travel activities for kids

My husband likes road trips.  They’re not my fave.  But I can get on board with the goal to keep family travel as inexpensive as possible.  So we do road trips.  Yes, even road trips with toddlers on board.

Despite the many benefits of traveling by car (cost being the most compelling for me), I find it difficult to balance my unyielding commitment to limited screen-time with the sheer amount of time spent in an enclosed space that accompanies car travel.  Especially when it comes to toddlers.  Let’s face it, those guys were not designed to be cooped up.  (Although, admittedly, the very WORST age for car travel is the recently potty-trained, in my opinion).

Our family recently drove to the Oregon Coast for spring break.  This summer, we will tackle a 3 1/2 weeklong adventure from sea to shining sea.  Almost.  The task of keeping the kids entertained will prove formidable, at best.  Especially when it comes to the terrible two-year-old.

So our drive to Oregon (totaling 20 hours in the car, roundtrip) served as a sort of practice run for the final test of my road-tripping savvy this upcoming summer.  Here’s what I put together to keep my son from bugging me entertained in the car:

1.  Travel binder.  I resurrected an old school binder to house the multiple activities I came up with to keep Jack busy.  I kept them contained individually in several zipper pouches (purchased at none other than the dollar store).   $5

   

   

   
   

   If you would rather have the ease of purchasing them online, here are good alternatives you can buy on Amazon.    Three-Ring Zipper Pouches (I like these pouches because they are 8.5X11 inches) and Zipper Binder

2. Sticker fun.  My son really loves letters, so he enjoyed attaching alphabet stickers to the corresponding letter on an alphabet printable I found online, printed out and laminated.  Kept him engaged for 45 minutes straight.  Pretty impressive. Your kid might like sorting by color, or shape, or he/she may just stick them to his/her face or carseat, as my son did after he had tired of the mental stimulation of sorting.  Either way, here are a few printables to choose from.  And here are some stickers to go with them.  $1 per sheet of stickers or $5 total Or, if you want to minimize prep time, feel free to buy this sticker book.  My daughters loved it for road trips when they were younger (ages 3-6, that is).
3. Magnetic drawing board.  No mess.  No fuss.  I got mine at the dollar store, but the drawback to that is that the “pen” isn’t attached so you run the risk of it getting lost.   $1  You can always buy one like this, if you’d rather not chance it.
4. I Spy bag.  You can buy these on Etsy for under $15 each.  I made my own for less than $10, but because buttons come in packs of 5-8, I ended up making five and giving the rest to friends.

   

   

   

   
   
    They’re pretty easy to whip up (here’s the tutorial I loosely referred to) except for the card listing the items to find.  I took actual pictures of the trinkets to put together the card and that turned a relatively simple project into a tedious one.  Having said that, I think using just text would make no sense if you’re making it for a toddler.  If you want to use mine, here’s a printable (it’s a jpg, so you can resize, as needed):

   I found all of my buttons at Joann Fabric and at Buttons Galore.

5. Playdough.  Yes, that’s right.  Playdough.  If you have a nice car or you happen to have upholstered seats that you care about, playdough is probably not your best option.  But, for people like us, who buy really old cars with leather seats, we are willing to take our chances.  And, for the record, our trip to Oregon sustained minimal mess (From playdough at least.  The snack-eating kids in the back seat were an entirely different story).  If you want to throw in a few playdough mats to inspire creativity, you can find them all over Pinterest.  I simply grabbed an old sour cream container lid for Jack to use as his “table”, provided a few containers of the store-bought sort and let him have at it.  My nine-year-old was pleased as punch that she got in on the action, too.

   

   

   
   

   $3 tops.

   The grand total (dollar store prices) of this travel binder will set you back about $24 total.

Thanks to these simple activities, a few books, a toddler playlist, long naps and a bit of screen-time (limited to hours after dark), our little mister was pretty much an angel.

For our road trip this summer, I’ll be adding in a couple more activities so stay-tuned.

(This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase any of the recommended products, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you)