Whether you’re traveling to see relatives, to explore exciting new places, or to revisit old favorites, road trips are an important part of family life for most families – especially in the summer.

My family does several big road trips each year. We’ve always lived several-hours’ drive from relatives – so five- to twelve-hour drives have been part of every family reunion (and we really value getting together with our families). Plus we love to do a big family road trip for Spring Break each year.

I used to see road trips as a necessary evil. The packing was stressful, and I often ended up bringing too much of some things and too little of others. Then the time in the car was exhausting as I tried to keep babies and toddlers and preschoolers happy with songs and games and snacks (I felt like I was keeping a three-ring circus going for hours on end, and sometimes, despite my best efforts, there was crying and bickering galore).

But as with so many things, “that which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). I’ve persisted. I’ve learned a lot about what to pack and how to pack it. I’ve learned about how to make car time not only bearable, but actually quite wonderful. And the kids have gotten older, which has certainly made many things easier (but adds its own challenges as well). I’m pleased (and somewhat surprised) to be able to report that those once-dreaded car trips are now some of our favorite family experiences.

Of course, different things will work for different families, but here are some hard-won tips that work for my family and that might help make your road trips less stressful and more joyful:

PACKING:

  • Less is More: No matter how long our trip is going to be, I’ve learned that it works great to bring  just 2-3 pairs of pants/shorts and 3-4 shirts per person (4 for the child I have who tends to spill more and get dirtier) and plan on doing some laundry somewhere (laundromats are everywhere and we often stay with people and can use their laundry facilities).  The less “stuff” we’re lugging around, the better. I try to pack things that don’t show much dirt (denim, darker colors, patterns). And if the kids’ clothes are only a little dirty, I spot clean or simply ignore non-obvious dirt.  Super clean clothes just aren’t worth the bother on vacations. I bring clothes I don’t care much about. Clothes always seem to get ruined on vacation, and I want the kids to have fun without their mom being stressed out about them ruining their nice clothes.
  • Packing Method: I use a big duffle bag to pack all the kids’ clothes together – but I organize the contents by sorting things into smaller bags that fit inside the duffle (plastic grocery store sacks work fine – just loosely tie the handles together to keep things from spilling out). I put all the kids’ underwear (3-4 pairs each) and socks (3-4 pairs each) together in one bag so I can quickly grab underwear for kids in the shower or bath and socks for all the kids as we head out the door each morning.  I put all the kids’ pjs together in another (you often need them so kids can put on their pjs in the car before they fall asleep, and then easily transfer when you arrive). I pack all the swim suits together in another little bag (everyone will likely want their swimsuits at the same time). I sometimes pack all the kids’ shirts and pants together in the duffle and sometimes put each child’s pants and shirts in their own plastic bag to keep them separate and easier to find. I use a sharpie to write on the bags – “underwear,” “Ashton’s clothes,” etc.
  • Shoes: I pack a separate bag that contains everyone’s hiking/running/closed-toed shoes if we’ll be needing those. I don’t like dirty shoes mixed in with the other clothes in a bag, and most of the time the kids will be wearing flip flops or sandals in the car when we travel in the summer so it’s nice to keep the bulkier shoes separate.
  • Sweatshirts/Jackets: I pack a separate bag with just everyone’s sweatshirts or jackets and keep that bag in the car all the time during our trip. Then, when it gets chilly and everyone wants a sweatshirt, we can easily grab sweatshirts without rifling through everything else.
  • Nice Clothes: If we’ll need Sunday/dress-up/nicer clothes, I pack everyone’s nice stuff (shoes, socks and clothes) into one shared garment/hang-up bag. Since we all need that stuff at the same time – and likely just once – it’s great to have it all together–and put it away all together at the bottom of the pile in the car when we’re done with it for the trip.
  • Overall Baggage Summary: When all seven of us travel, here’s what we bring: a large duffle with all the kids’ clothes (3-4 shirts for each child, 2-3 pairs of pants or shorts each, a bag of underwear and socks, a bag of all the kids’ pajamas, a bag of everyone’s swim suits), a small duffle bag for me and one for my husband (I don’t like anyone else messing with what’s in my bag . . . ), and a garment bag with everyone’s dress-up clothes (if needed).  My husband and I can carry all this in one load quite easily – two bags each (we leave the shoe bag and sweatshirt bag in the car – and sometimes the Sunday bag as well if we don’t need it during that stop).  Works great.  Of course, we used to have a stroller and port-a-crib (or two, thanks to the twins) to bring along and needed to add a couple baby blankets and quite a few diapers in their own plastic bag in the kids’ duffle bag – but still, we  traveled relatively light. We often bring sleeping bags for each child as well (we are usually packed as a family into one room at a hotel or a guest room at the home of friends or family so we need those sleeping bags).
  • Checklist: I have a checklist of what needs to be packed and done that I use for every trip. This makes it SO much easier and keeps me from forgetting very much. You can make a list and then tweak it after your first road trip. Then every time you’ve got a road trip coming up, you print out your list and follow it and it’s so simple! Here’s my list if you’d like to check it out and create your own version by copying and pasting it into a Word document:

Road Trip Packing and Prep Checklist

  • Helpers: I have the kids help me pack.  I send one child to get three pair of underwear for each person. One to get all the socks. One to get the pj’s, etc. When they come back with each item (and I check to be sure it’s the right stuff and pack it into the bag), I check it off my checklist.
  • Where to Pack: I do laundry the day before a trip and put the stuff I’ll be packing into piles as I fold the laundry. Then I usually pack in the laundry room so that I can pack the freshly folded laundry for each person right there in one place rather than having to go room-to-room to gather everything needed.
  • Prep for Dirty Clothes: I pack a draw-string laundry bag or trash bag so that I can keep dirty clothes in one place (and I check clothes to see if they are actually very dirty before they go in the bag – I really like to minimize laundry). This bag often fits inside the kids’ duffle (since clothes from the duffle end up in the laundry bag).

