Are you planning a road trip with your young ones? Let me try to help remove some stress with this Packing Road Trip Checklist. Packing for a road trip can get out of hand! This may be a problem unique to my family because Cal insists on carrying pretty much everything he owns everywhere…have I mentioned his “ready for the apocalypse backpack” before? Stay tuned for more on that. Most of our adventures happen inside of our truck so we have just a little bit of experience to generate this Packing Road Trip Checklist.
Our family motto is “Luck favors the prepared” but Cal will let that get out of hand. He thinks he needs 14 pairs of jeans, his sound bar, a tent (we aren’t going camping), a cooler, and 4 bottles of wine on a long weekend trip. Why is this a problem? Because it just is! We are going away for 4 days not forever and, come on, we need space to stretch out.
He thinks that because he has this nifty SUV we can just load it up but trust me there are some actual necessities that you need to bring on a road trip.
- Paper Towels
- Baby Wipes/ Wet Wipes / Anti-bacterial Wipes…you get it
- Coloring Books or Reading Material: actual Books & Magazines (encourage your kids to go old school)
- Small flashlights will make “going old school” fun
- A tablet (if you feel so inclined)
- Family favorite DVDs
- Bottles of Water
- Snacks
- apples
- bananas (they will smell if left in a hot car)
- Granola or Dry Cereal
- Popcorn is a family favorite
- Sunflower Seeds & Mountain Dew (for the driver)
- Road Trip Games
Did a few of these confuse you? Let me break it down a bit.
1 – 5 are self explanatory.
- Family Favorite Videos – I like to force the girls to watch movies as a family. We need to be well versed in family movies because one of our favorite games to play is “Guess the Movie”. The clues are usually obscure details about a movie so we need to all watch the same movies.
- Stay hydrated – yes you’ll have to make frequent stops but hydration is very important. As is stopping to stretch your legs.
- These are my suggestions for snacks based on what we like, obviously you have creative authority to choose snacks that best suit your family.
- Sunflower Seeds & Mountain Dew are a classic combination that Cal created when he was taking Art History in undergrad. The caffeine and high fructose cornsyrup in Mountain Dew helped him stay awake while the action of popping seeds into his mouth keep him alert. Cal does most of our twilight hour driving so this is his secret recipe.
- Road Trip Games force us to actually speak to each other, which is basically the point of road tripping. You’re locking your kids in the car with you so enjoy them while you can. Once they’re teenagers they are going to put on some headphones and ignore you. Before that happens, play “Guess the Movie” or the license plate game, I spy. We are particularly fond of Hang Man, too.
We hope that you enjoyed our Packing Road Trip Checklist. Its our pleasure to share our tips with you and we look forward to hearing what you pack and if anything that we’ve suggested has helped. Leave a comment below and share what is on your Packing Road Trip Checklist.
Planning to fly soon? We have a little experience with that, too.
https://punkyvisits.com/blog/3_steps_flying_baby/