Traveling by Car long distance?

[Princesspigletsmom]

anyone driving to disney longer than 10 hours? We are going 18 hours, with a stop in Georgia to sleep and then back on the road. We drive straight home on the way back.

Tips on activities? I did find one website from momminivan.

We are doing car bingo, treasure hunt jar, dvds, everyone has their own mp3 player, I am thinking about getting the trays for my 3 yr olds car seats. So they can color and play with toys. They will also have snacks, books, and misc small toys that I have been buying here and there ( they will be brand new to them). We are also doing tickets so they kids can grasp how long it will take. They will give us a ticket every 30 miles.

any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. My childrens ages are 14, 9, 7, 3,3. Thanks.

 

[missj1975]

You didn't mention the license plate game. Type up a list of every state and have the kids mark the states off as they see the license plates.

Another way I have played the game is to print the state map and have the kids color the state when they see the plate. I found a blank state map on the web somewhere that printed perfectly on a 8x10 sheet of paper. It can be very challenging and informative for the kids who aren't quite familiar with the shapes of all the states.

 

[disneymom3]

We have done a lot of driving vacations and my biggest tips are travel size magna doodles and books on tape or CDs. If you go with classics, you can get a good age range as far as interest goes.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

We watch movies, talk about Disney and eat. We are only 8 hours away though.

When we lived in Lexington, KY, we would break up our trip too in Atlanta at the in-laws house.

 

[GrumpyRocks]

we travel about 13 hours, we do it in one straight shot down and up. We leave around 4 am so the kids sleep for the first 3-4 hours. Last trip we purchased a power converter so we could plug in thier gamecube, on the drop down dvd player in the van. Call us bad parents but they were entertained for atleast 7 hours playing video games while us adults had peace and quiet.

 

[SCHBR'smom]

My kids have become Star Wars addicts, so on our next trip they plan on watching all six movies. We also have an 18 hr drive. On the last trip, they watched a few movies, played on their game boy, ds, and leapster, and colored. We made lots of stops to stretch our legs, snacks, use the rest room. The only one who had a difficult time on the drive was DD#3 who was 1 and caught a nasty virus before we left. She had a fever and didn't feel well, and if you are sick you certainly don't want to sit in a car seat for 18 hrs.

 

[astine75]

One thing - make sure the tray fits in the booster or car seats you use. We discovered ours didn't fit on a 5 hour trip last summer to the WI Dells. Opps!

 

[daleswife]

We travel by car every time we go. Its roughly 14 hours for us. Our kids are 2 and 5 so dvd player works wonderful. Our 5 yr od does ask the dredded "are we there yet" at least 5 million times from drive way to disney.

 

[speairson]

We'll be driving about 14 hours, but we've done longer before. We plan on definately using the portable DVD player, we got them the little trays with a pillow on them so they can color and draw. We also bring their favorite CD's and turn up the music and sing loudly and play the ABC game (where you try to find every letter in the alphabet consecutively on signs, billboards, license plates, etc.) We will probably break up the trip into 2 days though so they can run around and swim. I don't think I could stand a 14 hour drive with a 4 and 5 year old.

 

[dyna]

Yes get them trays even the older ones might like them too but make sure they fit over the car seats.

Balls come in handy at rest stops an frisbees for the older ones even jump rope.

Plan on either eating at rest stop picinic or fast food with a play area let the littles play while you eat then let them use their trays an eat after you back on the road.

I spy is a good car game but it has to be something in the car that is spied.

I 2nd the magna doodles, maybe paper dolls, Oh start a story with 2 lines let each kid take a turn addin 2 lines see what ya come up with in 10 mins or so if still enjoyin play longer.

Etch a sketch is another good toy for car ride.

1 rule we always had was when going thru a large city with lots of traffic it was quiet time to let the driver be more focused on drivin an the front seat passenger free to help watch signs an traffic.

 

[3boymthr]

Not long distance to WDW but cross country and back in our E150 van (7,000 Miles). I have three boys so not sure if this will help. I second the travel magna doodle. Other things the kids loved - those cheap airplanes/helicopters that you buy at the dollar store with the spinning props/rotors - we'd open the front windows and they'd "fly" them; hot wheels pop up play sets - these pop open for playing, can be connected to make a city and have a further function as a lap desk; Mad Libs and those magic pen books.

For the older kids an inexpensive or older digital camera they can have as a "kids" camera with a good size memory card. My oldest had a blast taking photos out the window and while many of the photos were junk (the beauty of digital we didn't waste money printing them) we also got some great shots of things we saw that I would never have thought to take a picture of.

Each kid was allowed to pack their school backpack with toys and books and cards, etc. If it didn't fit they couldn't bring it.

And the best ever -each kid got several Tupperware sandwich keepers - the newer ones have hinged lids - they're virtually indistructable and they are perfect for keeping legos, little green army men, hot wheels, plastic animals, gameboy games, etc. organized and contained on the road. Plus when opened the lid makes a small play space. One keeper per type of toy. We had both the square and the round (bagel) ones. The keeprs lock shut to keep items contained and limited the kids to enough pieces of the toy to play with but no so many pieces I'd be picking them out of the cracks and crevices of the van forever. You need the tupperware ones cheaper ones fell apart quickly but the Tupperware can be bought used in lots on e-bay and resold for about what you paid for them when you're done but I've kept mine for our future trips - I'll be hauling them out again in May on our trip to WDW.

