Help me plan for two LONG drives with three kids!

[Mom2Ben02]

I have never, ever taken a driving trip before. My Dad is a retiree of Northwest/Delta Airlines. He started working there the day before I was born, so - for my entire life - we have flown. I can still get benefits for my family - however, flying standby to get to Disney with three kids does not sound fun. I am looking for ideas for my kids that are cheap, easy and fun for the car ride. We are doing a "test run" trip in a few weeks - PA and DC from Chicago - and then going to Orlando in November.

Kids - 2 boys, a ten year old with ADHD, and a three year old. One girl, 8.

Looking for things that will be able to be used for both trips. Games, storage ideas, traditions...whatever you want to share!!

 

[pilesoflaundry]

Ds or other handheld game, dvds, snacks, Ispy books or games. Some kids like to read in the car but it makes my kids feel dizzy so they don't. Bring a favorite pillow or blanket so they can get a bit more comfortable in the car.

 

[vegasnative]

Invest in a DVD player. We have one built in to our car and the kids only use it on long road trips but it is a lifesaver for those kind of trips. You can get portable ones for a reasonable price. We hit Redboxes along the way and because you can return them anywhere it makes it very convenient.

 

[ekatiel]

We LOVE this little device: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Satellite-Wireless-External-STBF500101/dp/B004Z0S7K6 It is a portable external hard drive that creates its own wifi. DH has ripped all our DVDs to it, so when we go on trips, we bring it with us-- up to three devices (ipad, kindle fire, ipod touch, pc, etc) can watch different movies at the same time. So, usually, the kids watch something in the back on the iPad, and I watch something different up front on the Kindle Fire. DH told me that there is a new version of the Go Flex that holds a terabyte and allows up to eight devices to use it at once. I'm sure we'll have that one at some point . We also have this contraption for the iPad in the car: http://www.amazon.com/Arkon-Tablet-Headrest-Mount-TAB3-RSHM/dp/B0072LATE2/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1370025921&sr=1-10&keywords=ipad+car+mount. It allows the iPad to rest in between the two front seats so both kids can see it. I'm all about using technology to get us through long road trips. 8 hours of movies once or twice a year isn't going to damage them for life . --Katie

 

[vleeth]

My dd8 likes electronics at night, but has trouble seeing the screens (from the glare) during the daytime.

We play car games to pass the time and look at Disney maps to plan our trip. (Yeah right...like its not already planned...but she doesn't know that.)

Shes finally old enough to play a game I loved as a child. I will print out a blank map of the US and color in the states as we see the license plates. Of course we usually see more in the Disney parking lot than we do on the road. But its still fun.

 

[MSSANDRA]

We basically just lift the electronics rules. We are pretty stingy with the play time at home so that keeps him happy for hours. DS, ipad, iphones, nook etc. We also spend a lot of time interacting with him. We have the cards out of a kids trivial pursuit that we play with, we play "guess the...person...disney charcter whatever. He sometimes likes the color wonder stuff. Lots of fun snacks....some healthy with a few junk stuff thrown in. We don't stop a lot. About every 4 hours and he is a great traveler!

 

[ckmommy]

We are always driving long distances--and have since the kids were under a year old--for vacations:
We have 5 kids (8-14) and live in Texas and have gone to:
WI--too many times, FL--too many times, CO, AZ, CA, SD.

We are leaving in a week to go to DC.

Our kids are good car riders because they do not travel any other way--except for a few times that we have flown to FL or WI.

Things we do--REDBOX--we do not rent movies for about 3 months before a trip. Then pick up 3 different movies a day from REDBOX's along the way.
--Itouch--with new games I download just for the trip
--Tablet only to be used for car trips
--car bingo
--cookie sheets for each child to use--have paper and markers to draw with or tic tac toe or squares game
--dinner table talk cards--from Learning express
--ABC game--finding words on billboards or road signs with each letter of alphabet
--License plate game--find as many different states
--books--but they usually do not get read
--quiet time!!
--roll of nickels--the kids have to you a nickel if they mis-behave. At the end of the road trip they get a certain thing or a $1 for every nickel they have left.
--lots of snacks (sweet, salty, chewy, hard) and garbage bags

I know many (most) will tell you to take lots of breaks--we do the opposite. We drive LONG (12-14 hours with only gas station breaks and quick 30 min food breaks) days. We always want to get to our destination. You need to do what works for your family.

Good luck to you. Enjoy the time you are on the road. It is fun to see the different parts of the country.

