🛣️ A long road trip with kids: a plan that works
Leave at a time that suits the youngest child's sleep, plan a stop roughly every two hours, and rotate four kinds of time in the car: games, snacks, something to listen to, and quiet. Children cope with long drives when they know what comes next.
Pick when to leave
Two times work for most families. Leave very early, carrying sleeping children to the car, and they wake up a few hours down the road. Or leave just before a nap, and the first long stretch passes in sleep. The hardest start is mid-morning with everyone wide awake and nothing planned.
Plan the stops before you go
Many drivers take a break about every two hours, and children need one at least that often. A stop is a chance to run, use the bathroom and eat somewhere other than the back seat. A playground or a park is worth a five-minute detour over a gas station.
The stop planner turns your driving hours and leaving time into a list of stops, with a car game for each leg.
Rotate four kinds of time
- Games that everyone plays: I Spy, Twenty Questions, the License Plate Game.
- Snacks, handed out at set times so they are something to look forward to. See the no-mess snack list.
- Listening: an audiobook or a podcast the whole car enjoys.
- Quiet time: books, drawing or looking out of the window. Say when it starts and when it ends.
Answer "are we there yet?" before it is asked
Children ask because time in a car is hard to feel. Give them a way to see it: a paper map with the route marked, a list of the towns you will pass, or the Are we there yet? countdown, where a little train moves along as the hours pass.
Make the last hour easy
Everyone is tired near the end. Save one new thing for the last hour: a new game, a favourite snack, the next chapter of the audiobook. Tell the children what will happen when you arrive, so the stop feels like a finish line.