FAMILY TRAVEL
Travel Tips for
Family Trips By Sarah Lyons
Whether you take a two-hour plane trip or a 14-hour car ride, traveling with kids can be stressful. While a family vacation is a great way to spend time together, relax, and make memories, you must make the journey there first. Here are some tips for making traveling with kids a little more enjoyable. Fight hunger. Hunger can affect kids’ behavior and attitude. During travel, pack easy snacks for the car like grapes, smoothies, and crackers. This is a great time to purchase those individually wrapped snacks you usually don’t. They are easy for the adults in the car and seem like a treat for the kids. Stephanie Pratt, mother of two, suggests planning lunch stops that allow kids to burn off energy, like a restaurant with a play area or a picnic for the park. “Much like you need to stretch your legs, kids need to move,” she says. Timing. Timing is everything when you are traveling with little ones. Try to plan travel around normal naptimes or bedtimes so that kids will rest during most of the drive. Plan enough breaks and recognize that a trip with kids is going to take longer. Leave extra time in your travel schedule for impromptu stops, as well as planned ones. Websites like www.roadtripradar.com can help you find attractions and hidden gems along the way. Get the kids involved. Cut road trip boredom by getting the kids involved. Use games like license plate bingo or car color bingo. Encourage kids to keep a trip journal. Have them write down or draw favorite memories from each stop and add stickers and ticket stubs. “Make a checklist of cities you will drive through with a fun fact about each or what you will do there. It helps cut down on the ‘Are we there yet?’ questions” says Kara Thomas, a Colorado Springs mom. Surprises. It is always nice to have a few surprises up your sleeve
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to break up the trip. Try packing up the kids’ backpacks and have them waiting in the car. When they get bored, pull out a few surprise items – new magazines or books, crayons and a new coloring book, special snacks, small activities, and maybe some new movies to watch. Websites like Pinterest are full of ideas for traveling with kids. “Paint a cookie sheet with chalkboard paint and give the kids magnets to play with,” suggests Darcy King, Kansas mom of two. She also suggests gluing magnets to the back of puzzle pieces to use with the magnetic cookie sheet. Electronics. For most families, the go-to solution for road trip boredom is electronics. DVD’s and video games are a great way to kill time in the car. “Loosen electronics time while traveling, but when you get there, restrict time more than usual. Without a gadget in their hands, they will get more out of your vacation time.”” Thomas says. Summer vacations teach kids to explore what is outside their hometown, the importance of family time, and to make downtime a priority. Best of all you will create memories that last a lifetime. Sarah Lyons is a freelance writer and mom of six kids.
