8 Ideas for Travel Fun

We are going to take a trip to New Orleans during this carnival season. It is a 10-12 hour drive, so last time we went I stocked up on activities for the kids to do during the long ride. This is the post from then from the old site {I am moving some posts over.}:

---> I went to the dollar store (can you tell I love this place yet?) and bought a felt coloring poster of two tropical fish for Jill and Buzz Lightyear for Little Bill. They came with markers and cost a whopping $1! I also bought a travel size Connect Four game for the kids to play in the car together. The game was $5. Finally, I bought a pack of dry erase markers for the next idea . . .

---> I made homemade car activity books using folders, plastic page protectors, and dry erase markers. For each of the kids I printed: two travel scavenger hunt games, tic tac toe board, a few mazes, a find-it page, a paper Battleship game board, and a map of our route to follow along with. For Little Bill I also added a few dot-to-dots and simple mazes. I also pulled some I Spy and What's Wrong With This Picture pages from his magazines and loaded them into the page protectors. For Jill I also printed some word finds and more difficult mazes. By loading all of these into page protectors, they can be used again and again with the dry erase markers. You can find travel printables at Family Fun and Mom's Minivan.

---> I packed coloring books and crayons, and a magnet set for Little Bill.

---> Before moving to our current city, we were fortunate enough to have a very well-stocked children's library. At our current library, not so much. We used to check out stories on CD as well as children's music. So I did an online search and found some free children's story audios for download. I found lots of Robert Munsch, who is lots of fun. I burned stories onto CD to bring in the car with us. You can find Robert Munsch stories here. You can find more audio stories to download at StoryNory.

---> I gave Jack an iTunes card and together we picked and downloaded some songs for him to listen to on his MP3 player. 

---> I packed everything up into car organizers that hang on the backs of the front seats. These you can buy in the baby section of Toys R Us for about $10 each. They have multiple compartments and are great even for everyday car usage.

---> As for snacks, I bought a pack of plastic storage cups and filled them with: trail mix, dried fruits, applesauce, dry cereal, and cheese crackers. I also packed water bottles.

---> On our way out of New Orleans we stopped at Borders and I found a great wooden travel memory game by Melissa & Doug. 

What do you bring for your kids to do during long travel times?