Amy

 

[Pembo]

We drive long hours 12-14 a day and make quick stops as well. One long day from Ohio to GA means a short day to FL.

We've never used a tv/dvd. Our first trip kids were 8, 6, and 2. (now they are 16, 14, and 10). Handheld games, ipad always occupy a lot of time as does the ipod.

Bring lots of snacks, no chocolate and plenty of water.

Bring bubbles and balloons. We played with these at the rest stop. Ten minutes of running around chasing bubbles really helps.

We charge .25 for every time they say are we there yet? I've never made any money...however dh wants ME to pay for every time I say it. LOL

Surprisingly my kids always seem to be better on long car trips out of state than short ones (15 mins) to somewhere local. LOL I think they are better prepared mentally. One word of caution-for us-the final hour of driving is always the worst. Kids start fighting, parents start yelling I think it has to do with we ALL know how close we are to home.

 

[buzz5985]

I have never, ever taken a driving trip before. My Dad is a retiree of Northwest/Delta Airlines. He started working there the day before I was born, so - for my entire life - we have flown. I can still get benefits for my family - however, flying standby to get to Disney with three kids does not sound fun. I am looking for ideas for my kids that are cheap, easy and fun for the car ride. We are doing a "test run" trip in a few weeks - PA and DC from Chicago - and then going to Orlando in November.

Kids - 2 boys, a ten year old with ADHD, and a three year old. One girl, 8.

Looking for things that will be able to be used for both trips. Games, storage ideas, traditions...whatever you want to share!!

I have a 15 DS with ADHD that has been driving to WDW since he was 4. He does fine. He did suffer from a touch of car sickness when he was younger - but we kept Benadryl in the car and that took care of it. We have a portable DVD player (he used it in the hotel room also with headphones). We always pack a cooler with lunch, snacks. If the weather is good we have a picnic at a rest stop. Don't forget a plastic tablecloth for the table. We keep stops to a minimum - we stop for gas - everyone goes to the bathroom. We drive from Boston and our first stop would be on the Jersey turnpike for gas. We will normally drive close to the SC border our first day so we have a short second day. We play the license plate game - actually saw a plate from Alaska last trip. When he was younger we would give him his own map. Our first trip we would give him a matchbox car for each new state line we crossed, I wrapped them, so that was exciting for him too. Also wrapped a box to keep the cars in. So he had a few toys to play with too in the hotel room.

I think if the parents are relaxed and having fun - the kids will too. The journey is half the fun. Driving home - not so fun!!!!

Janis

 

[lizabu]

Just give them a little cough syrup and they will sleep the whole time. I'm joking.

 

[dpswift]

This type of thing is best learned through trial and error. Dh resisted driving for a long time so we did not travel much when my older kids were young. We started driving more about 8 years ago when my youngest Ds was 3. We have had between 2 and 5 kids with us each time.

Videos we have a car dvd player. On our first road trip our car had a vhs and we broke down 5 hours into our trip and the rental had a dvd. Luckily we had rented a condo with a dvd so we did have a few with us.

As far as car videos in our family television series and a selected few movies work best. I have tried getting books on tape and videos that have a tie to our destination but they do not get used. Choose a few that you know that your family would like. Try to leave out videos that cannot be tolerated by all, or at least limit those to one showing.


I have found that on more recent trips they are starting to have more time when they are doing nothing.

As much as my 11 year old is not a handheld game fan we do have a nintendo ds that they use for vacations. We own a few games and I try to check the library the day that we leave for games and videos.

One thing that has worked wonders for us is I pack sandwitches for our first meal and we eat them in the car. It is a big timesaver and you have all vacation to eat junk. We also pack drinks and snacks. In my family the big bags work well as opposed to snack packs.

 

[lauradis]

Wrapped dollar store presents works too. Every other hour in car I hand them present. This will sound mean but when they fight I roll down windows lock them so they cannt roll them up and turn radio full blast and sing. That normally shuts them up and only takes min. Our 23 year old dd still teases me about it.

 

[ReneeQ]

I know at McDonald's type places lots of people have the "you can't play on the playground or have your happy meal prize until you eat" rule. But I learned long ago with my nephews, if they could hit the playground first, we could eat in peace. Then when they were done playing, they were starving, and ate everything. So when traveling, we would stop at McDonald's or somewhere with a playground for lunch. Let one adult take the kids straight to the playground to run off steam, while the other adult got food for just the adults. Both adults eat/watch the kids play.

