You’ve all heard of the horror stories of family trips. No matter how long you are staying at your chosen destination, when traveling with children the longest part of the trip can be your journey there. Kids get fidgety, even aggressive during especially long car rides or airplane rides. You will need plenty of activities to keep their minds busy.
1. Keep Them Busy
Chances are, unless you are going to a very kid-centric location, your children will be very bored. Try purchasing travel games such as tiny versions of chess or checkers. There are also plenty of low cost games you can play in a car like eye spy or 20 questions. Having a variety of games and activities to keep their children occupied and keep their minds off of the journey is always a good idea.
2. For Long Car Rides
Keep in mind when designing an itinerary of games that children typically get tired of playing the same game twice. For your benefit, you can design games that take a long time to complete. For example, you can play the ABC game. In this game, you have to find all the letters of the alphabet from signs, licence plates, etc. Letters can only be found outside the car and must be verified by others in the car to make sure that they are not just making up signs. As an added challenge and to prevent cheating, you can remove licence plates from the possible things you can get letters from. It can be quite difficult to find the letters Q,U,V,X,Y and Z. To keep things interesting you can make it a race and whoever finishes the alphabet first wins. This is a great game for small children as it reinforces their learning the alphabet.
3. Keep Things Novel
You might want to buy some new toys or games for your children. A new book, especially, can last an entire trip if your child loves to read. Just be careful, however, as reading while in a car can, for some people, make them feel nauseous.
4. Babies & Flights
Lot’s of parents wonder whether or not they should bring their baby’s car seat with them when they go on a plane. The question to ask is are you going to be travelling by car at your destination? If so they you’ll need to bring the car seat anyway. If you are not travelling by car and forget or decide not to bring your car seats, you can sometimes rent them. In general however it’s a better idea to take the car seat with you. Another tip is to give your baby a bottle while the plane is taking off to calm them down and prevent your baby’s ears from popping.
5. Strollers
Let’s face it even tiny babies feel heavy after a while in your arms, and don’t forget about toddlers who all of the sudden tell you they can’t walk any longer (often they tell you this at the most inconvenient times). A baby stroller solves these problems. The great thing is that most infant car seats snap onto a travel system stroller. This makes it both simple and easy to take both the stroller and the baby seat along on trips. The other option is a lightweight stroller that has a built in carrying strap, that’s comfortable and easy to haul around.