10 tips for enjoyable road trips with kids
Road trips with kids aren’t always the easiest, and may even seem a little intimidating at first. The good news about road trips vs airplane travel with kids is that you have all the comfort of your own car, your own schedule, and plenty of (not crazy airport expensive) snacks!
There are a few tips that will really help with both the planning and the actual adventure of the road trip. These 10 tips will make your road trip less stressful & more enjoyable for the whole family.
When planning…
1. Use Google Maps to easily see and tweak all possible routes.
Everyone has their own preference for which navigational app to use on the road, but for planning purposes Google Maps is by far my favorite. It’s easy to put in your start & end point, and then add or subtract stops to find the route that works best for your family.
I love the ability to save a certain map, send directions to your phone, and explore the suggested stops if you need ideas.
2. Research places to stop to make breaks intentional.
When I know we have a long drive ahead of us, I like to try to make the most of it by being intentional with our stops along the way.
Think about people you may want to stop to see, national or state parks that may be along your route, or beautiful spots that wouldn’t often make the cut as your final destination.
Google Maps makes this easy by even suggesting some of the more famous stops along your route. Make sure to check them out if you don’t have specific ideas of your own. Take this chance to see more of our beautiful world instead of just stopping at rest stops or gas stations!
3. Playgrounds or new towns make stops more enjoyable.
Again, these are all things that are super easy to research and calculate with Google maps before you leave. I find it easy to make some notes in my notes app and then pull those up and map or select actual stops based on our timing and how everyone is feeling.
When we were driving from Georgia to Arkansas, we realized we’d be going right past Birmingham, Alabama and Oxford, Mississippi. Neither have been an actual destination for us, but I researched both cities so that we could stop and explore and get a feel for these cities that we often hear about but never visit.
In Birmingham we stopped for a delicious lunch, walk around downtown, and then went to a playground while we met up with a friend. It was such a great way to explore a new city, get some exercise, and actually enjoy a stop during our long driving day.
4. Don’t miss good local food!
Use Google reviews and local / travel bloggers (hey!) to find can’t miss coffee, ice cream, or restaurant stops. If you need to stop, and plan to spend money on food, you may as well make it super enjoyable and something new vs the same old fast food!
On our recent road trip, The Oxford Creamery in Oxford, MS did NOT disappoint. Their banana puddin’ was amazing, and they had a cosmic brownie special when we were there that our girls loved!
5. If you’re staying overnight, make it count.
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Like with pit stops, you want to be super intentional with overnight stops. I’m sure there are some road trips that demand a stop at an off-the-interstate hotel, but it doesn’t usually have to be that way.
Use your Google map planning time to figure out where you can reasonably be for overnight stops and then plan accordingly. If there is a town you’ve been wanting to visit, a fun VRBO to check out, a hotel you have points for, or a reason to stop in a specific spot, go for it!
This has allowed us overnight visits with friends, extended time in a new town or city, or the chance to stop back by someplace we really love.
On the road…
6. Pack a Road Trip Essentials Bag and keep it within reach.
I love our Scout bag for this because it stays open but is sturdy, so is easy to see everything you need and not have to re-pack it a million times. We pack snacks (that don’t need to be in a cooler), our first aid kit, paper towels, baby wipes, hand sanitzier, and all of the library DVDs that we know we’ll be watching.
For long road trips we also love to have this cooler within reach. Bubble water, fruit, cheese sticks, and snacks that may melt in the heat (yes, even you, trail mix & granola bars) are great to have on hand. Even if we plan to stop for a meal on the road, it’s nice to have a few fruits, veggies, and more filling snacks to add.
7. Que up podcasts & audiobooks everyone will love.
Just your iPhone alone has hours of entertainment for the family. Music, kid podcasts, audiobooks, or Yoto cards can buy hours of time. We like to start with music and move on to bigger things once the kids are asking for a movie.
We love the Yoto player at home and often travel with it, too. Bonus points for the ability to use cards straight from the app on our phones to play a book over the car speakers!
8. NEW activity books all around!
Grab a new activity or coloring book for each kid and then surprise them with it a couple of hours into the trip! Our favorites are color wonder or sticker books for toddlers, Bluey or Daniel Tiger for preschoolers, and a coloring or puzzle book of their favorite theme for early elementary kids.
My bigger kids love sudoku, crosswords, word searches, or the giant Highlights puzzle book (even our 11-year-old loved this on our last trip!).
9. That said, screen time is a tool. Now is the time to use it.
Live it up kids, today is your day! Like our plane travel philosophy, long road trips are absolutely a time for relaxed screen time & snack time rules. If our kids are happily watching movies together, we’ve been known to let that roll all the way from Maine to Delaware.
We’re a one-screen family (vs everyone having their own), so our kids have come up with a system for rotating turns to pick the movie. Honestly it helps mix up the movies, they get excited for it to be their turn but also for watching each other’s picks or working together to create the best movie-marathon around.
If you have a DVD player in your car, visit your local library before you leave to stock up on new-to-you movies or shows. We let each kid pick a disc or two for the car so that we can mix those in with the ones we already own. I also stumbled upon new-looking discs at a used bookstore recently and got 6 favorite new titles (including Father of the Bride – I’ll be sitting in the back for that one) for $3.00!
10. Don’t forget the fan favorite Gas Station Pit Stop!
We literally never take our kids into gas stations to buy things (there is no shortage of treats in their lives), so this is everyone’s favorite part of a long road trip. We choose one of our gas station stops to be the pit stop where they get to come in and choose a snack and/a treat for the road.
Sometimes we let them choose a drink as well depending on how we have the remaining stops planned out. Nobody wants to bush wee (thanks, Bluey) more than they have to.
There you have it – 10 of our most used road trip planning tips!
The overall gist is to make the stops fun & entertaining enough that kids are more than ready to relax in the car during the next long stretch. And to be intentional with your time & mileage. See as much as you can as you experience all these little corners of our world.
Happy travels! Want more travel tips?
Ultimate Tips for Flying with Kids
