Allow me to set the scene:

It’s June 18th. Outside of Nashville, the sun has yet to rise, but the outdoor temperature hasn’t noticed. A woman walks into her five-year-old daughter’s room to wake the child with as much excitement as she can muster before her first sip of coffee. The woman tries to hide her fear over what the day will bring. She has dreaded this day for months. But as her child begins to dress in the clothes set out the night before, she realizes she has no choice but to accept her fate.

It’s time.

She has to start.

So she climbs into the driver’s seat, turns the key, and sets off on the 12 hour road trip toward her daughter’s dreams. 12 hours. In a car. With a five year old.

She is terrified.

But, then… something magical happens.

Prior to the trip, the woman had planned. She had spent hours devouring every road-trip-tip she could find, and she had chosen her favorites and prayed to the road trip gods that it would be enough.

And now, in the moment of truth, it IS enough.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wishing this brave, brilliant woman would share her magic with you. Well, you’re in luck – because that’s exactly what she’s about to do. So sit back, relax, and enjoy

The Ultimate Road Trip Survival Guide

10) Nail the Timing

There is a universal truth all parents must acknowledge and accept: a road trip with kids will ALWAYS take longer than the actual drive time. My magic formula is to add one hour for every five hours of drive time. Kids, and grown ups, need bathroom breaks, food that doesn’t come in a box, bag, or tube, and to stretch their aching and/or antsy muscles. So, the first step to nailing your road trip timing is to figure out how long it’s going to take you to get from Point A to Point B.

9) No, Seriously – TIMING!

We’re going to go a little more in-depth, because that tip was fairly obvious, right? Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Think hard. Do you know how long your child’s concentration lasts? How long can one item or activity hold their interest? If you don’t know, start paying attention to how long they will sit still. When they watch television or start playing a game on an electronic device, how long does it take for them to start doing something else? For my daughter, it’s about 15 minutes. If you have more than one child, I recommend going with the shortest attention span of all them for the little calculation we’re about to do, because, let’s be real, everyone gets bored more easily in a car.

8) Figure Out what that TIMING Means!

Okay, so now that we know our Attention Span Coefficent (ASC), we just need to divide the Total Travel Time (TTT) by the ASC to get our Hope-filled Optimistic Parental Entertainment Statistic (HOPES).

For our trip, we had an ASC of 15 minutes and a TTT of 12 hours, meaning that our HOPES were 48. I know that seems like a big number, but hang in there with me. We’ve got this.

7) Electronic Entertainment

Obviously, your children should never have more than one hour of screen time per day… BAHAHAHAHAHA!!! YEAH RIGHT!!! If any of you REALLY have children who have an hour or less of screen time per day, you’re my new hero. That little rule hasn’t worked for our family since we parents started working at home, and my rules on a road trip are way more lenient. That said, I do think engaging kids during a road trip helps keep them from being cute little psychotic zombies when you reach your… FINAL DESTINATION… So, naturally, we brought every single Disney movie in our home. Ya know, just in case. But we strongly encouraged her to watch only one movie, and by some magical miraculous intervention by God, she was totally cool with that.

If your vehicle has a built-in dvd player, you’re golden! If not, all is not lost. You can download a movie through most cable providers to a device of your choosing before your trip, so you don’t blow through your data on the road. Bonus points if the device also enables your child to play games.

But don’t worry – this list is here to help you NOT end up with crazy tiny zombie kids. If you use all ten of these tips, I can tell you with 90% certainty that your kids will be pretty cool with only watching one movie. Because they’ll have SO. MUCH. OTHER. STUFF. TO. DO.

6) Play Time!

Road trip games are a LIFESAVER. Seriously. And not just for the little ones – let’s face it, the road gets monotonous and can lull you into a dangerous state of highway hypnosis with no warning, and road trip games are my go-to trick for snapping out of it. Engaging your mind is one of the easiest ways to make time fly AND combat drowsiness. Well, that, and coffee. SO. MUCH. COFFEE.

Unfortunately, when it comes to road trip games, I drew a major blank. But, thanks to a FabFitFun Box (Use code HEATWAVE for $10 off your first box!) I got two years ago, I happened to have an amazing deck called 50 Road Trip Games from Deckopedia. Each game has the minimum number of players and suggested ages on the top, and even though Aria is young, there were tons of options PLUS we were able to adapt a lot of the other games to work for her. She absolutely LOVED trying all the new games, and on the rare occasion one didn’t catch her interest, there was another right behind it! I’ll seriously never take another trip without this deck!

