One of our Restoration Home mentor moms wrote a list of travel tips for members, and I wanted to share it with you as well. Field trips, big and small spark curiosity and wonder for our children, so having some tools to make it affordable and fun can help you get out there. Here are summer travel tips every family should know:
For road trips:
🚗 Pack a yeti or cooler. It saves you time and money to have all of your food prepared beforehand. Not to mention that everyone’s tummies feel better eating whole foods instead of drive-through grease. In the yeti I pack cheese, cold cuts, cut fruit, yogurt pouches, veggies, hummus, guacamole, egg or chicken salad, and any baked goods I make beforehand. Veggie loaded muffins are a favorite. We dole out snacks on the hour. I like to buy the non-refrigerated stuff ahead of time from Thrive market. We like Larabars, plantain chips, granola bars, rice cakes, siete chips, trail mix. If we do an overnight at a hotel, the front desk will take the ice packs to freeze overnight and we unload everything into the room fridge and grab the re-frozen ice packs in the morning on our way out. I like these ice packs because they’re slim.
🚗 if it’s a really long trip over a week on the road, we’ll bring our travel Berkey. Worth it!!
🚗We plan stops at parks or cool places to sightsee. Take the scenic route!
🚗We do our long multi-day road trips screen free. Our kids do what we did in the 80s/90s. We play road bingo, trivia games such as this one, and I’m going on a picnic. We listen to playlists, audiobooks (Charlotte’s Web narrated by Meryl Streep is GOLD!). When that all runs out, they stare out the window and contemplate the meaning of life like we all did 30-40 years ago in the backs of station wagons sans car seats and seatbelts. Let them be bored! Sometimes the little ones cry and get fed up, but mostly everyone enjoys this time together.
🚗 For little girls who are potty trained but who aren’t quite ready to squat over a gross gas station toilet, I packed pull ups. When we got to the stop, my girls used to put on a pull up, pee in it, and then I’d toss them in the trash. Boys are much easier for obvious reasons.
🚗 This small travel drying rack is the best for bottles, pump parts, sippy cups, etc. It fits great on the hotel sink.
If you are exploring the United States you will love Playful Pioneers Volume 2. We cover the fifty states with engaging poetry, projects, stories, and recipes.
For air travel:
✈️ Not always, but sometimes it makes sense to send items ahead so you don’t have to travel with it. In different seasons we’ve had things like diapers, some toiletries, and groceries ordered and delivered ahead of time to the hotel or Airbnb rental.
✈️ Along those lines, most cities have services to rent baby gear. If where you’re staying doesn’t have high chairs and cribs and baby baths, jogging strollers and such, we have rented those over the last decade and they often deliver and pick up. Just google “baby gear rental service in [city name]” and something will pop up.
✈️ If you’re luggage isn’t all on wheels or if you’re bringing awkward sized items such as car seats with you that you have to get from the car to check in and from baggage claim to the rental car, these foldable luggage carts are great to pop in the bag and load up when you need it.
✈️ this travel sized double umbrella stroller was worked to the bone with our first 4 children! It folds up in a snap and has been everywhere from up and down the Eastern seaboard from Boston to DC to NYC and beyond. It navigates just fine in tight city spaces and fits on narrow escalators such as those in Boston.
✈️ If you don’t have access to a crib but your child needs one, these inflatable bed rails are lifesavers. They pack up small and keep toddlers from flipping out of beds.
✈️ Unless we’re traveling to a city with public transportation (ie Boston, DC, NYC), our family of 7 needs a rental car. There are a lot of ways to go about this with the car seats and I’ll say this: if you can bring your regular car seats, do it. The rental companies have the worst car seats, if they even have them at all. These are great car seat covers if you bring them yourself and want to check them.
And this Inflatable booster seat is fantastic.
✈️ For babies who need a lot of diaper changes, these disposable changing pads are great to cover the very grimy changing table in airport bathrooms.
✈️ Pack a spare outfit or two for your babe. The weirdest things tend to happen on planes and the pressure always upsets my babies’ stomachs and turns them into a bag of gas. We’ve had poop explode up the neck on more than one flight with some of our kiddos as babies.
✈️ Lastly, we do screen free plane rides. My kids have never had screens on planes so they don’t ask for it and they do just fine. Things that have worked for us: sticker books, word search books, sudoku books, crossword puzzles, books to read, toddler busy books, and sensory fidget toys. Each kid ages 4 and up gets their own backpack with stuff to keep them occupied. Any toddlers and babies have their stuff packed with me.
What would you add to this list? Comment below!
Guest post by a member of our Restoration Home Community—our online gathering place for homeschool parents committed to creating restored communities through connected families. In today's busy world, it's easy for family time to get lost. Our community and lessons encourage intentional time spent together to deepen your family's connection. Enrollment opens again this July, and we’d love for you to join us! Click here for a free sample lesson.
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