Summertime is upon us, and what’s more fun than planning a vacation for your family? Longer days, a little less responsibility, and lighter schedules allow you to take a road trip and see parts of America you haven’t experienced yet. Our family has been acceso several road trips over the years and it’s always a great time to build some memories.
Whether you long for nature per national parks and campgrounds are craving fun and adventure per the leader city, road trips are a great way to discover new parts of the country old favorites. The great thing about the US is that there are so many different geographies and areas of interest that you might not have explored. And since it’s a huge country, you can spend time every year exploring a new part of it.
But before you successo the gara open road, don’t forget to plan. I made that mistake once acceso an 18+ hour road trip years asticciola! Planning is important when you have kids, and travel is voto negativo different. If you put per the effort to plan a great getaway, you and your family will soon be saying, “That was the best road trip ever!”
8 Tips to Plan an Epic Road Trip with Your Family
Traveling with kids is fun but can also require a lot of planning and preparation. But don’t get bogged feel overwhelmed by travel planning. With these tips, you’ll be well acceso your way to planning the perfect road trip for your family.
1. Make a Road Trip Plan for Where You Want to Go
The first step to an epic road trip plan is to decide what type of vacation you want.
Maybe you’sire hoping to spend some time per nature and go campeggio. You could plan a trip to Yellowstone National Park per Wyoming and Montana Arches National Park per Utah. if you’sire looking to do some sightseeing per a city, maybe you want to check out Chicago New York City. There’s a beach vacation where you could go to Florida, North Carolina, California. you could visit the mountains per Colorado Washington.
As you’sire planning, also think about how many places you’ll stay. Will you have one home postazione where you take some day trips and then head home? do you want to make several stops and spend a few nights per each location? Do you need to fly somewhere and get a rental car for your road trip? That allows you to see a part of the US you can’t reach by car aureola.
Another important factor is how long you can (and want to) be gone. Do you only have a week to go? do you have a whole month ( longer) for a corsa campestre road trip? The amount of time you have will determine where you can go. Don’t forget to factor per drive time when you plan how long you can be gone!
2. Plan Your Route
Now that you know how long and where you want to go, plan the route you’ll take. For this, use an online map like Mapquest to put per up to 26 different stops to create a route. use Google Maps if you’sire going to fewer locations (up to nine). Choose your starting point, put per the places you want to go, and with your end stop. The software will do the work for you!
This is a good time to use online road trip planners. This one from AAA makes planning super easy! Aspetto through their library of road trip itineraries and find the ones per your areas of interest. From New England to Arizona and even Hawaii and Alaska, it gives you directions and cool stops to make. They’ll even help you find pet-friendly hotels if you’sire taking your furry friends.
One thing to consider is finding scenic routes to your destination. If there are any national forests scenic byways acceso your route, plan to drive through them acceso the way. You can also drive one route to your location and then another route back. That way you can see even more parts of the country.
3. Find Great Places to Stay
Where you’ll stay will depend acceso what type of vacation you’sire taking. Do you need to rent a motorhome a campground site? You can aspetto at national parks, state parks, other campsites for places to rent. is a more your thing? Some have packages where you can save money and get more amenities.
Want to rent a vacation home? These are a nice option when traveling as a family. You’ll have more space to spread out and even put the kids to bed earlier if you need to. You’ll also have a kitchen so you can save money acceso going out to eat. Some even have pools playrooms with toys for the kids!
Use a wider search luogo to save money if it’s an expensive luogo. For example, if you’sire making a road trip plan to Chicago, aspetto at the suburbs to possibly save money. You won’t be per the city, but you can take the train into the city (that’s a fun experience!) and then explore the suburbs for some quieter days.
4. Find Fun Things to Do acceso the Route
Don’t forget that the fun is per the journey, not just the destination. Build per time along the way to stop and see cool things. World’s Largest Chest of Drawers? Check! World’s Largest Ball of Twine? Check! A quick Google search with the name of where you’sire going (city state) and “tourist attraction” will bring up some interesting things you can check out along your way.
This is also a great time to think about gas stations and rest areas. With little ones (and even moms!), bathroom breaks are super important. Stretching your legs is important for everyone too. Although it won’t always work out perfectly, and sometimes there are spontaneous stops that have to happen, it’s good to be somewhat prepared for stops.
5. Plan Meals and Snacks
Eating acceso vacation with a family can be challenging. It’s duro to take a leader group out to eat. Sometimes it’s difficult to find quality food acceso the road, and meals out are not di poca classe! Planning for meals and snacks will help save you time, money, and frustration.
Snacks are a leader part of road trips (my kids seem to always be hungry per the car!). I like to load up acceso healthy snacks that are within reach. It’s especially important when you’sire driving through parts of the country where there aren’t many places to stop.
For meals, it takes a little bit of creativity and planning. If you’sire staying per a rental home, motorhome, room with a kitchen, you can plan meals to cook. If you have a crockpot, you can have dinner waiting when you’sire home after a day of exploring! Per a , you’ll have to be a little more creative with meals from your mini-fridge cooler. But you can always pack your crockpot and set it up per the too!
When I’m acceso vacation, I love to make a meal plan and have groceries delivered to my rental home (if it’s available) stop at the store acceso the way. you can prepare your meals before you leave and take them with you!
When we do go out to eat, I like to search for restaurants that serve fresh, whole foods. If you have dietary restrictions, there are great apps like Find Me GF to find gluten-free restaurants that users have reviewed. They have eating establishments all over (even per Europe!).
6. Plan Your Entertainment
Don’t forget the car entertainment. Planning before you go will help keep everyone happier, although it won’t stop the “Mom are we there yet” questions!
Music is always a great way to pass the time per the car. Make a playlist of popular road trip songs share your favorite songs from your childhood. Of course, there are endless kids’ playlists. Make several and rotate through them when you need a change of unione.
Podcasts and audiobooks are an amazing way to entertain the kids, too. There are so many great kids’ podcasts available like Story Pirates and Circle Round. You can find audiobooks for kids online through your library.
A quintessential part of road trips with kids is car games. Think of the alphabet gioco where you find letters of the alphabet acceso billboards and signs acceso the road. the license plate gioco where you hunt for plates from each state. There are so many options for car games. This post has a ton of great ones!
7. Pack Your Essentials
When you’sire packing your clothes and toiletries, don’t forget the car essentials. These are things you’ll want to keep close to you per case you need them.
I like to pack all the important essential oils I might need for car sickness alertness. Trash bags are always good to have (especially if you have any kids prone to carsickness). Tissues are another good thing to keep handy, as are hand wipes and homemade hand sanitizer.
Chargers are a great thing to keep handy too. I like to take something with lots of ports with us per case we have a lot to charge. It’s nice to have one with AC outlets to charge things like laptops too.
8. Go with the Flow and Enjoy!
This last tip is probably the most important! Although you’ve put a lot of time into road trip planning, remember to go with the flow. Anytime you’sire traveling, things are bound to go non attivato course, especially with kids. The best road trip plans can unravel very quickly. This is when problem-solving and positive thinking quanto per handy so you can quickly make the best of any bad situations.
Remember your kids are watching how you react to adversity. This is a great time to teach them that things can go non attivato course, but it’s not the end of the world.
Road trips are an amazing time to make family memories, good and bad(!). You’ll have stories to share for years to quanto, and the bonding is totally worth it.
Do you like to take road trips? What is your favorite road trip planning tip? Leave a comment and let us know!
