We just finished an 8,500 mile road trip around the country with two kids. Needless to say, it was ALOT of driving in 5 weeks.
You’re probably wondering what we did to keep our kids entertained and occupied during all that driving. Simply put, we did ALL THE THINGS to keep them entertained. Well, all the things except for the one thing that would have been the easiest – handing them a tablet and letting them entertain themselves. I don’t know about your kids, but mine get absolutely Looney Tunes, totally Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, completely Crazy Pants when we allow them to use electronics for any extended period of time. So this trip was a complete electronics detox period, and it was GREAT!
That being said, here are some things we did to pass the time. Yes, we were in an RV and that makes traveling easier, but hopefully some of these ideas are transferable to car travel as well.
We colored in coloring books (we ordered new ones for the trip) and read books. We drew pictures and also created picture journals of the trip.
We built Legos.
We listened to podcasts made just for kids. NPR’s “Wow In The World” is a favorite… so many great topics!
We napped! Well, Dax did at least!
We did lots of workbooks. No Summer Slide victims in this family!
More Legos! Lots and lots of Legos!
We played Battleship! Watch out for those rough roads though, we had a few games ruined by big road bumps.
We read more books.
We practiced reading/sight words with Dax.
Brian and I read out loud to the boys. Some current favorites include the Harry Potter series and the “I Survived…” books (which always make me cry at least once during the story!)
We played Bingo and also this fun Melissa and Doug Hangman game (forgot to take a pic of it in action).
Other daily activities included (not all pictured): annoying the dog, fighting, nonstop eating of snacks, fighting, whining, fighting, spilling things, fighting, complaining, oh and did I mention fighting? Definitely not all sunshine and rainbows on this road trip, but overall the boys were troopers and managed all of that driving really well. We’re definitely proud of them.
