Our Survival Kit for a Long Road Trip with Kids (+ Printable Road Trip Word Search Game)
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We’re just back from yet another road trip with our 3 year old, 7 year old and 11 year old, and yes, we had a happy, peaceful, what-I-would-call-successful, drive to and from Houston.
No, we didn’t have any melt-downs or any “are we there yet?” whines.
The secret being all the stuff I carried with us in the car, aka…
“Our Survival Kit for a Long Road Trip with Kids”
Funny, but it’s the truth!
I never set off on any road trip with my kids without all what I call “the essentials”. (Now each family will have their own customized kit, based on the kids’ preferences, so don’t use this as a standard. Use this as your inspiration list and have fun adding to it.)
Our road trip survival kit included:
1. Reusable sticker books (This is always a favorite with our 3 year old. She can spend long periods of time sticking, removing and re-sticking stickers, onto scenes in her book ), coloring and/or activity books (plus crayons) for the younger kids,
(This is another favorite that was carried back to our hotel room to finish.) road trip bingo for the older kids and perhaps even a fun word search puzzle.
Here’s a free downloadable Road Trip Word Search puzzle you can give the kids on your next road trip.
2. Books.
My kids love to pour over books. You will need to make sure you remind them to take breaks and look around though. Long periods of reading can trigger off spurts of motion sickness. We learned this the hard way. Bleugh!
Books do include audio-books too, a big favorite with my older kids.
If you can, see if you can get at least one book themed around the upcoming travel destination. This gets any child excited about a trip!
Baby Girl fell in love with the Texas ABC book we received in our Babbleboxx prior to our trip to Houston. 
It soon became clear that was a must-include in our “survival kit”
3. Clean, healthy, kid-approved snacks.
Nothing beats snacks that you know are good for the kids, 100% kid approved and mess free.
Snacks like Tree Top apple sauce that are made with 100% US apples from local orchards, without any high fructose corn syrup or any other artificial ingredients.
These no spill, easy squeeze, BPA free, 3.2 oz pouches are convenient to pass out to the kids while traveling in the car, taking a stretch-your-legs break during the road trip or even while stopping for a quick re-energize snack break while visiting fun travel attractions.
To add variety, the apple sauce is available in three flavors- regular applesauce, strawberry, and cinnamon, and can be found in 4 count or 12 count cartons, dependent on the retailer.
4. Favorite toys
Baby Girl loves carrying a few of her Disney Princess dolls to have several animated imaginative play sessions and loves playing with Bendaroos, with Little Man.
5. As a last resort, favorite DVDs to pop into the car’s DVD player or a portable one.
Irrespective of how roomy your car may be, if you pack in a “Survival Kit”, you can rest assured that your long road trip will not seem as long for your kids.
* Note: All the fun “survival kit” essentials photographed in the feature were all contents in the exciting travel Babbleboxx.com package we received.
Such a fun box of packable travel goodies!
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