Surviving Road Trips with Kids – 4 Hacks – Are we There Yet?

“Are we there yet? How much longer? Get me out of this truck!!” Sound familiar? I guarantee as a parent you’ve heard something similar when traveling with your kiddos any further than 45 miles on a road trip. With an estimated 17,000 miles traveled in the truck (counting only trips while towing “Arrow”) over the past 2+ years, we’ve heard our fair share of these laments from our kids!

Our time traveling has not always been smooth, especially early on! You might check out “Yelling at Cows” – a somewhat infamous post in which I gave the real life details of traveling with young ones. However, since that time, Leah and I have become wiser in everything from our travel day planning to truck ride activities. Also, the kids have grown older as well as much more accustomed to our lifestyle and are really excellent travelers for their ages.

So with this experience gained through our family’s travels, we thought it may be helpful to share with you some of our hacks you can try in an effort to make your next road trip as smooth as possible! I have to give Leah most of the credit when it comes to occupying the kids as I have done all the driving with the RV to date.

Oh, and by the way, we are always looking for new ideas, car activities and travel entertainment as our journeys will continue…as long as diesel prices stay under $5 😜. So, PLEASE, share your family’s ideas and traditions with us in the comments! They’ll be useful for us as well as other readers.

1) Know your family’s limits!

This is a huge one! Now, I know we are granted a bit more time than the average 3 weeks of vacation the majority of Americans receive, however, I feel this one is big for everyone. As much as you are able, bite off only what you know your family can handle! It’s no fun to spend the first few days at your destination already sick of each other because you pushed it too hard on the drive there. With all the practice we’ve had, we know our kids’ tolerance is at around 6 hours of drive time. Not including gas, lunch, and stretch stops.

2) Who cares what you look like at rest stops!

By this I don’t mean what you are wearing or what your hair looks like. What I mean is use the space around you! Get out and run those kids! Play tag, or imagination games, throw a ball – whatever. Get your kids moving and don’t be afraid to be goofy with it. The fresh air and blood flow will do wonders for them…and you! Oh, and another thing – rest areas are there for just that – a break from driving! I feel rest areas as a whole have a bad rep – but to the contrary, most are decently maintained inside and out. Here’s a list of the best rest stops!

Oh, and one more thing on rest stops. Go ahead and splurge on a way too expensive snack or treat out of the vending machine while stopping. This does wonders for the kids’ spirits too!

3) Ration the Kids’ screen time!

This can be a great motivator, bargain tool, or even a goal for your child! On long travel days we attempt to utilize a lunch stop for our halfway-ish marker. The kids can usually watch around 45 minutes worth of tablet time prior to lunch. Then around 45 minutes prior to arriving at our destination, they can have it again. The last dose of screen time is very valuable for us as the checking in, finding our spot, and parking the rig at the RV site requires the last ounce of focus I have at the end of our travels. Quiet is nice here!

So what do we do with the kids for the other 4 hours in the truck on a travel day? Well, here is our list from our Top Tips and Tools for (more enjoyably) Doing Life with Kids. This 14 page PDF with a 2 page printable reminder list is our free gift to you when you subscribe to this blog. It is loaded with our “hacks” for filling in those gaps while doing activities you love that can become miserable in an instant with unentertained children. We’d love it if you grabbed your copy and let us know it helped your family in some way!

Here is our go-to “non-tablet” list of car ride activities for kids.

4) Additional tips

It is OK to not meet your timetable goals when traveling. It really is. Those sentences are as much a reminder for me (still!) as they are a suggestion for you. Leah is awesome at recognizing this. I am not. Her calm spirit and demeanor is yet one more of the countless ways she blesses me!

“Enjoy the journey as much as the destination.”

Marshall Silver

And one more tip best randomly left here: Leah found a solution to her car sickness! We knew this would be a struggle for her. All it takes is reading for 5 minutes or two turns to the backseat to help our kids with something and she’s ready to hurl! However, on a whim she tried these goofy anti-motion sickness glasses – and they worked! Now, without any chemical influence causing drowsiness, she can read, do homeschool cirriculum with the kids and turn around as many times as she needs to in order to help the kids! Really, nothing short of a miracle to aid us on our journeys. BTW, we have no affiliation with any manufacturer or seller of these glasses – we just know they work for Leah! I do, however, think Leah is the only one who could wear these and still look pretty! 😍

Well, I hope these ideas help things go a little smoother for your family when you hit the pavement on your next road trip. Again, be sure to subscribe to this blog for your FREE gift guide and to not miss out on another post update.

We’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment regarding road travels here, or reach out to us personally. Knowing you’ve enjoyed our stories means so much!

This is a video I made for Gather ‘Round Homeschool, the company we subscribe to for our homeschool curriculum. I’ve included it here because it gives you an idea of what our travel days look like –

Enjoy Your Journey!