Making road trips fun for toddlers

There are a handful of rules to road trips. First, you have to be in your late teens or early twenties. Next, your driving licence has to be fairly new, such that it is still a novelty to you and you don’t mind driving. Lastly, you have to be the kind of person who doesn’t mind building up a questionable personal aroma in a cramped space over long periods of time, despite knowing full well that you could have saved time and money on a plane ticket. If all of those things fall into place, road trips are for you, my friend. But wait…

Along comes baby. This bouncing bundle of gurgling joy may just put the air brakes on your jet setting plans for a year or two, because travelling with a newborn (complete with all the paraphernalia for feeding times and changing times and nap times) is a foolhardy mountain to climb. Instead, it’s road trip time again, and it will be up until the child is about four or five years of age. We’re going to look at ways of keeping kids entertained, because finding ways to stop older children from asking “are we there yet?” is hard enough, let alone trying to keep toddlers happy on long trips.

First of all, before we get into the fun part, we must mention safety. Kids are walking hazard areas. They attract bad luck and accidental injury. That’s why you should travel with the details of a personal injury firm so that you know what to do if any of your party is injured far from home. For example, check out this personal injury law firm. Now, let’s look at one or two ways to keep your toddler from driving you crazy with their boredom on long car journeys.

Print out a scavenger hunt

Toddlers and young children may not be able to read, but they can spot things like birds and cows and five yellow cars and two caravans and cyclists. All your child has to do is watch out of the window and tick the images as they see them. Gotta catch ‘em all for a prize!

Electronics

For a truly peaceful hour or so, plug some headphones into a tablet and let the child watch a kids’ movie. Taking electronics on a vacation is usually something that we all try not to do. This is family time away from screens. But for the car journey? This is perfectly acceptable, and leaves the adults up front more time alone to argue over who loaded the satnav incorrectly.

Scavenger hunts and electronics should buy you 2-4 hours. After that, stop for a break and prepare yourself for round two. Did anyone say taking the plane next year?

Get creative and try out different ways to make the journey fun.