It's that time of the year again, families taking vacations. Whether you have small children, teens, or even adults. Whether you are traveling by plane, train or automobile, the same question always comes up. You know the one I am referring to. "Are we there yet?" Most of the time you are ten minutes away from home the first time those words are uttered. I think this topic came to mind as I was walking Christina's dog. I am dog sitting for a few days while Christina is vacationing at the beach. Her drive to the beach was only a few hours, but I bet she will have some interesting experiences to tell us about when she gets back. This information comes a week too late for her, but hopefully will find you in the planning stages of your trip. Here are some of the tricks I have learned in my years of traveling with children, no matter what their ages (even the dreaded teen years):
1. I would love to get credit for this idea on how to make your trip go more smoothly, but the credit goes to my hubby. We were about to leave on a trip that would have us in the car for more then twenty hours, and he got the idea to put together a book of activities for each of our children. They were 10 and 7 at the time. As you can imagine, a boy and girl of differing ages had very different ideas about what was interesting. The "book" was a loose leaf binder that had a map of the route that we would be traveling which allowed each of our children to color in states as we past from state to state. They always knew where we were on our journey. We perfected this several years later, when on a three week cross country trip the maps included places of interest and places that we planned on stopping. We tried to pick at least a few places of interest along the way for each child. In addition to the map, there were puzzle pages, coloring pages, games, stories and blank pages. (Important note: each one should be age appropriate.)
2. Bring healthy snacks in a separate bag for each child with their names on it. This eliminates two problems, everyone fighting over one particular food item and upset stomachs from eating too many treats. I think we can all agree that there are few things worse than having a child who is feeling sick and/or throwing up in the car on a long trip. I had the children pack their own snack bag for the trip, this eliminated the problem of me not packing what they liked. I would lay out the things that they could choose from on the counter and they would pack their own bag. They could decorate the bag if they wanted to, but the name was the only requirement.
3. Bring a cooler with some drinks. It will save you from having to buy lots of drinks on the road. Drinks should be limited to water and light colored or clear liquids. Save your car's upholstery, learn from my mistakes. No red, purple or blue drink boxes. I am sure that wherever that car is now, the stain is still there.
4. Keep them busy. Each child was allowed to bring a backpack full of things that they wanted for the trip. Books, games, and their snack bag needed to fit in it. I packed a bag that I kept up front with me. My "in case of emergency" bag. (Only to be used if the children or I were getting really antsy. My husband would tell you that I don't travel very well either.) It did include a first aid kit, and many other essentials. Some more examples of what could be included in the kids' bags, or the emergency bag are a sketch pad or Magna Doodle for drawing, magnetic board games, iPods, DVD Player with headphones and movies, books on tape of varying age levels, and a few surprise snacks.
I can tell you from experience, that a little before hand planning makes for a much more pleasant trip for the adults in the car. Please share any ideas that you have for traveling with children of any age. We may share them on our upcoming podcast, and besides, I am always looking for new ideas. As I said before, I don't travel well.
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