Some people love them, some people hate them! I’m talking about road trips! Road trips with kids are much more different. Having road trip hacks are a great way to limit some issues that may arrive.
Road trips have been a large part of our travels for a long time. so there is no reason that this would change when we had children. Except of course for the obvious reason, a lot more planning.
When road tripping with children you have to be do a bit more preparation or else they can be quite miserable. And you have to be flexible.
Road Trip Hacks
Hack #1
It is important to have an arsenal of snacks! And for the most part snacks that you won’t mind getting everywhere. Our go-to snacks are fig bars, clif bars, lara bars…We like bars! Cheerios and fruit strips. We also like sandwiches, peanut butter and jell-jells.
If you are not a fan of stopping often and getting to your planned destination then it is important to plan to have your snacks easily accessible to you or your passenger. This will help when a child decides they are hungry or bored and need something to eat.
Along the same line as snacks is having drinks accessible. We often find that we leave the house without their water bottles. This has been a struggle and I am not sure why. But even on trips in town to the store there is often a request for the water bottle. This has become a task that we have assigned to our son. Yes, at 2 it is his job to remember his water bottle. But hydration is important and having drinks available is good.
Hack #2
Road tripping with kids is definitely different. And that is exponentially different with a potty training toddler! Thankfully, we forgot his potty on a recent trip to the cabin and purchased another. This is now the car potty. So, when there is a request to go potty we can stop anywhere pop him out of the car and grab the potty. This is a blessing! Plus, we do not have to worry about using a port-a-potty or outhouse with a toddler.
Hack #3
The most important thing for road trips is flexibility and patience.
To start, give yourself plenty of time. This will allow you to be more flexible when you have to make unplanned stops. Or heaven forbid you have a child that explodes!
Patience is important because they are kids. I currently have a talker! And by talker, he doesn’t stop talking in the car! Even after 8 hours on the lake in fresh air with little to no nap…he still is able to stay awake the entire 60-80 minute drive home. I am not yet to the point that it annoys or frustrates me. But sometimes I wish he knew what the quiet game was! We have also enjoyed the drives where the baby is crying for quite some time. Patience is also important for the unaccounted for stops.
Hack #4
Absolutely no judgment here! There is also the wonderful use of technology whether that be an Ipad or car movie. We don’t use them but I am sure that some day we will absolutely find it necessary. I hope that we never rely on them for every drive but we have a lot of road trips we want to do and I am sure they will use technology at some point.
At this point in time, these are the road trip hacks that I have found to be useful. I am sure there are many more. And as the littles get bigger I am sure they hacks will change. I will update this post as I amend the hacks we use.
If you have some tried and true hacks, please share with us!
Luckiest Mama