Planning on a family road Trip with kids requires knowing road trip tips with kids. Kids can get bored quickly when taking road trips, so good, trusted tips from travel experts are a must to know.

There is a big difference between travel now and then. It was ten or more years ago, and now we have portable technology to help our kids not be bored while traveling with their parents on long road trips.

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Planning and Preparing

Consider how long it will take to get to your destination and what routes you will take. After reviewing your travel route, look at the rest areas along the way to your destination. Some rest areas offer small gift shops and small eateries, but these places are expensive. Finally, consider boredom with your kids and how you will entertain them to keep them entertained and have a stress-free environment.

Planning and preparing ahead of time is essential to have an enjoyable and stress-free car ride with your kids. Something to consider is kids’ tablets, download YouTube for kids, and let them enjoy watching kids’ movies along the way. With tablets, you will need a data option turned on to connect tablets to the internet along the way.

As a recent truck driver, I turned on my mobile hotspot on my Verizon phone to connect my laptop to the internet. When traveling with my grandkids now, we download two movies on each of my grandkids’ tablets before leaving home to save hotspot data.

Amazon has tablets for less than a hundred dollars, I have two grandsons who use the Amazon Fire 7 tablet as it has a blue case for protection, and my granddaughter has a pink one, which is the Amazon Fire HD 8 Pro Tablet.

Getting Things Ready

We like to prepare things for the road trip at least a week before going, as our trips require shopping for supplies. In addition, you never know when you will get stuck in traffic because of a bad accident or weather conditions such as a winter storm.

The winter storm in Nevada in 2021 shut down Interstate 81, and we were stuck in our truck in a rest area, the only place that had an opening spot. I’m very thankful that before traveling from West Coast to East Coast, we went grocery shopping as we checked the weather app and saw we might get caught in a storm. You might be thinking, how come we did not wait to travel? When you work with FedX hauling pharmaceuticals, we must still move until the state’s close highways.

Make sure to buy a blanket for each person traveling, and you can find easy, lightweight blankets online and offline to wrap up in. If you purchase lightweight blankets, they will fold easily into small squares or rollups to not take up much space. Blankets are essential as you will not know how long you be stuck in traffic and might not have proper heat if a car runs out of gas.

Have food in the car that doesn’t require warming in the microwave or cooking, like canned meat, easy opening without using an electric can opener, snacks, and bottled water. We were thankful to have everything in our truck a bathroom, stovetop, microwave, beds, and more to keep us comfortable.

Prepare for Accidents

When traveling with kids, you never know when they will spill or drop food in the car. Keep a couple of your shopping bags or small gallon-size trash bags to put trash in. Keep wipes and paper towels in the car to clean up your kids after a spill accident.

When traveling with infants, like my granddaughter, who is still in pull-ups, we buy small scented trash bags to put the dirty pull-up in to keep odor away until the next stop to throw them away in the trash bin correctly.

First Aid Kit for Sickness or Accidents

Plenty of small first aid kits, like the Comprehensive First Aid Kit, are available on the market. We traveled with this one as sometimes we get hurt doing our job and can’t get the medical help needed right away.

We carry this first aid kit with us on hiking journeys in our backpacks as it is that light but life-saving. Have barf bags if traveling with someone you know will get sick from motion sickness. You can find plenty of barf bags on Amazon and receive them within 2 to 5 days, depending on the vendor you choose to buy from.

Discover places for your next road trip.

Credit Card Safety

Only a few travel tips about safety don’t include the possibility of theft of your credit card numbers. Therefore, I will discuss this with you from our experience with our FedEx card number being used.

We stopped for fuel outside the Chicago area, went on to our destination in Florida, and made the delivery. The next day we were loaded and heading to Washington State. We had to stop to get more fuel, but our card was declined. There should have been over 2,000 on that card, but it was all gone. We called this store and told them about the charges, and they needed to check their pumps to see if someone had a scanner or something stealing card numbers. They told us there was nothing they could do.

Next, we called the toll-free number and told them about this, they canceled our card and sent a new one, but it took almost three months to get our money back. We were very thankful that my parents lived in Florida, and they drove 2 hours to bring us 1,000 dollars to get our fuel in Cocoa Beach.

I recommend getting a prepaid card, like Chime, to load your money on. Here is how we use Chime when we travel, load funds on the chime card and then transfer the funds to savings right away. When you stop to get gas or food, transfer the money back to the checking account, but only the amount you need to make that purchase. This is done instantly through the Chime app and protects you from others stealing all your money.

Limit Technology Devices

When you get to your destination and need to stay indoors, pack two fun family games like board games or Jenga. It’s fun to interact with kids playing games instead of everyone being on technology devices. Need ideas for family games? Amazon has plenty of family games to give you ideas.

Our family’s favorite games to play are Jenga and Monopoly. I recommend finding these games that will come with an easy store-away bag that comes in handy when traveling.

Conclusion

Now that you have learned about road trip tips with kids, is this information helpful in planning your next trip? Do you recommend any more tips that need to be on this list? Leave your comments below, and you can even follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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