We often drive when we go on vacation. I’ve been known to take all four of the kids to Pittsburgh myself for the day. In order to keep my sanity, I plan for entertainment along the way. Driving time can be a great time to connect and catch up on things. But when your copilot is 4 yr old you might not have a whole lot to say after you’re done talking about preschool, Team Umi Zoomi, and rocket power flying cars that shoot fireworks. What? You don’t talk about that?
Inevitably you will hear “I’m bored” or “How much longer?” After a while it starts to wear on your sanity. So be prepared. If the kids have hand held gaming systems, Kindles, cell phones, let them bring them along. Plan on bringing headphones if you don’t want to listen to the candy crush music the whole time or YouTube videos that are only interesting to 10 yr olds. Charge them ahead of time. If they have car chargers or back up batteries bring them along too.
Non-electronic items like books, coloring books, travel felt boards, travel size board games, or personal chalk boards can be a great way to keep kids busy without the noise.
One of our fave games to play is the Alphabet game. You start with the letter “A” each person playing tries to find the letter “A” during the drive. It could be on a street sign, billboard, a license plate, restaurant sign, or whatever you like. The way we play, each person has to find it in a different word. If it’s on the same sign it’s ok but they can’t use the same word. Don’t discount letters like Q or X either because they’re more plentiful than you think.
If maybe you could use a little entertainment yourself or want to engage the kiddos a little more there are lots of fun road trip games you can find by searching online or you can check out a little post I wrote here http://www.annvilleautocenter.com/road-trip-games-for-the-family.htm with some ideas.
So tell me, how do you keep your kids entertained on a road trip? Please visit my guest post on Annville Auto Center’s site for even more ideas.
