The season for road trips is almost here! Traveling together can be a great family bonding time if all goes well. Road trips give opportunity for setting your own agenda. Traveling by car is often less expensive, leaving finances for other activities.
Our family took an epic road trip from Pennsylvania to Texas several years ago. We intentionally took a different route on the way out and back in to explore different states. SO many great memories!
But I knew in order to enjoy the trip, this Mom needed preparation. While everything on the road can’t be controlled (hello traffic!), there were certain details I could care for ahead of time. Maybe some tips will help with your planning.
1. Plan Your Road Trip Food
At the time of our road trip, our family of six included young children who wanted to snack often. It felt like a hassle to have lots of bags and boxes of food to pass around the car. I felt certain there would be arguing about who got a fair amount and who didn’t, and can I please have the last fruit bar? types of conversations.
I planned for this by purchasing a variety of our favorites and packaging them ahead of time into little snack packs. It worked like a charm! This included pantry-type items, not those needing a cooler.
For other items such as fruit, cheese sticks, lunch meat, boiled eggs, hummus, and veggies, I packed them into an insulated cooler with a picnic tablecloth and baby wipes. We’d head to a rest stop, and all I needed to do was grab the bag (which often included crackers and/or pita chips)—quick eating for everyone.
When done, we wiped our hands and the tablecloth and packaged any leftovers for the next time. By the way, I never packed sandwiches. I felt they would get soggy, and we would get tired of them quickly. Having a variety of foods seemed to work better.
Depending on the length of your road trip, it might be helpful to keep a grocery list of pantry items and cooler items to replenish along the way.
2. Plan Your Road Trip Clothing
Oh, the number of bags and items needed for a family on the road! This was another area I knew could easily overwhelm me on the road (because it does at home).
I did two things to help. First, I packed one suitcase as the family bag. This included each person’s basic toiletries, pajamas, and a change of clothing.
Because parts of our trip included simply stopping for one night before the next destination, it seemed silly for everyone to take out a suitcase of their own and rummage through it for a few items. The family bag helped to eliminate chaos, especially if we ended up finding our sleeping location late at night.
I also pre-packed the younger kids’ clothing into gallon-sized plastic bags for other times or into the family bag as their change of clothing. This helped me tremendously and took away the stress that often comes when younger ones can’t decide what to wear. Win-win!
Plan Your Road Trip Entertainment
This area is highly personal and depends on your family. What worked for us included a variety of quiet, alone activities and also all-together activities as a family.
For older children, quiet time could involve listening to music or audio stories on their device, drawing, crosswords or other paper games, reading a book, or sleeping. Our youngest, who was five at the time, worked with play dough, coloring, or playing with small toys. We definitely used movies as well!
As a family, our favorite activity was listening to long audio stories from Lamplighter Theatre. There was also lots of music, singing, and storytelling! Check out my summer road trip Pinterest board for lots more ideas!
Of course, not everything went as planned. There were meltdowns by both adults and kids, and silly arguments rose up regardless of my planning. But overall, these hacks served us well.
Wherever you go, whatever hacks you choose — enjoy making memories!
Daniele is a homeschooling Mama of five kiddos and a voracious reader of books. Passionate about her faith, home and family, she blogs about the intentional lifestyle and writes for other online and print publications. Daniele thinks life is made more enjoyable with a cup of herbal tea in hand!
