Road Trip with a Librarian Mom

With family over 400 miles away, road trips are a given. We completed our latest adventure this week, and I thought I would update my previous road trip post now that we’ve entered a new stage. My traveling companions are now ages 4 and 6 and have definitely matured in their attention spans and understanding of time! They still don’t sleep in the car (never have! ah!), but we’ve added many new skills to the arsenal.

The golden ticket on this trip was… wait for it… a schedule! I hadn’t fully realized the beauty of this until we were live. I had planned a loose schedule in my mind, but writing it on a note pad and sharing it with the kids was amazing! In particular, my 6 year old loved this! He seemed to like knowing what to expect, having markers to pass the time, and the comfort in knowing the time isn’t endless…. rather than thinking of the 7 endless hours ahead, we could focus on the slice of time that we’re in and anticipate the next.

Here’s how I broke down our 7 hour trip (and of course, there was an additional unplanned rest stop or two).

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A few notes:

• “Surprises” refers to a few things I picked up at the dollar store- sticker book, new sparkle crayons, book of mazes, felt marker poster.
• Rather than listing book titles in this already long post, I’ve written posts of our favorite books for traveling Books that Travel Well: Seek and Find & Flaps and 5 Kinds of Books We Pack for Waiting Rooms & Restaurants.
• I have oodles of posts about our favorite audiobooks– I list our audiobook listens each month and havea list for getting deals on Audible favorites(collections for long listening and great prices!). See this post for our first favorite audiobooks (for toddlers/preschoolers. On this particular trip, we listened to By The Great Horn Spoon and The Little House in the Big Woods (after listening to the whole series last year, we are repeating it!).
• Sewing, finger knitting, and loom work (potholder!) we had practiced at home before the trip– don’t teach this in the car unless you want to sit next to your child. I hadn’t pulled out my 4yo’s sewing board (pictured below, purchased from Treasures from Jennifer etsy shop) for quite some time, so it felt fresh but he knew how to use it.

My 6 year old was a dream on this trip, and really gave us a fresh perspective on our thoughts about traveling in the future. My 4 year old did very well, but he definitely (and appropriately for his age) needed more help filling his time. Some of his favorite activities on this trip are pictured below. I bought a jumbo pack of dot stickers for him for Christmas and we’ve used them a ton for “do a dot” activities that are a lot less messy than the bingo markers, and also work on fine motor skills. Because each sticker is independent (there’s no white netting between), there is less frustration than a typical sticker sheet. You can google “free do a dot printables” and you’ll find themed pictures rather than the letter hunt I have pictured here. My 4yo created a flower for his Grandma using a printable.

We also had success with headphones in a Vox audiobook (pictured above). Our library carries these- they are picture books with a built-in device that reads the story aloud. I suggest the longest books you can find or else you’ll be swapping them out every 3 minutes 😉  Preschool Bookworm loved Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. We have some fabulous stories downloaded onto our devices from our Audible accounts, too. We also love these (adorable!) fox headphones (pictured below)… the built in speakers don’t have to go inside their ears, have built-in sound limiters, and are super soft.

My older post has more tips for occupying time with younger travelers. We still love our travel trays and Melissa & Doug Water Wow. For older travelers, I suspect I will be purchasing Paint by Sticker pads as we grow! What are your favorite travel tips?

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