What to Pack for Road Trips with Kids
Do you find yourself needing to visit family or college friends for a day trip? You are like us then! We live about 3.5 hours from our family and usually make day trips for birthday parties and other events. 3.5 hours each way, in one day?! Why wouldn’t you spend the night?! For us it makes sense. You are going to need to drive 7 hours regardless of the time frame, right? And not feel like a trip is overpowering our entire weekend, we make a decision to let it impact a single day. Same driving, less time “on the road.” Can it be exhausting? Absolutely. But, it is so worth it in terms of preparation and weekend productivity. After all, our list of things to do isn’t going to be accomplished by leaving someone’s house at 10 am the next morning! 😉
Must Haves for Day Trips with the Kids
A Fully Stocked Diaper Bag: If you don’t have little ones, I envy you and your ability to leave the house sans diaper bag. but until we get there, we have a fully stocked diaper bag. The night or two prior to our trip, my husband likes to unpack the diaper bag, make sure the correct size of diapers/clothing/undies are packed. This is our cycle of organizing… wait until we need it! Next we stock up with the diaper bag essentials, making sure thee right combination of snacks are included. Now we have a diaper bag that someone has taken a look at and feel comfortable with being stocked.
An Extra Tote Bag: This bag is one of those reusable totes that people carry their groceries in at the supermarket. Hey, if one of the kids has an accident, you won’t mind throwing a dirty plastic bag in it!
What is in the reusable tote bag?
Additional Food: This is for the actual day of the trip. We load up with lunch and dinner foods for the baby. Extra/More Substantial snacks for our toddler. Our goal isn’t to rely on the diaper bag unless we are physically out at a restaurant or somewhere where we’d use the diaper bag anyways.
Bottles: There are at least a 3 bottles prefilled with water. Could we wash the ones we use? Absolutely. Is it always convenient? Not entirely depending on the day’s activities.
Formula: See above bottles. I like to take a small container of formula with us. It doesn’t matter if it’s partly opened, but I want to make sure I have enough on-hand to fill the bottles AND extra to cover if we unexpectedly decide to spend the night.
Spare set of clothes: Sometimes we like to wear cuter than our everyday clothes to parties. Pack them in the tote bag and you can find them quickly when you arrive and the kids don’t look like they just spent 3 hours snacking.
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Pajamas: We might look silly loading our kids up in their PJs at 6pm, but if they are sleeping when we arrive home,we love the ability to move them from the car to their beds. Sure, they stir, but they aren’t startled and need convincing to go back to sleep.
Extra Wipes: These are easily disposable and can be used to clean little faces to blowouts. I feel confident that we will have wipes within an arm’s reach until the kids are 12 years old.
Along with the tote bag, we always have these on hand
Entertainment: Mama loves magazines, our toddler occasionally finds a TV show interesting, and our little guy doesn’t know that he can be entertained by electronics, yet. Our little girl has a portable DVD player installed on the headrest in front of her. Does she watch it? Not always, but it’s there in case she suddenly becomes interested. She hasn’t learned to ask for movies, most TV shows, or the iPad yet. So we can’t use these yet!
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Mamas & Papas Seat
(aff. link) : This seat is perfect to substitute as a high chair for baby during meal times and booster seat for our toddler. Most places we visit don’t have an extra high chair or TWO sitting around. We like the portability and convenience that the Sung seat affords us.
Snacks for Mom & Dad: Don’t forget about yourself. You don’t want a handful of your kid’s goldfish. Trust me.
What about you? What are you must haves for day trips with the kids?
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Personally, I like to take trips when I know the baby will be asleep. We travel to Disney World max once a month but realistically once every 2 months (we’re annual passholders) and this is about a 3.5-hour drive for us as well, without traffic. I usually like to get an early start because of traffic anyway, so we will start our drive at about 4 or 5 in the morning. At this time, we are able to carry the baby (who is now going on 3(!) and not really much of a baby anymore) into the car and he’s usually asleep again within a half hour of our drive. By the time he wakes up, we’re pulling into our resort so we don’t have to worry about entertaining him during the drive.
We also take trips down to the Keys as well, and that takes a little more planning because we do have to take things to entertain the baby on the trip. At this point, that usually consists of his iPad so he can play his educational games on it or watch movies if he wants.
I’m a notorious over-packer though, so I would bring enough things with me for a day trip to keep me going for a weekend…just in case. #MommyMoments
Hey Lissette! I am right there with you! Overpacking for the mama win! I love driving while the kids are normally sleeping. Sure, we’ll all be exhausted, but the thought of having little ones wide awake and stuck in their seats for a long time doesn’t sounds relaxing either. Thank you for stopping by! PS. I’m totally envious that you live in Florida 🙂 -Brittany
I love a good roadtrip with the kids. Some great suggestions here to prepare. We travel a lot by plane and ferry so always have our travel checklists before we leaving with two toddlers in tow. 🙂 Great post. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me. #sharewithme
Great ideas, Brittany! We always bring pajamas for my one-year-old. You’re right- it’s totally worth it when you get back home. 🙂
Thank you for stopping by Laura! We will be back on the road again soon and those PJs will be put to good use 🙂 Thank you for stopping by!
This is a great list! We frequently visit my in-laws, who live 6 hours away, but we stay overnight (or for a weekend). So I get the long car trip preparation! Thanks for sharing at the Manic Mondays blog hop!
When we go on road trips we have a large snack/meal bag like you. It really is a must for us as we have many food sensitivities and allergies. We pack a small bag filled with toys, color books, crayons/markers, and books. We bring audio books that my husband and I will enjoy and are safe for the littles to listen to, so we usually end up with a young adult something or and audio drama like Jonathan Park or Adventures in Odyssey.
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If you have an extra iPhone or iPad for your kids, put the Are We There Yet app on it (and use your primary phone as a Personal Hotspot if needed) and never have to answer “How long until we get there?” or “Are we there yet?” again! This mapping app for kids is easy to use and most importantly shows a countdown so the kids know exactly how long until we get there! http://baer.ly/awtyios