Road Trips with Kids

This post brought to you by PA Tourism. All opinions are 100% mine.

We have gone on many road trips as a family. Many more miles in our short 10 years together than I ever had done as a child! Derrick comes from a family who loves to travel. An 8 hour drive is nothing to them. I grew up traveling about an hour or so from my home town, rarely venturing out from that radius. So when we got married and moved to Alaska, I was persuaded into their way of thinking. After driving to Alaska, an 8 hour road trip seems like nothing! And it can be fun!

We are gearing up for our move from Oh to CA in a month! And we are going to make the most of it. We've mapped it out and decided on our stops. We can't wait!

We do several things to make the trips enjoyable for ourselves as well as the kids.

#1: Snacks. The kids pick out their own snacks. They don't get to eat them at will, but every hour or so they'll get to choose one and they look forward to it.

(Aaron making homemade Chex Mix for one of our trips)

#2. Pace out the day. There have been days where we needed to pack in the miles. Like driving 10 hours with 3 kids. But on this trip with baby Ruby, we are only doing 6 hours or so a day and taking our time. Lots of stops to stretch out their wiggles.

#3. Make the most of it! It isn't any fun to go on a long road trip just to go from point A to point B. Enjoy some things along the way! There are many wonderful resources for planning out trips online. What a time saver!

#4. If you have young children (girls especially) keep a small training potty in the back of your car. This has come in handy MANY times when we are in the middle of nowhere and Kaylee needs to go. I could post a pic of her on the tailgate, but I wouldn't embarass her like that. We'll wait until she is dating.


#5. Organization! These seat organizers have been wonderful! I need to make new ones as these have been worn pretty well, but it saves me from having to hand things to the kids in the back over and over.

#6. Entertainment. Of course we have DVD players for movies, but we also bring books on tape, CDs to listen to, play the "ABC" game as we are driving down the road and check out library books. It's a great time for family bonding although after a long day we all feel like zoning out in front of a movie. So those are good too ;)

We are in Ohio which is centrally located to many wonderful places. Two years ago we took our family to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is absolutely beautiful! We drove to Sesame Place hung out with the Sesame Street characters that day. It was a blast! Our kids still talk about going there.

While in Philadelphia, we went to the Hands On Museum for kids. We could have stayed there ALL day. From the outside it looks like a classic museum/gallery, but when you go inside it is all about the kids. Things to climb on, in, touch, run around, etc.

On our way back we stopped by Hershey. Another wonderful visit.

I wish pa-roadtrips had been around when we were planning this trip! I have a feeling that we missed many small stops along the way! When you visit pa-roadtrips and check out their RoadTrip-a-Matic, you can customize a trip for you based on your interests.

When browsing the site, I chose to check out the Kidsylvania Trip. A 3 day, 2 night trip. All mapped out for me! Stops included the Hands On Museum (which we would love to go back to), Heritage Discovery Center, and the Johnstown Inclined Plane.

Traveling can be stressful, but with tricks and tips from awesome sites like this, these roadtrips can be the ground for growing memories that the kids will talk about for years to come.