In need help from my fellow roadtripping families...

[Amirah95]

We've road tripped a lot in our lives, but we could never get the food / snacks quite right. We take the usual junk, fruit cups, juice boxes, water, chips, cookies and even more junk...most unhealthy.

I'm looking for some convenient foods / dishes / beverage ideas, less the junk, to take with us down to WDW this coming October.

Cast members: Me (Mom - healthy ), Grumpy (DH - a diabetic ), Princess Briana (DD13 - junk food master ) and Princess Bailey (DD1 - she'll turn 1 a week after we come back from WDW ).

We take a medium sized cooler with us on the trip...ok on to the suggestions.

Any help will be appreciated! I remember seeing a thread a while ago and shame on me for not saving the link. Tried to search but that didn't work.

 

[Fantasmic23]

We've road tripped a lot in our lives, but we could never get the food / snacks quite right. We take the usual junk, fruit cups, juice boxes, water, chips, cookies and even more junk...most unhealthy.

I'm looking for some convenient foods / dishes / beverage ideas, less the junk, to take with us down to WDW this coming October.

Cast members: Me (Mom - healthy ), Grumpy (DH - a diabetic ), Princess Briana (DD13 - junk food master ) and Princess Bailey (DD1 - she'll turn 1 a week after we come back from WDW ).

We take a medium sized cooler with us on the trip...ok on to the suggestions.

Any help will be appreciated! I remember seeing a thread a while ago and shame on me for not saving the link. Tried to search but that didn't work.

Woohoo for road trips with diabetics! My DS (age 6) is a type one. We drove down to WDW in mid-February (from CT). I think we had more coolers in our Nissan Quest than we had luggage!

Like you, we take the same usual junk (though I screamed at DH and when I learned he bought some of those big pounder bags of M&Ms (and one of those bags was peanut - Hello? My DS also has a peanut allergy. I hid the peanut bag but M&Ms were everywhere ... and it's an all out lie that it's the candy that melts in your mouth, not your hands!).

To try to stay a bit more healthy, I also packed a few bags of mini Rice Cakes (low in carbs) for DS. They come in all different flavors, including chocolate and cheddar cheese. My DD (9) likes them, too, and DH and I were also munching away.

I also bought a lot of bottles of Crystal Light (Pink Lemonade flavor and another flavor). They're kind of on the expensive side, but they contain no carbs and they taste pretty good.

While some brands and flavors can be high in sugar/carbs, I bought a box (or two) of granola-type bars. My daughter also took along a few Rice Krispy Bars (not the homemade kind) from home. They're kind of sugary and sticky, though.

My kids love cheese, so we also brought along a bag of Cracker Barrel cheddar - the cheese was already pre-sliced into bite-sized pieces. They also had a box of crackers (Wheat Thins? Ritz? I forget) to go along with the cheese.

I wanted to pack some sandwiches, but I was afraid of them getting soggy.

Thanks for starting this thread! I'm curious to read about new snack suggestions!

Of course, my kids continued to have McDonald's melt-downs every time we passed the Golden Arches!

 

[nessz79]

Good thread! I am not really good with this as we end up stopping and eating and not packing too many snacks...so we pig out when we stop.

Good to see the responses.

 

[MO Nurse]

We don't pack sandwiches already made but we do pack sandwich meat, condiments and bread. We just make them as the kids wants them.

 

[bellebud]

we've done a lot of road trips w/ the kids. We're from NY, so we do a 2 day trip to WDW.

We leave in the morning and get bagels to eat in the car. Then we have fishie crackers, pretzels, granola bars, string cheese type snacks if we get hungry before lunch. We always pack lunchmeat, bread & condiments, mac/potato salad and chips for lunch. We like the state welcome centers for our little *picnics* (nicer usually than regular rest stops). I don't mind then if the kids get M&M's or something from a gas station stop. Then we're usually at our overnight hotel by dinner time, so we eat out. Then breakfast in the morning is at the hotel, sandwiches again for lunch, at we're at WDW by 3pm. Very easy, and not totally overloading on junk.

 

[holly7347]

Fruit is a big one for us. When we go anywhere even just day trip fruit is a must. Apples, bananas, and grapes are easy and don't really require any prep work.

Other items we frequently pack:
nutrigrain cereal bars
raisins
peanuts
whole wheat bread
peanut butter
whole wheat crackers
string cheese

Instead of juice boxes or koolaid we take something that is like 90% water with a splash of juice for flavor. I forget the exact name - waterfalls or something like that. They come in those squeese foil packets.

