podcasts That Won’t Drive the Driver Nuts
Why: because I personally don’t want my kids zoning out to a TV/Computer screen for an entire roadtrip…they can get real nasty from all that screen time for some reason! Also to save your own sanity…no one likes to listen to an annoying audiobook/podcast that only kids can enjoy for several hours on end! Here’s what you do – Get yourself a library card. Find out if they participate in the Libby or Hoopla apps. These are free to use and give you access to many audiobooks. If your local library does not give you access to these apps (or you don’t have a friend whos library does), get Audible. There is a free trial period you can take advantage of. If you love it, keep it. If you don’t, lose it after you’ve sucked your trial dry.
Here is a list of some of our favorite audiobook series:
- Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne
- Pip Bartlette’s Guide to Magical Creatures Series
- The Chronicles of Narnia Series
- Harry Potter Series (for older kiddos after the first 3)
- Upside Down Magic
- 39 Clues (for older kiddos)
For podcast, we use the Pandora and Iheart Radio apps. Both are free to use (unless you want to pay for a subscription). Here are some of our favorite kiddo friendly podcasts that don’t drive us absolutely bonkers (in no particular order) 😉
- Greeking Out by National Geographic
- The Adventures of Red Knight
- Hank The Cowdog
- Young Ben Franklin
- Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls
5. Backseat Activities
Why: Because even the best audiobooks and podcast need to be broken up with something else on multiday and super long trips. Here are some of our favorites.
- An all in one portable Arts and Crafts activity table! It is good for road trips and for the plane. Best of all, it can be easily stowed away in a book bag/suitcase or next to their seat mess and clutter free! If you are looking for something along these lines, but more minimal, this is our runner up. It was the first car activity “table” that we purchased for our kiddos. It worked really well as an eating and drawing surface. There is obviously less storage space and it does not come with all of the art supplies, but it certainly does the trip and is also easily stowed away in the car 🙂
- Logic puzzles. One of our kiddos absolutely loves math and logic. The other is more of a book worm, but still enjoys these activities as well. Many of them either come in a small bag to keep all of the pieces collected or are magnetic boxes that shut all of the pieces in. They are usually meant to be played alone. Bonus here is that they are fantastic for at restaurants or other long waiting/boring times for kids. Second bonus is that they are engaging their minds and growing 🙂 These are also fun for the adults in the car! Here are a few of our favorites:
- Rush Hour was the first logic game to interest my then 5 year old. There is also a junior version of this game for younger kiddos or those whom need a softer intro to mind bending ;-). Set up the cars according to a challenge card. The object is to use logic moving cars only forward and backward to eventually clear a path for the red car to exit the board. Challenges get harder and more complicated as you progress.
- Solitare Chess is a great option for kiddos who know a little about the game of chess. As its name suggests, it is meant to be played solo and is not a traditional game of chess. Basically you use set up the magnetic board according to a challenge card and use chess movements with logic to eliminate all but one piece on the board. Challenges get harder as you move forward in the game.
- Logic Land is a fun option for kiddos who like castles and the characters that go with it. A challenge booklet shows you where each magnetic character is in relation to one other thing and you must use logic to discover who is in a specific location (IE who is in the entryway?). Challenges grow harder as you progress through the game.
- Interactive Games! Half the fun (or maybe even the whole reason for) a road trip is to reconnect and have fun as a family. Who says that can only happen at the destination(s)?! These games are easily packable and played in the car, though the driver will need to partner up with one of the passengers who can read/play for them for some of these games! Note, you do not have to take the whole box. You can easily remove some or all of the cards/pieces and put them in a ziplock or reusable small bag.
- Kids Create Absurdity is a definite go-to for laughs all around. Our kiddos go nuts over this game and hearing their genuine full-blown-belly-laughter makes any time spent doing this game worth while. Of note, players need to be able to read in order to play the traditional way. When we first got this game, our youngest could not read yet, but thoroughly enjoyed just throwing a card in without knowing what it said to be surprised herself when someone else read it. There will be toilet humor.
- Guess in Ten is a game that all passengers can play together. It comes in a boxed set of animals, comics, countries, states of America, sports or transportation cards. You can definitely cater this one to the interests in your household! We personally own the animal planet version and will soon own the states of America and countries versions as well!
- And speaking of backseat things, DO NOT forget to give them a little garbage box! You’ll thank me later for the mess saved 😉
I hope this list helps you get on the road and feel a little less daunted about taking your whole crew on a fun family roadtrip.
Adventure on, friends!
