My 15 favorite TRAVEL TIPS:
1: Individual food items or containers to split up food are so much easier to manage. We put all of our food in an empty diaper box to keep it contained. Have a schedule for food too - this way you don't feel like you're eating all the time and the kids get sick eating so much in a short period of time. Have a garbage sack for each part of the car - not hard for little cars, but you don't want to be passing garbage around as well as the food.
For example: breakfast - 7 am
snack 10 am
lunch 12 am
nap time
snack 2:30
dinner 5 pm
bed time - hopefully we're almost there!
(yes we travel for days at a time)
2: Cooler with fruit slices and sandwich makings for the grown-ups who appreciate a little more than a lunchable.
3: Water bottles! Bring extra water too, not only to refill the water bottles, but also in case of emergency.
4: Special toys for each kid - that's where their bag comes in handy. Each toy must be put away at every stop to avoid losing them getting in and out of the car.
5: Flip/flop basket. Granted we travel most during the summer, but one summer I was driving a 5 hour part by myself and at one stop, a flip flop was missing. Insert tears of panic from the 5 year old boy, irritation because I had to carry the infant and the 5 year old into the restroom along with the 8 year old and 3 year old. It was definitely NOT awesome. So I have a small green basket and every stop, they take their sandals and return them to the bucket after getting in. Keeps stuff from getting stepped on with dirty shoes.
6: Movie list. If you have a dvd player, a movie list is a must. There's no fighting over what's next - the list is final. :) Make it together so everyone gets an input.
7: Clothing: I over pack - alot. So to reduce the clothing we took, we made a new plan. Each child would have 8 gallon storage bags - 1 for each day of the week, plus an extra. One outfit per bag including underwear for each day. Sunday had a 'change into' for after church. 2 pairs of pj's, one long pant, sweatshirt and 2 long sleeve shirts. I got smart after the first week and couldn't remember how we matched some of the clothes, so I wrote what was contained in each bag on the front of the bag. Each day the kids would come grab the bag of the day and put their pj's in the bag to be worn that night. THIS WAS AWESOME!! That way I could hand a bag to my husband or other adult and say 'here's the clothes, please help me'. It also helped when we were only staying overnight somewhere - we only had to bring in the bag for the next day instead of ALL the suitcases. Make sure you think ahead to travel days and what will be most comfortable and what you don't mind getting dirty from long car rides with food and snacks. Each week we'd do laundry and reload the bags.
Note that my 6 year old boy only has about 4 pairs of shorts so we matched what we could and told him to reuse the shorts he wanted to wear again. My girls definitely have more clothing options.
8: STICKERS! I bought sticker packets for each kid - $1 at Walmart. They loved it!
9: The BIN: In the backseat with the girls, I had a smaller storage bin with clipboards, coloring books, crayons, dvd case, and other stuff we thought would be good. This was the collector of all so we'd put their bags in their too to keep it out of the way. The clipboards and paper came in handy for the stickers. :)
10: Headphones for the driver. :) Jeff likes to drive and I don't love it. I get sleepy driving from one side of the valley to the other. So to keep him awake and alert, he had a cd player or his phone with music, a laptop set up or something available for him to listen to a book on cd, endless hours of music, etc.
11: Potty chair: seems a little silly right? Well it doubles as a footstool for when we arrive places and my kids are still a little short to reach all sinks. Plus if we had to in an emergency, the girls could use it on the side of the road - at the very suggestion they can hold it. haha!
12: New toys: My now 2 year old was having a birthday shorty after we were getting home, but I picked up a few gifts in Washington - different selection. I pulled those toys out along the way home - he loves the little people super heroes.
13: Seating is crucial for us - noone wants to travel for hours listening to fighting and screaming. We put the girls in the back to play 'barbies' and the boys in the middle so I could reach the baby and pass food around. The other person in the middle gets to be the passer-back and needs to be willing to help out.
14: The one thing we haven't figured out is where to put the cooler so it's easily accessible to the passenger (me) to get food for everyone, but still have leg room, room in-between the front seats for cell phones, chargers, wallets, etc. We did use a small 'lunch' cooler for Jeff one time that seemed to work, except it was not a good cooler - leaked when the ice melted......
15: We occasionally buy treats at the gas station - this was my favorite part of traveling as a kid. We'd get to Boise, stop at the Flying J and my dad would buy some sort of ice cream treat......good times.
I think that about covers it - sing songs, play the ABC game, find the truck, find the American flag, find the LDS church or Temple. Have fun and enjoy being in the car together!! Happy travels! One last thing: start and end with a prayer.
