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Road trips with kids can quickly put a damper on vacation plans. Ours are no exception and as our summer vacation approached, I began to dread one thing – the car ride. We weren’t sure of our plans until the last minute, but I knew that anywhere we were going to go would include a pretty long car ride, something that my daughter has not quite been able to master in her 6 years.
My 9 year old son is great in the car, but it is largely do to the fact that he is physically able to read, play video games or watch a movie in a moving vehicle without vomiting. For a long time, I’ve known that I can’t do this, and unfortunately, my daughter is up against the same thing. It’s awful because really, if both of my kids were able to read or watch a movie, our road trips would be much more pleasant.
As our car filled with more luggage than we needed for 3 days, plus a giant bag of snacks, hit the Long Island Expressway about 4 minutes after we pulled out of our driveway, my daughter immediately started her mantra. Well, actually she has two – the first is “Are we almost there?”, quickly followed up by “I have to go to the bathroom.” Note that we’ve learned from experience and her going to the bathroom is always the last thing we do before we leave, but it never fails that 5 minutes after we get in the car, she has to go again.
The whining above, which never fails to begin within minutes of our leaving, adds up to a 4 hour car ride that has the potential to feel like an eternity.
So what’s the alternative to the whining and carrying on on a 4 hour road trip? Don’t take a vacation ever that involves a road trip with kids. Oh, no, sorry, that can’t be the answer because I’ve seen a bazillion of my Facebook friends recount the details of their amazing and fun road trips with kids to places like the Outer Banks and Disney World, which are way more than a 4 hour drive from New York. Nope, here’s the secret answer to road trips with kids - car games (says my should-have-been-a-camp-counselor-husband).
Really? That’s the secret?
Yes, I promise! Games will keep even the whiniest of road-trippers entertained – and for a significant amount of time. Here are a few of my daughter’s favorites (we played them all on our trip yesterday).
The Alphabet Game
The first person calls out something that they see that starts with the letter “A”. Second person does “B” and so on until you are done with the alphabet. The key to this game is that you actually have to see the thing that you are calling out. So yes, if your turn is “E”, elephant generally will not work if you are just driving from New York to New Jersey. See how creative the kids will be!
The License Plate Game
As you drive, look at all of the license plates on the cars traveling along side of you, and try and find all of the states. You can have different contests that include finding license plates from the furthest states or the most license plates from a particular state. Have a checklist and checkoff each state as you see their license plate. Something cool that someone recently suggested to me was to have the kids take a picture of each different state’s plate that you see. You can do this on one car trip or have it last for every car trip throughout the summer.
Counting Games
Pick something and count how many you see. My daughter loves to count all the yellow cars that she sees. (You would think that yellow cars are few and far between but really, I’ll tell you, they aren’t.) Choose a color car, police cars, cars with bikes/boats/trailers – anything. Your kids will keep their eyes peeled to the road looking for them and (maybe) won’t think of complaining.
Stop and Listen
Before you leave for your trip, load up your iPod with music that you and your kids would want to listen to. If your kids are little, there is some great music that kids and adults will both like, such as Bari Koral and La Bella Stella. Use this time to introduce your kids to some music that you like too – my kids are actually able to name songs as they hear them by Billy Joel, Bon Jovi and some Guns ‘N’ Roses (although my daughter still calls them “Red Roses”). As an alternative to music, pop in an audio book that would be great for the whole family, like Harry Potter.
What does your family do on a long car ride? We need some new games for our ride home!
Amy Platt
Amy Platt is a Long Island native, currently raising two kids here. After the birth of her second child, she realized that parents need a place to find information about parenting on Long Island and LIParentSource was born. Shes loves to be involved with all things happening locally and getting that information out to parents.
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I’m still in the stage where my boys sleep whenever we’re in the car, so road trips are usually pretty awesome, but as a kid we drove to Florida every year & played all these games! Thanks for the reminder
When I was a kid, they sold sticker sheets of all the license plates from every state that you would peel off and apply when you crossed one on the road. I also had another one for finding street signs. Today there is a version of the License Plate Game made by Melissa & Doug of course! I mean, what don’t those two sell? And also http://www.momsminivan.com has a whole bunch of printable games that are fun and only cost the price of some ink and a sheet of paper.