After the adults ate (this does work better with two adults), one adult would get back in line and get the kid's food "to go," and the other would take them to the bathroom, wash hands, etc. We'd get back on the road, and let the kids eat their food in the car. We ended up having a shorter stop this way, and the kids blew off some steam.

My friend has done this solo with her kids. She just takes them directly to the playground, then when done playing, she gets everyone back in the car, and goes through the drivethrough to get everyone's food, to eat while driving.

 

[Mom2Ben02]

We LOVE this little device: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Satellite-Wireless-External-STBF500101/dp/B004Z0S7K6

AWESOME! I think I may have to order this!

 

[Mom2Ben02]

I have a 15 DS with ADHD that has been driving to WDW since he was 4. He does fine.

Good to hear! I am SO not looking forward to all the "I'm BOREDDDDDDs"!

 

[dpswift]

My husbands niece survived several solo trips with 2 little ones using the Mcdonalds idea. We have not tried it. With Ds now 11 he travels fine however he will argue for months that with should fly. The last 2 years we have driven the 19 hours strait through going down and that works well.

 

[4formickey]

Driving from chicago to lancater,Pa this summer, we will drive about 5hrs to ohio spend the night and do the other 4hr to pa the next day. This will keep me from leaving someone on the side of the rode and picking them up on our way home.

 

[3boymthr]

DH and I spent 28 days in our van with three kids ranging from 4 to 10 as we drove from MA to CA and back. It was a 7,000 mile adventure. One of my boys has ADHD and the other has IDD (which is a form of ADHD).

Each kid was given their school backpack and allowed to pack it with treasures. To keep everying thing contained they put their toys in ziploc bags and these: http://order.tupperware.com/pls/htp...tegory_code=10201&fv_item_number=P10055426000 Which are awesome for packing small toys as they open and shut easily and provide a small playing surface. The kids were only allowed to take out one toy at a time. Things they packed:

Books and comic books. Comic books are great for the older kids because there's reading but also lots of pictures to look at. My oldest liked the Archie comics at the time. My youngest is now 10 and likes Looney Tunes.

Little green army men (for the girl you could polly pockets)

Set of small plastic animals.

Matchbox Cars

Balsa wood airplaines with propellers - which the oldest would make and they would then fly in the breeze of the open window.

Legos

DS in case with games

Small stuffed animals.

I also picked up some small foldable packable playsets for them. They each had one and it went under their seat along with their backpack.

The whole point of our trip was the drive get out and see new things explore new territory so when it was all new territory (so say after 4 hours of corn fields the landscape changed) we also used to make them put everything away and look out the window at the scenery and talked about what we were seeing.

We were traveling for many days so we made it a point to stop if we were going to be in the car all day to get out at least once to explore. Often it was something simple like getting out at the "scenic view" rest areas and taking a look - a couple of times it was a public playground (at a mcdonalds or a park). A short simple break between 20 - 30 minutes can work off the restless legs and stop the whinies.

We mostly camped but if we were staying at a hotel I tried to find one with a pool so they had a way to be active at the end of a long day.

 

[ekatiel]

AWESOME! I think I may have to order this!

The go flex was some of the best $ we ever spent for vacation sanity. No more lugging around a billion DVDs, and we can each watch something different on our own devices. We even use it on airplanes now if the flight allows wifi. Dh has over 300 movies on ours. There is always something to watch!

 

[iheartdisney]

We LOVE this little device: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Satellite-Wireless-External-STBF500101/dp/B004Z0S7K6 It is a portable external hard drive that creates its own wifi. DH has ripped all our DVDs to it, so when we go on trips, we bring it with us-- up to three devices (ipad, kindle fire, ipod touch, pc, etc) can watch different movies at the same time. So, usually, the kids watch something in the back on the iPad, and I watch something different up front on the Kindle Fire. DH told me that there is a new version of the Go Flex that holds a terabyte and allows up to eight devices to use it at once. I'm sure we'll have that one at some point . We also have this contraption for the iPad in the car: http://www.amazon.com/Arkon-Tablet-Headrest-Mount-TAB3-RSHM/dp/B0072LATE2/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1370025921&sr=1-10&keywords=ipad+car+mount. It allows the iPad to rest in between the two front seats so both kids can see it. I'm all about using technology to get us through long road trips. 8 hours of movies once or twice a year isn't going to damage them for life . --Katie

wow! That is AMAZING!!! We are logging over 6,000 miles this summer, I think I might have to have one!!