Family Road Trip Success

Family road trips can be a real bonding experience for the whole family or they can be a nightmare vacation – it really depends on how well you’ve planned them.

If you’re planning to pack up the car and take the whole family off for an amazing adventure, here are some quick tips for Family Road Trip Success and to ensure that you have a vacation that’s memorable for all of the right reasons!

Pack Lots of Snacks

The biggest mistakes you can make on a family road trip is not taking enough snacks to feed the whole family whenever you’re on the road. When kids get hungry, they get cranky and when the kids get cranky the parents get stressed! Hupy and Abraham, highly rated personal injury lawyers at your service, will tell you that so many car accidents are caused by parents who take their eyes off the road to deal with cranky or arguing kids that it’s about more than just your stress levels, too – packing drinks and snacks is also a real safety issue! Which brings us to…

Ensure There’s Entertainment

The grown-ups might be happy with nothing more than the radio or a well-thought-out road trip playlist, and the beautiful views, as entertainment on the road, but the kids are likely to get bored and start fighting unless they have a bit more to do. For young kids, coloring books, and a few small toys may be enough, whereas older children will benefit more from games like travel Scrabble. It may also be a good idea to hook up an in-car DVD player or bring along a tablet or two so the kids can watch Netflix or play their favorite video games.

Of course, you’re on a family vacation, so you’ll want to have some fun together. That’s where activities like counting cows, seeing who can spot the most VW bugs, or making up rhymes about the towns and cities you pass through, come in. Try to find a game you’ll all enjoy, and spend as much time chatting about life as you can and it’ll be a fun bonding experience.

Plan Your Breaks

When you’re road tripping with the whole family, especially if you’re bringing young kids along, its important that you plan your rest breaks well in advance and ensure that there are plenty of them. Go online and find the best rest stops on your route -the ones with play areas, clean bathrooms and good places to eat and make a note of them or program them into your GPS so that you don’t miss them. You may also want to download an app like GasBuddy that will help you find the cheapest places for gas along your route, so you can save some cash.

Sync Stops with Naptime

If you’re traveling with kids who still have a regular naptime, try to ensure that your stops coincide with naptime, if you have kids who find it tough to sleep in the car. Pack a travel pillow and blanket and you can make them comfortable. That way, they can sleep while you use the restroom or one of you picks up some food from the rest stop. It’ll give you all a much-needed break.

Share the Driving

For safety and sanity reasons, share the driving. Any cop will tell you that tiredness is a leading cause of car accidents, and you want your family to be safe, so swap-over at regular intervals and rest whenever you’re both feeling fatigued.

Plan for Every Eventuality

Whenever you’re traveling with kids, whether it be on a road trip, cruise or whatever, you need to expect the unexpected and pack for every eventuality. You may not think your kid gets sick in the car, but when they’re traveling so much, it could be a whole different story. Your kid may be potty trained, but accidents could still happen. Maybe you’ve never gotten lost before, but there’s a first time for everything. You get the idea!

Make a Family Playlist

Road trips and music go hand in hand, so you’re going to want to ensure you have a rocking playlist to accompany you all on your journey. So, why not get all of the family together ahead of time and have you each choose a few favorite tracks to add to the official road trip playlist. That way, everyone’s happy at least some of the time, you don’t have to listen to kid’s tracks the whole time, and you have a fun activity to do together that will get everyone psyched for the vacation.

Get Rid of Trash Regularly

Every time you stop, get rid of the trash you’ve accumulated. It stops the car from becoming a big trash can, which keeps you all comfy. There’s no excuse not to really.

Stay in Nice Places

If you want to make life easy for yourself, stay in nice hotels every night. Too much time on the road together can cause cabin fever and uncomfortable beds can make the next day’s trip uncomfortable, is it really worth it to save a few dollars? I’m sure you’ll agree it is not.

Stop at Roadside Attractions

If you want to make the vacation really special and keep the kids from getting bored, be sure to research the roadside attractions that you’re likely to come across on your trip and choose a few to stop at. There are so many great attractions that will make your trip more magical, that it is definitely worth taking some time out to see them if you can, and they’ll give you all an extra opportunity to stretch your legs.

To break the trip up further, plan longer excursions along the way. Amusement parks, such as the mountain coaster pigeon forge in Tennessee, are fun stops for the whole family. Stopping for a hike is also a great way to unwind and reset after a long morning of driving. Plus, it’ll tire the little ones out and encourage them to fall asleep when you’re back on the road.

Road trips aren’t for everyone, but they are one of those vacations that everyone should at least try once because they allow you to see so much more of the country while spending lots of quality time together. If you follow the tips above, there is no reason why your family cannot have an amazing road trip experience, so what are you waiting for?