 

[fitnessmouse]

we drive overnight.
Not to disney but from Netherlands to South of France is approx. 14 hrs

The kids are usually away for the day so we can pack and make sure we don't forget anything.

We pick up the kids around 5 and drive for about 2 hrs. then we eat dinner and drive for another 2-3 hrs. (kids watch a movie) make a stop, put the kids in their pyjama's, brush teeth etc and they go to sleep

DH and I take turns driving through the night

we stop in the morning for breakfast, get the kids dressed and then usually we are almost there.

We've done this for the past 5 years for our summer vacations to South of France and our winter vacation to Austria or Italy and this works best for us.

You do need to be well rested before the drive, so we do take an afternoon nap the day we pack.

Sometimes on the way back we get a hotel halfway and visit Disney in Paris

 

[duffy]

Buy a hanging shoe organizer and tie it to the back of the front seats. They can be used to keep things organized on the back seat, one pocket for crayons, one for the mp3 players, etc.

There's a thread in the transportation forum just for people driving down. Here it is.

 

[Kies99]

When I was kid, we used to drive from Pittsburgh to Tampa and Pittsburgh to Texas 2x a year.

One thing my mother did has stuck with me (other than the fingernails biting into my leg if I didn't behave in the car ) and I plan on doing it with my two daughters now that we are starting to drive more.

My mom used to fill a lunch-size paper bag with all sorts of little trinkets and goodies. Things like small erasers, pencils, plastic toys, etc... If we started to get restless, then every 1/2 hour to an hour, if we had been good in the car we got to pick out something. I still remember how great this was.

My girls are into Littlest Pet Shop and these little, rubbery animal pencil topper things you get in the machines at the grocery store. Figure I'll buy a few of these and open them up and mix them in a bag. Then when they get restless and tired of coloring/watching dvds/etc...we can do this.

 

[Faldred]

You didn't mention the license plate game. Type up a list of every state and have the kids mark the states off as they see the license plates.

For older kids, add some additional rules onto the game -- essentially, a handicapping system. As each player is more "advanced", add the following rules in the order listed:

1. You cannot get license plates from commercial vehicles (e.g., trucks)
2. You cannot get the license plate for the state you are currently in at any given time.
3. You cannot get the license plate for any state that is adjacent to the state that you are currently in at any given time

#3 can make things tough -- when driving from Maryland up the east coast, we can't get Pennsylvania until we're into Connecticut because everything before then borders PA at some point.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We drive 14-15 hours to WDW, we've done it 3 times. We leave late afternoon/early evening and drive straight through, with the bulk of the driving at night.

 

[phins_jazy]

We take an 18 hour trip every year to see grandma and grandpa. We normally break it up into 2 days of driving but this year I think we're going to go straight through. Good prep work for our trip to disney that will be 23 hours!! We bring the dvd player, color wonder markers, magna doodle, and make sure to have plenty of snacks and drinks along the way. I'm toying with the idea of leaving at 5 or 6 at night and drive straight through the night. I think that would probably be the best way with the kids. That way they're asleep for the majority of the trip. I still don't know how we're going to handle our disney trip. I really want to make it in 2 days, doing the majority of the driving the first day by driving through the night. I guess we'll have to see how they handle the 18 hour trip to grandma and grandpa first.

 

[Princesspigletsmom]

Thanks for the ideas I am definately doing;
The license plate game with states and printing out a map (thank you)
Jump rope we plan on stopping for lunch at rest stop and I love this idea for getting the kids blood flowing (thank you)
Shoe organizer (thank you) I was looking for a car organizer and read about taking one of these for the hotel to get your stuff sanitized and not on the counter! You just saved me some money!!!
Old digital camera ( wow didnt even think about that) all my kids will love that in the back seat ( thank you)

Thank you for everyone that gave me idea and for the link to transportation im going to head there later today to check it out.

 

[EJMMOM]

I much preffered it to the hassle of flying and loved having our car there.

The thing we did that was the biggest hit was we took a 3 ring binder and printed out maps of every state we were going to be in. (Coming from Maine-there were a lot!) Every state had a state map and some coloring pages with information on the state. We found tons of stuff on line. So everytime we crossed a state border the kids got new pages for their three ring binders on the state-plus some disney coloring pages and activities (mazes, etc.) Fun and eductional. PLus they had a neat keepsake from the trip. Next year I want to add some keepsake pages and some picture pages so they have scrapbook type of thing.

I bought new books and little prizes and gave these out periodically and we had tons of snacks. We bough great trays at TRU that had nice deep pockets. And we watched lots of movies. Leapsters really helped too.(next trip 2 of my kids will have graduated to DS's!)

It actually was a lot of fun-kind of an adventure! If you approach it like that it will be lots of fun!

Bev

 

[renae3]

Has anyone travelled long distance with an infant? I am considering travelling from NJ with my 3 kids, ages 6, 3, and 8 months. Any thoughts on that? Thanks so much!