5) Let’s Do Some ACTIVITIES!!!

The 50 Road Trip Games deck doesn’t leave you hanging with just 50 games to play in the car, they also have an AMAZING download that seriously was one of my absolute favorite things about this trip. The best part? You can get the download for FREE, whether you buy the deck or not, right here! This thing is packed full of mazes, coloring pages, activities, supplements to some of the games, and my absolute FAVORITE part of the whole thing: The Road Trip Scavenger Hunt! They provide a kids’ version with just pictures, and a grown-up version that looks like a treasure map. We all LOVED that scavenger hunt, and can’t wait to do it again on our next trip!

4) Your Own Traveling Toy Store

Car-friendly toys may not be the easiest thing to come by, but I found a few GREAT options at Dollar Tree for our trip to Dallas. Dolls, small games (we got jumping frogs and a matching game, among a few others) and action figures are all great ideas.

3) Snuggle Time Must-Haves

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s SUPER IMPORTANT, so I thought it should be mentioned. Because if you’re anything like me, if you’re going to forget something, it will be the absolute most obvious thing that no one would ever think twice about bringing. So, repeat after me: Pillow, Blanket, Stuffed Animal. And, if you want to be a little extra – and especially if you’re driving during the day – bring a sleep mask! Aria had a unicorn version from her birthday party – I let the kids wear it while they played Pin the Horn on the Unicorn – and that mask was a lifesaver!

2) Pack a Snack

If you want to keep your TTT down to only one extra hour per five hours of drive time, you need to have plenty of snacks in the car. Surely I’m not the only one who gets like ten times hungrier than normal when I’m in a car for an extended period of time. Right? Please?

My favorites are:

• Apple Sauce Pouches
• Trail Mix
• Peanut Butter Stuffed Pretzels
• Animal Crackers
• Goldfish
• Pretzel Sticks (we REALLY eat a lot of pretzels)
• Jalapeno Pretzel Bites (see, told ya)
• Chex Mix
• Protein Bars
• NutriGrain Bars
• Beef Jerky
• Gummy Bears
• Kinder Joy Eggs (as a bonus treat for the little one)

Bonus Tip: Pre-portion enough of these snacks for the trip TO your destionation AND the trip BACK from your destination before you leave. Pack them separately in the car, so you won’t be tempted to dig into them early and wind up snackless for your return trip.

1) The ULTIMATE Road Trip Survival Tip – THE ROAD TRIP COUNTDOWN!!!

Okay, now for my ultimate, Holy Grail, magical, trip-transforming MEGA TIP – my very own ROAD TRIP COUNTDOWN!!! The basic idea of the countdown is to keep kids from constantly asking, “Are we there yet?” by creating an interactive countdown that keeps the time remaining in the trip right in front of them. Now, never one to do things halfway, I created a printable 12 hour countdown with numbers that the little ones can color in themselves before the trip. Then you just string the numbers together and hang them in the back seat where the kids can reach. As each hour passes, they get to tear it off the countdown.

Now, my extra self took this even further. I created Countdown Surprises by taking all the things up there ^ and portioning them out into 12 sets which I then wrapped in tissue paper and labeled with the corresponding hour. Each hour, Aria tore off the number and traded it with me, then received a present. I did my best to make sure that each little prize included enough things to keep her occupied for an hour, which is where all that fun timing from my first few tips came in. Each pouch included a couple of activity sheets from the 50 Road Trip Games free download, one game card from 50 Road Trip Games, one toy or prize -some were new from Dollar Tree, and some were found lying around the house where they had been shoved under couches or beds and completely forgotten – and a snack. These little gifts, filled with road trip staples, were the absolute game changer for our trip.

Now, you can be totally extra like me and plan out where you expect to be at each hour of your trip then use that information and your parental knowledge of what your kids are most interested in at each time of the day, and then organize the snacks and activities accordingly, or you can just put everything in a bag and hand out one of each thing every hour. Do what works best for you! But either way, combining the Road Trip Countdown with an element of surprise is sure to make the time fly for your kids, and for you!

 

Download your FREE printable copy of my Road Trip Countdown HERE!

 

So, there you have it! The Ultimate Road Trip Survival Guide! I hope you love these tips and use them to make your next road trip a blast! Do you have an awesome tip I missed? Drop it in the comments so we can add it to our survival kits!