General traveling tips for kids

I thought I would make a general traveling tips with kids post and give you some of my tried and true methods for a safe and happy trip with your kids!

-If your child has food allergies make sure to research restaurants ahead of time and already have your plan in place about what and where you will eat. I have a peanut allergic son and he also used to be allergic to eggs. We often have to bring our own food for him or research restaurants ahead of time. This is also true for picky eaters.
-Picnic lunches save a lot of money and the kids really enjoy them. We often take a cooler or an insulated bag with us when we travel packed with sandwiches, fruit, cheese, crackers and cookies.
-If you are traveling over 4 hours I would say try to plan some of your car time during a sleeping part of the day for your kids.  We leave early in the morning so they will go back to sleep and there is less traffic or we travel in the middle of the day so they might nap. Cuts down on boredom and whining!
-Buy a couple new toys to give them to play with in the car during your trip.
-Stop about every 2 to 3 hours for bathroom breaks and let them run around a bit. Cuts down on whining and boredom!
-Pack snacks to hand out to eat in the car.
-For long trips it is a good idea to plan on doing laundry at your destination if you will have access to a washing machine. It cuts down on what you have to pack and you don't have to take dirty clothes back home with you.


We have done all of our traveling so far by car without a DVD player.  We do all of our car traveling in either our old Crown Victoria, our new Chevy Impala, my husband's Saturn Ion, or my mother's Chrysler Concord. None of our cars are super large so packing lightly and smartly is something we always have to do. When you have twins packing lightly is not a very easy thing to do either. Somehow we manage.

If I think up more traveling tips I will add them as we go.