Traveling with Kids Must Haves

Must Have Items For Road Trips

Our family loves to travel. If you follow me on Instagram, you know…we are always taking road trips. Between visiting our family & friends that are out of state and our spring break & winter break vacations, we take between 3-5 road trips each year. The length of the trips range anywhere from 3-10 hours and with each experience we’ve learned a few more tips for traveling as a family. Below are our recommendations for what to pack for long car rides when traveling with kids.

Traveling with Kids – What to Pack for Long Car Rides

Planning for long road trips with kids is especially important. After all, if your family is going to be in the confines of a car for hours upon hours, preparation can be a lifesaver and reduce the amount of times you hear the phrase “Are we there yet?

#1 – Individual Travel Bags

Allow each of your children to pack a bag of there own. This allows them the freedom to select their favorite toys like a stuffed animal and personal items. We have a small plastic shoebox container that the kids can fill with whatever they want. There is only rule – The lid must close. We call it their own “personal toy box”.

The container is then stored inside of a reusable shopping bag along with a blanket, small pillow and “drawing tray” (see below).

Each child is responsible for their own bag and honestly the toys that they chose to bring are often the items that keep them entertained the longest during our trip.

#2 – Books

When traveling with kids, reading books is a great way to pass the time. Grab some of your favorites from home, and head to your local library to borrow some new books. The important part here is to take a few minutes to choose books that relate to your child’s favorite topics. Here are a few of the types of books we brought along this year:

Discovery Kids: 1,000 Facts You Just Won’t Believe – This book was a big hit with my kids. Packed with facts on topics ranging from the human body, animals, history, gadgets and much more. We all enjoyed learning fun new things as we read the book out load during our drive.

I Spy Books – These are time consuming and fun for young children. The perfect combination for a long car ride. Here are some of our favorites:

Look-Alikes – Similar to the I Spy books, but with a unique twist. Each picture is composed of 100s of different everyday objects. For example, the image of a train is made up of a flashlight, zippers, a compass, acorns, teabags and many more objects. Each time you browse the pages you are sure to find something new. Here are some of our favorites:

#3 – Coloring Supplies

If your kids are like mine, they will enjoy drawing while on a road trip. So packing various coloring books and worksheets is another great way to pass the time during a long car ride. In addition to the books, you’ll need to consider what your children will use to color with and on.

Color-by-Number Books – Color by Number books hold the attention of my kids for longer than regular coloring books. Because of this, I make sure to include a couple for long car rides.

Crayola Twistables – You can’t have coloring books without something to color with. These are the perfect crayon to use in the car. There is no need to sharpen, they won’t melt in the heat leaving multicolored stains on the carpet and they are easy enough for little hands to twist as needed. I recommend picking up a pack or two for your next road trip.

Activity Sheets – There are tons of online resources that offer FREE printable activity worksheets. You can find worksheets with holiday themes, on any and every sport, cartoons and much more. You can google or head over to Pintrest to find them. Tip: Be sure to print enough for the car ride home too!

Drawing Tray – If your child is going to draw in the car, they will need a hard surface to do so. We opt to use portable travel trays, when traveling with our kids but honestly any hard surface will be fine.

#4 – Music Playlist

For each road trip, we each of us get to make a travel playlist. Throughout the year when we hear a new song that we like, we add it to our “vacation playlist.”

This year we had ranging from 90s hits, current Pop songs, Cartoon Theme Songs, One Hit Wonders, and our favorite Christian songs. The fun mix of songs keeps everyone entertained and dancing to the music as we drive.

#5 – Snacks

Last but certainly not least are snacks. If your, kids are anything like mine, it’s not uncommon to hear “I’m hungry” within the first 5 minutes of the drive. So to help combat stopping to every drive thru we see here’s what I do.

Soft Sided Cooler – A cooler with a few ice packs will help you keep food and drinks cold throughout your trip. We prefer the soft sided design so it can be folded for easier storage when not in use.

Food Storage Containers – I have an individual container with a lid for each child that I refill as needed. The container serves multiple purposes. First, it reduces the amount of spills, crumbs and clean-up needed. Secondly, the lid allows us to save partially eaten sandwiches or snack items for later in the trip.

Plastic Grocery Bags – Bring along a handful of Plastic Grocery Bags to hold the miscellaneous pieces of trash you will accumulate on your trip (such as snack cake wrappers, banana Peels, napkins, etc).

Go-to Food & Drinks – While each families tastes and preferences will vary, these are a few of our favorite items to bring along to eat in the car.

Fruit (Bananas, Apples, Oranges, Grapes)
String Cheese
Pepperoni Slices
Granola Bars / Fruit Bars
Crackers
Juice boxes

Those are our must have items for long family car trips. As long as we have them packed in the car we are good to go and the trip is much more relaxing for everyone.

What are some of your family’s must have items for road trips traveling with kids? Let me know in the comments.