We’ve taken lots of cross-country road trips as a family, giving us a lot of miles under our belts as far as experience goes.

Tim and I have always enjoyed road trips – big and small – together. Wherever we lived in Southern California, we would often spontaneously pick a direction, start driving, and explore somewhere new.

We didn’t stop the tradition when the kids came along. Even when they were really little, it wasn’t unusual for us to take several hour drives just to see what we would find.

We took our first long, overnight road trip when our three oldest were 5, 3, and 1. It was quite an adventure – we left in the middle of a crazy snow storm, and hit a few other snow storms on the way there and back. But it was such a great experience as a family.

And we’ve now taken many cross country trips together. A couple years, we took two huge, cross-country road trips. On one of them, we calculated that we’d spent approximately 80 hours in the car together (and that’s with 5 kids, from teens down to a preschooler). And we genuinely enjoyed it!

Something that has helped us (not just with road trips, but parenting in general) is this:

Embrace boredom.

We’ve always strived to encourage our kids to entertain themselves and don’t shy away from boredom. It doesn’t mean it’s always been easy. But I have vivid memories from that first extra long road trip of my 5 & 3 year olds playing with their little stuffed animals together in the back seat, coming up with stories and entertaining their 1 year old brother. Now they still have their own complex stories they talk through, and games they like to play together.

I almost hesitate to say this, because it can be a little controversial, and a whole lot of judgement that gets thrown around in parenting circles. But another choice we’ve made for road trips: We don’t do ipads or movies.

Now, there’s absolutely no judgement from me if you do (you gotta do what you need to on big trips like this!). In fact, the people we trust the absolute most for parenting advice and wisdom often use movies for their kids!

And you all know we are very open about using a good amount of tech as a family. (Just before we left on this latest road trip, the kids spent several afternoons with Grandma & their uncle playing Minecraft together, and we are pretty liberal with our “screen time” at home in general.) But using tech is not something we’ve chosen to do as a family for car trips.

It doesn’t mean we approach road trips unprepared, though!

Let’s dive into our favorite sanity-savers for road trips that not only make them more enjoyable for the kids…but for us as parents, too 😉

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Road Trip Sanity Savers for Kids (& Teens, too!)

Notebooks & drawing/writing utensils

Even the littlest ones get a notebook and chunky crayons to color with. Now that many of them are older, they choose their own. My daughter got this amazing clipboard to draw and store paper & pencils in from her auntie.

I usually buy a big bulk pack of little notebooks, and divide them up among the kids. These are perfect for doodling or even journaling for the older kids. If you have a child that loves robots, my robot notebook journal is a great choice, too!

Small, open-ended toys

A small stuffed animal or figures, things like Wiki sticks. These have so many creative possibilities and encourage open-ended play.

Activity Books

Seriously amazing and engaging – and you can match it to your child’s interests!

Just a heads up – Amazon has been flooded with lots of AI generated kids activity books that are awful and poorly made, and filled with mistakes. To protect yourself, your kids, and your wallet, go with reputable brands and always check reviews! We’ve found anything from Melissa & Doug or Brain Games to be high quality.

Here’s a few of our favorites from over the years:

• Dot-to-dot – especially extreme Dot-to-Dot for older kids!
• Sudoku
• Word searches
• Hidden pictures
• Sticker by number
• Any Melissa & Doug activity books or Water Wow books for younger kids

Audio Books

We typically purchase an Audible Membership for a few months when we’re planning to travel so we can stock up on audio books.

We also super love Graphic Audio’s dramatized adaptations of books – they are so well produced and fun to listen to. Top favorite recommendation is the Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians series (fun for the kids and for us to listen to).

Our brains

We frequently have great discussions together. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes just talking through creative ideas.

Snacks

Packing snacks is pretty much a necessity with lots of kids with food intolerances. Not only are convenience foods on the road expensive, but it’s rare that we find something that’s safe for them to eat anyway. We usually pick one place to eat out each way (In-N-Out or allergy-friendly restaurants), but we pack lots of snacks.

Some of our favorite snacks:

• Made Good snacks – These are allergen friendly, and they taste amazing (Seriously, I have to restrain myself from just snacking on them before the trip even gets started. Their chocolate chip bites are divine.) We love to get their variety packs for trips
• Lara bars – we pick out a couple big packs in different flavors. Our family is pretty evenly split between those who love the chocolate peanut butter ones and those who prefer their apple pie bars
• That’s It fruit bars – super healthy and great ingredients
• Beef jerky sticks or bars – we love the New Primal brand for trips (sometimes we can find them at our Costco). Epic is another brand we love  – super nice quality, and amazing taste.
• Homemade mini banana bread loaves (we have a few sets of these to bake them in these silicone pans here)

Be Prepared

Use my tips above to stock up on what you need for your road trip. But before you head out, make sure you check out my post on building a complete family car emergency kit.