Tips for a Stress Free Car Trip (with Children)

I thought I would do a post with ideas for both entertainment and snacks for the kiddos on a car trip.

We make car trips all the time and I have a 4 year old and 5 year old.  I get super car sick if I am constantly turning around to get this or that for the little people plus I am a blogger- so that means I am working on some form of technology for most of the trip myself.  (I am currently typing this post on my laptop en route to Monterey!)

So I have picked up a few little tricks along the way on what to pack and how to pack to keep everyone happy and tummies full.  Most importantly these tips have made my kiddos semi-self sufficient so I don’t hear constantly whining. (Yeah!)

The first thing is snacks.  I am not a fan of fast food myself so I try to pack lots of healthier foods for us to snack on.  I would rather use our dining out budget on good restaurants then spending a fortune on hamburgers and fries the entire trip.

(The exception to this is pizza which is a fantastic option to pick up on the way to a hotel after a long drive.)

So the first stop I make is the Dollar Store.

I love these little tubs- I think they are for utensils- but my Dollar Store carries them regularly in several colors.

These have a handle so the littles can reach them from their own tub from carseats and they have seperation inside the tub so things stay organized.

One other thing I like to pick up is a little tray- again these can be found at the Dollar Store in different shapes and colors. (See the one with burgers and hot dogs above- perfect because it has handles!)   These little trays are very handy for laying out snacks or for coloring or whatever they want to do. These will tuck right into the pouch on the seat in front of them when they don’t need it.

Here are some ideas of snacks that are great for car trips:

Almonds, trail mix, crackers and cheese, sliced salami, string cheese, sandwiches (PB&J is perfect), apples, bananas, sliced peppers, pretzels, baby carrots, homemade banana bread/zucchini bread, dried fruit, milk boxes, granola bars, cereal cups, waters, energy drinks/soft drinks/coffee drinks, popcorn, applesauce pouches, frozen smoothies, homemade cookies, bagels, almond butter.

And here is what I packed on our recent trip for the kiddos:

Raspberries, celery with peanut butter, crackers, granola snacks, applesauce pouches, ice water.

And then I pack a few other food items- for this trip it was 4 hours in the car and our hotel has a fridge.

I packed some frozen yogurt pouches (these help keep things cool), cucumbers (I love these with feta cheese sprinkled on top), grape tomatoes, Crackers, animal cookies and apples.

I also packed little yogurt smoothies and a box of cereal. I like to pack btreakfast items because I don’t want the morning in a new place to be stressful. Sometimes our kids get up as early as 6am and the last thing I want to do is drive around looking for a McMuffin at 6:15am when I am on vacation.

So cereal plus cups (they take up less room then bowls), spoons and viola! I can either get milk once we are at our destination or worst case is a McDonald’s drive through for a few cartons of milk. I need milk anyway for my coffee in the morning.

Also I like to pack the ingredients for S’Mores. It is fun to make S’Mores on vacation if you have a microwave and that is a great little treat for the end of the day.

I put a bag of ice at the bottom of our cooler to keep things cold. We also stopped at Jamba Juice on the way out of town and I love smoothies for car trips. There are usually coupons available and a smoothie is so filling and relatively healthy and inexpensive.  The Jamba kids smoothies come with cute little cups that you can reuse during your trip.

Entertainment

Obviously this will vary according to the age of your children.

For older children the most important thing is making sure you have all the chargers on hand for their various electronic devices.

For our children, I love inexpensive portable DVD players. These work for any age group and we have one for each kiddo- plus the charger plus a few movies. You can rent new ones at Redbox and drop the movie off en route somewhere or just grab a few favorites from home.

I find a car adapter for cords to be a lifesaver because you can put any plug into this and charge the device via your cigarette lighter in the car. We use ours so much I actually have two of them in the car.

I like these little baskets again from the Dollar Store (above in red). These are handy to coral coloring books, crayons, sticker books, reading books etc… and they have handles so the kiddos can reach them from their seats.

Some of my favorite supplies for car trips for little ones are:

These three things are a little out of the ordinary for kiddos plus they don’t create a lot of mess.

Paint with Water books– my 4 year old loves this. You just need a tiny bit of water in a cup in their cupholder and they use the paintbrush to paint pictures. I find these for about $1 in craft stores.

Rainbow Scratch Pads– these are about $5 in craft stores or get one here from Amazon. They are black paper and the child uses a dull pencil or other object to scratch on the paper. As they scratch rainbow colors are exposed. My girls LOVE these and will fool with a tiny square of paper for ages drawing designs.

Crayola Paint Pens– my 5 year old prefers this to crayons and they don’t make a big mess. She paints in coloring books and I think it makes her feel big because her sister is not allowed to play with these.

If you go the Crayon route, you might grab an empty travel size wipes case, a travel soap holder, little tins from the Dollar Store or a Ziploc to keep those suckers corralled  (we still find them all over the floor of the car -boo!)

In the past I have done, Playdoh, Legos and magnetic letters for the kiddos and found they made more of a mess then they were worth. That is just my opinion and my kiddos but there is still a letter H stuck in the seat rails from a Disneyland trip last year. Can’t get the darn thing out.

We have also printed out lots of little travel games (a quick Google search will pull up tons of options) but I found we had lots of papers all over and the kids didn’t really enjoy them.

I do think scavenger hunts can be fun though and here is one of them for you:

Car Bingo from Mom’s Minivan

Other Neccessities:

Comfy clothing easy to get on and off (we do PJ’s sometimes), blankets, socks or slippers, Purell, baby wipes, bag for trash,  diapers or a potty (sorry for the TMI here but I would much rather pull over and have my toddler slip on a diaper to go pee then search around for a disgusting public bathroom where they will be touching every single thing… blach!), first aid items like Tylenol and bandaids.  Oh and bathing suits if your hotel has a pool!

One other idea is little toys wrapped up or Quarters as prizes for winning games (like the Scavenger Hunt) or for good behavior or simply to whip out when the whining starts to escalate.  In the past these have not worked for us because once the kids sniff out what Mommy has up her sleeve they will badger endlessly to get the prizes 😉 .  But something to consider.  If you do money as an incentive that can be turned into the souvenier fund for the vacation spot.

I hope some of these tips help you on your next car trip!

This post is part of the 30 Days to a Funner Summer Series.

You can catch up with the entire series with recipes, crafts, articles and more here.