*PRESENTS AND TICKETS: In the weeks before our trip, I accumulated little toys and books from garage sales and the Dollar Store (with the expectation that I might dump them in a trash can while cleaning out the car somewhere in Kansas). I did splurge on a big Amazon order of dinosaur, Transformers, Diego, and horse activity books, sticker books, and coloring books. On the night before we left, I separated the presents into Jake and Noah piles, wrapped them up in different-colored paper, and numbered the presents in the order I intended to give them. I thought it out very carefully, staggering the big presents and the junk ones. The kids got to open a present when they got 3 tickets for good traveling behavior. It worked so well that I think I'll do the ticket present thing even on short trips up north. I love bribery.
*STICKER ALBUM SCRAPBOOKS: Before we left, I decorated photo albums and filled them with blank papers, drawings, and magazine cut-outs. Quite a big chunk of our travel time was spent putting stickers on the album pages and decorating the blank pages.
The boys also enjoyed putting postcards in the album at random stops in the adventure. Next time I'll bring my Polaroid camera and we will add photographs of our travels too.*STARBURST: The pack I bought at a rest stop was surprisingly helpful and made me think in the future, I will always include a pack of Starburst in our travel snack bag. The advantages: it takes a while for kids to go through a pack, and if you give them out one by one (or one half by one half) you can really stretch it out, without giving the kids too much of a sugar overload. Just eating starburst kept the boys happy for at least 30 minutes.
marshmallows are good too :)
*RANDOM PIT STOPS: I had such a good time researching our route and planning fun stops along the way. We hit up the T-Rex Cafe in Kansas City (the favorite),
the Buffalo herds outside Denver, Winter Quarters Visitors Center and Pioneer Cemetary, St. Louis Science Center,
and one of the 8 architectural wonders of Kansas (a really big barn). Random cool places are one of the best parts of road trips. And it was cool having a fun stop to look forward to every few hours.
*TRIPADVISOR.COM: this is where I did the bulk of my planning. The ratings and comments of other travelers were really helpful in choosing tourist stops, restaurants, and hotels. Last year this is how I found the best barbeque in Kansas (Hickory Hut BBQ) which was tragically closed for the day when we passed through this year.
*KIDS MAP: The boys followed our route using a laminated place mat of the US. They referred to our location based on the color of the state, and caught on pretty quick ("are we out of the yellow one yet?" "Ooooh! We are in orange now!" "I can't wait to get to the red one!") I bought this US atlas for kids with activities for each of the states, which will be really cool to use when the boys are a little older.
*HOMEMADE TRAVEL GAMES: Nice because this just takes a little work and it is all free. I searched the internet and printed out some coloring pages of the boys' favorite things. There are some cute printable Travel Bingo games all over the internet (crayola.com has several different bingo cards to print and color). I also made up a Dinosaur Hunt game comparing dinos to different vehicles. The boys loved it and throughout our trip would point out the window and yell out which dinosaur they spotted.
*THE "WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF..."GAME: Very basic idea, just complete the sentence by saying something funny. Noah really caught on to this game. Although most of his funny scenarios revolved around poop. (for example, "Wouldn't it be funny if poop fell out of the sky instead of rain?") He requested this game probably every hour or two and it was always good for at least 10 minutes of laughs.
*DRY ERASE CRAYONS: Those things are the best. No caps or mess to worry about. We used them on clear sheet protectors and dry erase boards and we never had a problem with clean-up. Drawing and erasing kept the boys busy for a few hours of the trip.
*LAP DESKS: I made the boys their own lap desks like this one . I have mixed feelings about these things. The desk was so helpful for snacks and coloring, and the removable pillow was perfect for naps. But I think I spent too much time sewing them to justify the amount of time they were used on this trip, mainly because of space issues. There just wasn't much extra room in the backseat for anything unnecessary, so they were stuffed in the trunk for a lot of the trip. But if you have a roomy vehicle, I recommend them, and I will definitely break them out again in the not too distant future when I am a mini-van mom.
