Travel Activities For Kids
Do you get anxiety when you have a family road trip planned ahead because you dread the long trip or the long flight with your kids? Are you picturing your kids fighting, screaming, yelling, and angry because of the length of the trip? Do you need ideas for travel activities for kids? As the long road trip approaches with holiday season just around the corner, prepare yourself for the next family vacation. Why not have some road trip activities for kids to explore so that you don’t have to constantly worry about how to keep the kids entertained? Family travel time with the whole family can be better managed if children have things to keep them busy.
One of the best ways is to take a trip to the dollar store to gather some items to make a travel kit for the long car trip. The best things are fun games, activity book, new toys, busy books, and favorite toys to keep the fun things checked. Place them in some zip lock bag and you’re good to go. The best part about the dollar store is that it is budget friendly and they have things for young kids, older children, and kids of all ages and age group.
Keep in mind that younger children tend to get easily bored during the car rides than the older kids. Having to stay in the car seat for a long time for a long car ride will definitely need fun activity and fun travel games. So another great idea or a great way to keep the little ones happy is to make sure that there’s plenty of fun activities but also some quiet time to combat the much fun they have. Even having a travel tray or an activity tray can be helpful to have for travelers.
Best Travel Activities
- Sticker Books – These are such a great activity for young children during a long drive.
- License Plates Game – I remember growing up playing the license plate game on a long road trip. The goal was to find license plates that are not from your current state. The rules were different depending on who was playing. Sometimes we would tap each other every time we found one, or other times we would just keep track of who had the most.
- Tic Tac Toe – This popular is a classic one that my own kids love playing as well. A lot of the kid’s menus at restaurants have the tic tac toe game on it, so it helps us kill time while we wait for our food. We get the whole family, even the grandparents to play when they come along as well.
- Card Games – Card games can be something simple as “UNO” or “GO FISH” for the younger ones. For the older ones,
- Scratch Art – Scratch is a pretty popular activity. It comes with a dark chalky paper and a small wooden stick that you can scratch off. As you start scratching the paper, you can create your own art.
- Coloring Books – Coloring Pages are a go to fun activity. Keep in mind it doesn’t work for everyone. My kids wouldn’t be able to color in the car because they get motion sickness when they look down too long in the car. They said it makes them get dizzy when the cars moving and they look down for awhile.
- Video Games – Video games are a fun way to pass time too. Some new devices have hundreds of games for kids to choose from as well, If one game doesn’t work, go find another one.
- Portable DVD Player – Not many people still use this but it comes in handy for those that have the players installed in their cars. Instead of having to hold the iPads, some have them installed onto the seats.
- Screen Time – This one is to each their own. Some parents will not give their kids screen time while others do. Some give too much screen time and some don’t give at all. So this would left as an option for those that have their kids get some screen time.
- Alphabet Game – Letters of the alphabet come in handy in so many ways. We play the letter game where we start with naming foods that start with letters, names of people, animals, and on and on. We make sure we keep the category easy enough so that our younger one can play as well.
- Magnetic Travel Games – My kids love magnetic games. Well my older one outgrew them but my younger still loves playing with the magnetic connectors.
- Writing Tablets – Writing tablets are a huge hit as well because kids can write or draw mess free. Traveling activities for kids with a writing tablet is awesome for travelers. There’s no messy chalk to worry about or getting markers/crayons marks all over their hands. With writing tablets, they just create their own creations. Most of them have different colors that are created on the tablets, so it’s also a plus.
Road Trip Snacks
- Water bottle – Each child should have their own water bottle for all traveling. To keep them from fighting with each other over how much water the other one is taking, making sure that each child has one to drink from is the best way to go.
- Ice Cream – It doesn’t always have to ice cream, but sometimes a little sugar gets the kids boosted after a long trip. Sometimes we like to stop at least half way or earlier for a quick stop for a drink or an ice cream depending on the weather. That quick stop gives everyone a refresher.
- Crackers – Crackers and snacks are a MUST in all traveling times. Not only because kids will always say that they’re hungry at some point of the traveling time, even if they might be. Maintaining a snack box or a bag for kids (if not for each kid) helps them reach for their own snacks whenever they need.
- Fruits – If you’re able to, fruits are a great snack for traveling as well. Pre-cut would be the best, but as long as they are washed or prepared enough for the kids to enjoy, it should be okay.
- Dried Fruit – Our family is a huge dried mango fans. So having some dried fruit for traveling is a great way to keep the kids busy. Dried bananas, apple slices, raisins, or apricots are also a favorite too.
Benefits of Traveling
Create Memories – One of the best reasons to travel is to create ever lasting memories with your family. Nothing beats the moments you watch your kids laughing and enjoying time spent together. It’s a different experience creating memories away from home. Treasure every moment spent.
Relieve Stress – Everyday life if filled with stress and anxiety from work, kids, family, and more. Traveling benefits your health by being able to release some stress to get away from the everyday norm. Keep in mind though that traveling isn’t always filled with fun and laughter, although that’s the main goal. But making the best and the most of it what will help you release those stress.
Exploring & Exposure – Children love to explore new things all the time so why not expose them to things that they might not always see or engage with. Just like searching for a fossil at a dinosaur museum, browsing and exploring things of nature or outside your home is a huge benefit to them. Expose them to things that they’re not normally used to, and see the reactions they give you. Do they like it? Do they dislike it? Turn it even into a game of fun and exploration.
Disconnect & Recharge – Sometimes you just have to get away from your daily routines to something new to recharge yourself. When you are engaging in the same routine everyday, your mind body and soul just get used to it and start disconnecting from everything around you. Traveling gives that change to refresh, for the adults, as well as the kids. Although we may not always see it, kids get stressed as well. They too need that time away to recharge and get some boosted energy.
Broaden Your Horizons – When you always in the same circle of life, with your everyday life, you don’t get a chance to see what’s really out there. Traveling helps you see things that you don’t normally see and explore and experience other cultural aspects as well. It gives you a chance to see how other people live that you might not be aware of. Or see things that are out of the norm.
Enhance Creativity – Traveling helps you enhance your creativity because you get new ideas that are not commonly seen or that you are exposed to all the time. For example, when I travel, it not only gives me new ideas for my blog posts but also for my other social media platforms with my creations. As a content creator, having new ideas is a huge benefit so that you’re not sitting there worrying about what to write or create. Traveling gives me those suggestions through what I see.
Are you and your family travelers? Next time you think about traveling, utilize these travel activities for kids but also think about the benefits and the reasons for traveling and you’ll see a whole new side of traveling, especially with kids.
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