We do the junk thing too but I at least try to get them to eat a piece of fruit or something before the junk.

 

[bellebud]

oh, I forgot... our all-time fav snack at home and on trips is sunflower seeds (the ones in the shell).

 

[Amirah95]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

see my siggy; we've got road trips down to a science!

Biggest tip is to not bring dairy or sugar in the car with you. Dairy makes the car reek, sugar sticks to everything forever. I think one of the reasons my minivan still looks so good is my no dairy/no sugar rule. Plus if the kids eat sugar in the car they get all nuts and we have to stop. Normally we do one gas stop at the border of Fla/GA for pee and gas. If they eat sugar it messes with my schedule...

So, we make sandwiches, ham turkey with some mayo. Goldfish crackers, bottled water. Cheese its. Cheerios. Um... Bananas, occasionally, but we fling the peels out the windows (biodegradable!) as soon as we're done.

DH and I will drink coffee from a thermos we make before we leave.

 

[hopesmommy]

I love packing baby carrots. Healthy, simple, crunchy, not messy!

Have your child make a "trail" mix using raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, popcorn, and a LITTLE chocolate (m&ms or choco chips). Usually if they make it they will eat it.

Beef jerky - DH loves this because he can suck on it for hours.

String cheese

If you are concerned with the bread getting smushed or soggy, use torillas or pitas. (also less carbs this way)

Try cupcakes without frosting. They are not very messy and still sweet.

 

[Taja]

Freshly popped popcorn? Air popped the night before--hold the salt & butter!

I don't do road trips. My father loved to drive west coast to east coast, stopping for a few hours to sleep each night. To this day, if it takes longer than two hours in a car, I won't go! *LOL*

 

[SplashMountainMama]

I love packing baby carrots. Healthy, simple, crunchy, not messy!

Have your child make a "trail" mix using raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, popcorn, and a LITTLE chocolate (m&ms or choco chips). Usually if they make it they will eat it.

Beef jerky - DH loves this because he can suck on it for hours.

String cheese

If you are concerned with the bread getting smushed or soggy, use torillas or pitas. (also less carbs this way)

Try cupcakes without frosting. They are not very messy and still sweet.

You've obviously never seen my kids eat a cupcake (frosting or not)! The same can be said for muffins.We actually nick-named our last minivan "Pig Pen" (like from Charlie Brown) because you could clean it up for awhile, but it always got messy again in the end.

 

[momof1princess]

we take cashews, beef jerky, a can of pringles or can of fritos for DH to choose from, the individual packs of cheez & crackers, 100 calorie packs of oreos or chips ahoy, baggies of cheez its or preztels for DD to choose from and packets of peanuts & slim-fast high protein bars for me. i pack juice boxes for DD, water bottles for me and a 2 liter coke for DH-we stop at sonic and get a bag of pellet ice for the cooler which DH makes his drinks with in a travel mug.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add, the bottled water HAS to be sport bottles, because the kids constantly knock over their water bottles despite the minivan having enough cupholders for an army. If you have the sport top, even if it's open, it oozes out pretty slowly.

My DH and I have had huge battles in costco over this, he wants the cheaper regular bottles and I'm like, no way. I get your car if you want these bottles, because 1 spilled bottle = swamp thang minivan...

 

[disneydad78]

Feed my kids TyenolPM !

 

[momof1princess]

Feed my kids TyenolPM !

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
now WHY didn't i think of that?

 

[Amirah95]

Feed my kids TyenolPM !

I just added in three of my nephews into the cast. Ages 3, 5 and 6! Pray for DH and I!

Thanks for all of the good suggestions!!!! Keep 'em coming if you can!

 

[loribell]

I know this is a little late but thought I would add in my suggestion. Last year we took along uncrustables. We ate them for lunch & dinner on our drive down. Everyone was perfectly happy with not having to take the time to stop for a meal.

 

[Amirah95]

I know this is a little late but thought I would add in my suggestion. Last year we took along uncrustables. We ate them for lunch & dinner on our drive down. Everyone was perfectly happy with not having to take the time to stop for a meal.

I'm sorry, but what are uncrustables?

 

[loribell]

They are actually the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches they serve at Diseny for the kids meals. They are in the freezer section of our grocery stores. I get a box of 10 for $5. They also come in grilled cheese uncrustables but we haven't tried those.