*EARLY MORNING/NIGHT TRAVEL: We approve the time tested strategy of drive-while-the-kids-are-knocked-out-in-the-backseat. The more miles we could pass while the boys slept, the better. That meant Kyle and Lauren and I got to have some good adult conversations and listen peacefully to our book on CD (the Hunger Games series). It made for a very pleasant traveling experience.
*PORTABLE DVD PLAYERS, of course: Incredible entertainment potential! It worked best when we used the movies sparingly and saved them for moments of desperation.
and....
*MY SECRET WEAPON: Auntie Lars. Lauren came along with us for the Kentucky vacation, and she was amazing! She helped distribute the snacks and crayons and keep order in the backseat. She was so good and patient with the boys. Everyone should have a Lauren!
*TRIPADVISOR.COM: this is where I did the bulk of my planning. The ratings and comments of other travelers were really helpful in choosing tourist stops, restaurants, and hotels. Last year this is how I found the best barbeque in Kansas (Hickory Hut BBQ) which was tragically closed for the day when we passed through this year.
*KIDS MAP: The boys followed our route using a laminated place mat of the US. They referred to our location based on the color of the state, and caught on pretty quick ("are we out of the yellow one yet?" "Ooooh! We are in orange now!" "I can't wait to get to the red one!") I bought this US atlas for kids with activities for each of the states, which will be really cool to use when the boys are a little older.
*HOMEMADE TRAVEL GAMES: Nice because this just takes a little work and it is all free. I searched the internet and printed out some coloring pages of the boys' favorite things. There are some cute printable Travel Bingo games all over the internet (crayola.com has several different bingo cards to print and color). I also made up a Dinosaur Hunt game comparing dinos to different vehicles. The boys loved it and throughout our trip would point out the window and yell out which dinosaur they spotted.
*THE "WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF..."GAME: Very basic idea, just complete the sentence by saying something funny. Noah really caught on to this game. Although most of his funny scenarios revolved around poop. (for example, "Wouldn't it be funny if poop fell out of the sky instead of rain?") He requested this game probably every hour or two and it was always good for at least 10 minutes of laughs.
*DRY ERASE CRAYONS: Those things are the best. No caps or mess to worry about. We used them on clear sheet protectors and dry erase boards and we never had a problem with clean-up. Drawing and erasing kept the boys busy for a few hours of the trip.
*LAP DESKS: I made the boys their own lap desks like this one . I have mixed feelings about these things. The desk was so helpful for snacks and coloring, and the removable pillow was perfect for naps. But I think I spent too much time sewing them to justify the amount of time they were used on this trip, mainly because of space issues. There just wasn't much extra room in the backseat for anything unnecessary, so they were stuffed in the trunk for a lot of the trip. But if you have a roomy vehicle, I recommend them, and I will definitely break them out again in the not too distant future when I am a mini-van mom.
*EARLY MORNING/NIGHT TRAVEL: We approve the time tested strategy of drive-while-the-kids-are-knocked-out-in-the-backseat. The more miles we could pass while the boys slept, the better. That meant Kyle and Lauren and I got to have some good adult conversations and listen peacefully to our book on CD (the Hunger Games series). It made for a very pleasant traveling experience.
and....
*MY SECRET WEAPON: Auntie Lars. Lauren came along with us for the Kentucky vacation, and she was amazing! She helped distribute the snacks and crayons and keep order in the backseat. She was so good and patient with the boys. Everyone should have a Lauren!
And so, thanks to Lauren and everything else, we made it to Kentucky and back. The destination was my old homestead, which was just a perfect vacation. Everyone knows that there's no place like home (what I felt both when we arrived in Kentucky and when we arrived back at our house at the end of the trip)! The boys were as close to perfect little angels as 2-and 3- year-old boys can be! And also, let's not forget that I had the best driver of all time up front with me. Moral of the story, road trips are the most fun things in the world!! We can't wait to do it again.
2 comments:
Thanks for the specific travel tips! We are about to undertake our own monster road trip.
These are really good ideas. It makes me excited for our beach trip. We have our DVD player and the leap frog games boys.I also made a map with pictures of landmarks and I printed out a picture of our car and put it on a magnet so the kids will always know where we are on the drive. I also printed off a bunc of car games like bingo and scaverger hunts.
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