Driving from MI: good stops for kids?

[Cholderby]

We've managed to reproduce ourselves out of affording to fly and will be driving to WDW for the first time ever. The kids are 8, 6, 3, and 1.

We might either leave after work one night and stay in Cincinnati with family and then do a (gulp) 12 hour drive the next day or we could break the drive up over 2.5 days, maybe even ending up at one of the parks on the last day.

Any advice on how to do this and still arrive somewhat sane? We'll need some good and tiring stops along the way.

 

[Practicallyperfect]

There is a website called Kidslovetravel.com. She has great books with places to stop while traveling. Live her books!

 

[SEA333]

We are originally frm MI (between Brighton and Flint), but now live in the Western Chicago suburbs...

We drove from Chicago last year, but hopped over to I-75 in Cinnci because we wanted to kids to see the mountains, so we went your way most of the drive. We left at 7pm Chicago time, and drove straight through the night. We had a crazy freak-ice-storm (it was in late March the year the temps hit 80 degrees the week we left....we hit a huge ice storm that closed the freeway when it was 55 degrees at 11pm. STILL weird thinking about it!!! LOL) weather delay south of Indy, so we ended up going through the hills of Kentucky at daybreak. It was the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen.

My kids were older - 11, 7, and 5, so they did OK sleeping in the car. With your little ones, I would probably have driven from maybe 2-3am until the afternoon, stopped somewhere in southern Tenessee (maybe Chattannooga?), then headed out early again the next day to finish up the trip. Georgia and Florida were long and boring, plus we REALLY were getting excited to finally get there, so I would recommend doing most of the driving the first day, and leave maybe only 6-7 hours for the 2nd day.

Have fun!!

 

[yayornay]

A couple of things we encountered when driving with a 4 and 2 year old last year. We left after work one evening with the intention of driving as far as we could without falling asleep. The kids were both asleep for a couple of hours when we finally stopped at a hotel. Lo and behold, they both woke up while we carried them into the room, and then they were bouncing off the walls crazy tired, although they felt a little recharged after their 'nap'. They would.not.go.back.to.sleep. Husband and I were both exhausted and frankly a little worried we were going to get evicted due to the noise they were making. The entire next day we were zombies. Never in all of my planning did this scenario play out this way!

On the way home, we made it in one day. It's a 10 hour trip with no stops, and by leaving in the early morning, we made it in 12 hours with stops. I know you have a lot farther to go, but something to consider maybe?