Car Ride Activities

[Trip2007]

I am looking for some ideas for a 16 hour car ride for a 6 and 5 year old. We are going to break up the ride in half and stay in a hotel. We also are going to do some night driving while they sleep.

 

[Que_Sarah_Sarah]

Not an activity, but my parents always got me with "If you fall asleep, dad will take a special short cut and we'll get there much faster!"

 

[melanieRN]

I printed off games from momsminivan.com that my kids loved. There are games and ideas for all ages. A portable dvd player was also great at occupying the kids for a couple of hours at a time. I have been told that you can rent dvd's from redbox at one site and drop them off at another site, even in another state. My youngest daughter who loves to spell would have me give her words to spell out loud while I drove. Have a safe and happy trip!

 

[ldadar]

My kids like:

Leapster
look and find books. (I mean the Where's Mickey? style, not word searches)
Window clings/dry erase on windows

 

[Disneyislove86]

DH and I drive every year and we are always looking for games to play. No matter what age, an 16-20 hour car ride WILL feel like a 3 day car ride if there aren't fun things to keep us occupied.

Having a portable DVD player with Disney movies is the best way to go. I love watching the movies and thinking about how soon we will be there. Also, I sleep a lot while my hubby drives.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Just returned with a 5 year old. Pushed hard and stopped very little. His favorite stuff:

-My iphone
-A cool app on my nook that contained jokes (this lasted hours)
-A millionaire for kids game I bought second hand, and took the card out to pack. I ask questions of everyone in the car....it really was fun.
-colorwonder paper, color books and finger paint (no mess at all)

On the way back it was dark part of the way and he watched a few movies.

I also took but it got very little playtime-
etch a sketch
leapster
pipe cleaners
match box cars

Fun junk snacks are a huge hit- gummys, petz candy, nerds etc

 

[DanceDrawDream]

I know when I was younger I would start to feel sick if I tried to read anything in the car, but a fun game we used to play was to keep a list of all the different states of license plates we saw while driving in the car...

 

[Sjwoo]

Hi I have made my 7 and 9 yr old activity bags to take in the car and on the plane which they dont know about. I have added activities booklets ( found online),disney magazines, disney sweets , drinks, disney nail stickers, minnie mouse headband, puzzles/word searches, pens/pencils, disney colouring pages, t shirt, toy each to hopefully keep them amused!! Hope that gives you some idea's! Have fun!

 

[Wild about Walt]

We are doing our second trip to Disney in April but it's our first time driving. The DVD players and their 3DSs are a must, however, I don't want them plugged in the whole 24hrs.
We aren't telling the kids where we are going. The 3 of them love the excitement of guessing where we are going. We have done this for every trip we have taken and they really enjoy looking for clues along the way. I also plan to bring a car ride bingo. Eye spy can be a little hard when everything is flying by you so we make up a license plate game where we say a word for every letter on the license plates that are ahead of us and it makes funny little sayings.

When we did our first trip we flew but again didn't tell the kids where they were going. To make it fun (and to keep them occupied) we made a little amazing race game. We hid 'Amazing Race' 'clues' in their back packs and under their hotel pillows that had riddles that told them what to look for along the way. They thought they were in the real Amazing Race. It made it so much fun!

 

[suzieQ36]

We drove down a few years ago and our girls were about the same age as your children. I ordered (or you could even make one) something to hang on the back of the front seats to hold all sorts of fun activities (they knew about the trip, but the activity bags were a surprise). I bought most of the items at the $ store. Crayons, coloring books, magnet activities/games, pipe cleaners, small craft kits, paper dolls, etc. (things you know they will like). I bought a medium dry erase board for each of them. They used it to draw, but it also came in handy for a "tray".

The portable DVD player or laptop was beneficial for playing movies. Our library allows movie check outs for 2 weeks at a time. They are free and no late fees! If not, Redbox is a great choice. If they have any hand held video games, those are entertaining.

Search the web for scavenger hunt pages and print them out for the ride.

 

[Wild about Walt]

We drove down a few years ago and our girls were about the same age as your children. I ordered (or you could even make one) something to hang on the back of the front seats to hold all sorts of fun activities (they knew about the trip, but the activity bags were a surprise). I bought most of the items at the $ store. Crayons, coloring books, magnet activities/games, pipe cleaners, small craft kits, paper dolls, etc. (things you know they will like). I bought a medium dry erase board for each of them. They used it to draw, but it also came in handy for a "tray".

The portable DVD player or laptop was beneficial for playing movies. Our library allows movie check outs for 2 weeks at a time. They are free and no late fees! If not, Redbox is a great choice. If they have any hand held video games, those are entertaining.

Search the web for scavenger hunt pages and print them out for the ride.

That's a great idea. The bags would keep things neat and tidy too. We had back packs at their feet and stuff ended up everywhere.

 

[tina.tina]

My kids were 10 and 5 on our trip last year and I was shocked by how good they were on the trip. It takes about 12 hours to get to WDW from our home and we stopped for the night 1/2 way down & back. Next time, we probably will drive straight through.

I gave the kids each a gift after we had been driving a little while and they got a little restless. I told them it was for being so good and they would get a gift periodically after that as long as they were good. They also played ABC & other games like that to win the prizes sooner. I had a variety of mostly Disney themed things- stickers, small figurines, crayons and coloring pads, Disney silly bands, even shirts. One of the things they liked best was glow bracelets after it got dark, and the bracelets weren't so bright they were distracting to the driver.

We left home at 4pm. Everyone was so excited we drove 5 hours without any electronics- not even the radio. The kids looked at the road maps and we discussed our route and what states we would be going through. They also looked at the Disney maps we had ordered and we all talked about what we wanted to do in each park. We stopped for some supplies at 9pm and had a potty break. The kids fell asleep soon after. We drove for about 3 more hours and stopped for the night. The next morning they were just as excited.

On the trip back they played their DSI's and barely fought at all.

 

[Carina]

My kids have done MANY big road trips. Our longest one day is 18 hours - with gas station fill ups and rest stop potty breaks really our only stops ( I mean who wants to make an 18 hour day even longer!)
They have done 12 -16 hours several times as well.

The 2 things that make the BIGGEST difference - free printable mad libs ( you may need to teach them what an adjective is, but they'll catch on fast.
The whole family picks words to fill in the blanks, then the adult passenget reads them out.
Dosen't sound like that much of a time killer, but they loved them. I use them when other activitys get boring.

The other thing is a frisbee or nerf football for the rest stops! 5 mins of frisbee with one parent (usually dad) while mom/the other parent, gets the van re-organized, gets out the next round of snacks, etc, REALLY helps get the kids antsyness out!

We also make them run at each rest stop ( for the same reason as the frisbee) a quick "run to that picnic table and back" also makes a big difference.

We always make it clear ahead of time, to the kids that this is what we need to do to get to our holiday. Its not super fun, but it's how we get to the very fun place, so they know we expect them to travel nicely. And they have never needed to be reminded.

 

[Mrs K]

We have driven from MA to WDW nine times. We started when my DD was three. The DVD player is worth it's weight in gold! The kids watch Disney movies which really gets them excited,we have other movies that we call "car movies" that we always take on the road. Hand held video games are good too. My kids were never good car sleepers, so we leave @ 4am and drive about 14 hours. DH and I would ask them question about the state we were driving through and give them quarters for correct answers to use in the arcade. We actually drove this July with our two youngest now 16 and 20 and really enjoyed the time together.

 

[Mrs K]

I forgot to add snacks! Grab their favorites, but avoid things that melt like chocolate. A couple of lolipops can buy you a lot of quiet!