CAR TIME:

  • Snacks and Meals:  We have a small collapsible cooler that we fill with fruits and veggies (baby carrots and grapes are staples) plus a few other healthy snacks like almonds, Trader Joes honey whole wheat pretzels, etc.  I used to pack along sandwiches and other healthy meal food but that ended up being a big hassle. We decided that since we pretty much ONLY have fast food on road trips and there are somewhat healthy and cheap options at Subway and Taco Bell, we’ll generally just go with fast food on road trips. We give out the fruits and veggies in our little cooler to tide people over until a meal break, to be sure they’re getting better nutrition than fast food alone can provide, and to keep them hydrated.  We also bring a water bottle full of water for each person – but wee like to minimize the drinking that happens in the car in the car because random drinks = random needs for bathroom breaks, and we try to get everyone needing to use the bathroom on close to the same schedule.  If we’re thirsty, grapes or carrots help without making the bathroom need imminent! We try to make a point of having everyone drink quite a lot about a half hour before we’ll be stopping for gas or for a meal – then they can use the bathroom during a scheduled stop.  For drinks, we only allow water in the car which means no messy spills. I’ve found that the more sugary stuff (drinks, candy, cookies, fruit snacks…) the kids eat in the car, the more on-edge and fidgety they are. Sugar gives quick energy — energy kids don’t really need in the car.
  • Screen Time: Back when our kids were little, our road trips were revolutionized when we bought a little portable TV with a built-in VCR and the Wiggles and Veggie Tales and Bob the Builder became very welcome parts of our road trips. Later on we upgraded to a nice built-in DVD player in the car and enjoyed grabbing a DVD or two at a Redbox as a special treat during road trips. But even when the kids were really little, we play lots of games in the car and held off on screen time until it we’d done other fun stuff first.  And now that the kids are older, we’ve really decreased screen time in the car and increased the reading time and family car-game time and discussion of the scenery and history of areas we drove through. Then last year, our in-car DVD player broke and we decided not to bother fixing it. It’s been great to not even have the temptation. The kids enjoy some limited time playing on a smart phone or on our Kindle Fire, but we really limit screen time in the car these days. We have an absolute “no screen time” rule when we’re passing through an area with interesting scenery or when we’re reading a chapter book together or something like that.
  • Car Supplies: Along with snacks, we try to keep the car constantly stocked with these things in easily-accessible places (door pockets, under seats, cup holders, etc.):
    • Water bottles (we refill at each stop so we have less bottles to lug around, plus it’s the environmentally friendly thing to do)
    • Wet wipes
    • Tissues or paper towels (or all the extra napkins you don’t end up using at a fast-food place)
    • First aid kit with band-aids and medicines you might need (stuff for upset stomachs and aches and pains)
    • Bug spray and sun screen
    • Pillows for kids to sleep in the car more comfortably (we use folded up sweatshirts or old throw pillows or camp pillows in old pillow cases – regular-sized pillows take up way too much space)
    • Books to read
    • Journals to write in
  • Car Activities:  We play “I Spy” and the alphabet game a lot.  We tell stories where each person gets to add a part to a silly story.  We read from chapter books together or listen to audio books (from Audible.com or from the library).  We listen to favorite songs (my big kids love making playlists for road trips or playing their latest favorite songs for us in the car – and certain songs end up becoming theme songs for certain trips which is really fun). Sometimes Jared or I sit in the back so that one of us can do story time or a fun game and one of the big kids sits in the front with the driver to enjoy a little one-on-one time up there. Thanks to our smart phones, we have the big kids look up information about the area we’re driving through and give a little report to the rest of the family.
  • Getting the Wiggles Out: Whenever we stop for food, gas or a bathroom break, we make a point of doing some active stuff.   Sometimes we can find a park right on our route (thank you, GPS). But usually we just find an open area (even an empty part of a parking lot works fine) and do some races, play tag, or simply run around the car 10 times or so (timing kids to see if they can beat their time for 10 laps around the car the last time we stopped can be a good incentive). Kids seem to behave much better in the car if they get a chance to run around every few hours.

I hope some of these tips and ideas will help reduce the stress and increase the fun and enjoyment on your next family road trip. If you want more, there are some great tips from our Power of Moms readers on packing and planning and making family trips more of a vacation and less of a hassle on a post from last year: How do you take the stress out of family vacations?

Please add your own tips and ideas in the comment area below.

QUESTION: What works for you when it comes to packing and enjoying family road trips?

CHALLENGE: Decide on a few things you’ll do to make your packing experience more effective and less stressful and make your car-time more fun and meaningful.

*** Become a member of The Power of Moms (it’s absolutely free) and we’ll set you up for instant access to a sampling of our best materials that are accessible only by members of our site PLUS we’ll send you an email every week full of concrete ideas for deliberate mothers.

Make a comment
Become an author!
Make a comment
Become an author!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...