How do you keep kids entertained on Long Car Journeys
With the warmer weather finally making an appearance, my thoughts are turned to the summer and where we will adventure to this year (as soon as we have another 9 seater car). Living in East Anglia everywhere is a long journey, it takes us at least 2 hours to emerge from East Anglia, which means my children are quite used to long car journeys!
I guess the first thing you need to do is ensure the car you are driving is roadworthy, you can check out my top tips post.
I asked some fellow travel bloggers for their hints and tips for keeping kids amused on a long car journey.
Lucie from Coffee and Converse recommends ipads, which I definitely agree and it definitely made my journey less stressful when we reviewed the new Zafira as it had built in wifi which meant no mobile data! She also suggests Spot the…..Game which can be adapted for all ages and surroundings.
Emma-Louise from Even Angels Fall wouldn’t be without the back of seat dvd players, “We travel from Bournemouth to County Durham fairly regularly as my brother lives up there and the kids don’t make a fuss at all since we got these and some headphones for them ” I have to agree we have had dvd players for the car since our oldest ones were small, although having seven of them we have had to invest in one single portable dvd for the one who ends up in the front with us!
Victoria from Lylia Rose “iPad, plenty of snacks, music they like and car games. We play eye-spy with the eldest and for the youngest we use colours instead of letters!”
Sarah from Boo Roo and Tigger Too and her family love spotting yellow cars for the fun game Yellow Car No Return this sounds like a great game and i’ll definitely be giving it a go next time we take a trip.
Lynne from New Mummy Blog suggests A new magazine and lots of tiny snacks… and only a tiny bit of water in water bottles so you don’t need toilet stops every 20 minutes.
Emma from Happy Family Hub enjoys simple word games that everyone can join in are great such as the alphabet game. You go round and each child must name an animal for the next letter of the alphabet (a aardvark, b bee, c camel etc). Or an animal beginning with the last letter… eg aardvark, kangaroo, octopus, sheep etc.
Jayne from Sticky Mud and Belly Laughs recommends that you take the scenic routes where possible so you can stop, grab a bite to eat and the kids can stretch their legs. It helps to break up the journey!
Fran from Back with A Bump says Tablets with programmes to watch, snacks, games like i-spy, spotting cars or lorries of a particular colour or my toddler’s current favourite- ambulance spotting. I wouldn’t recommend books or colouring as it can cause travel sickness and a pukey car on a long journey would not be nice!!!
Ruth from Craft with Cartwright wouldn’t be without Sticker books. They can stick them in the books or on themselves or each other. Keeps my two busy!
Clare from Wild Mama Wild Tribe Our favourite games are ‘first person to spott’ or the ‘choose a car game’ – in ‘choose a car’ you set a point on the journey and everyone has to choose which car they would own from the cars they see on the way. You can switch your choice once only! Sounds ridiculous but keeps them quiet for hours
Ben from Wood Create and his children love The ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ game. You have to try and get the others to say yes or no. My kids love this game and can fill a reasonable amount of time on any journey .
Amy from All About A Mummy Just spotted in WHSmiths today some sporting books where you gets points for different makes and models of car etc. Great for slightly older kids.
Lianne from Anklebiters Adventures loves The Crayola mess free colouring books, mine spend ages on them and you will have no mess on your seats.
Shel from The Willow Tree has Disney cd, iPads with downloaded programmes and games on,family name/word games, sticker books, snacks, magnetic board games (we did all these things when we drove to Disneyland Paris last year!)
Lyndsey from Me, him, the dog and a baby recommends Melissa and Doug triangle crayons, they are amazing because they don’t roll anywhere and they come in their own little box!
Tina and her family from Mother Geek enjoy Lots of Disney music for a good old sing along!
Bec at Kizmetcava recommends Whiteboards and multicoloured whiteboard pens. They are so versatile and my children are always making up their own games with them. The play hangman and make a squiggle into a picture, they have drawing competitions and even practise their spellings! They do tally charts for campers vs caravans, and for the amount of people that wave at them… dogs have been included! They are also fab to grab from the car when we go out for meals so they don’t get bored.
Kate on Thin Ice loves a bit of singing, it always goes down well with “Convoy” and “The Phantom of the Opera” showing their very eclectic tastes.
Emma from Life In The Mums Lane recommends DVD player, music and games. We play the very basic but kids still love it ispy and ABC game (pick a theme & then go through the alphabet e.g. Fruit & Veg – Apricot, banana, cabbage, date)
Laura from Autumn’s Mummy always makes sure I have lots of toys and snacks to hand! We also have a nursery rhyme CD which I sing to at the top of my lungs when they fail.
I usually try to plan long trips for during my toddler’s nap time so I don’t have to entertain her the whole time!
Jemma from Have Kids Will Travel UK wouldn’t be without Audio books and travel trays (like the easy explorer) with small bags of things for them to play with like Lego and play dough etc.
And if you are looking for more inspiration, check out three two great posts
Long Car Journey with a 2 Year Old Toddler – Tips and Activities
Entertaining Kids on A Road Trip without Breaking The Bank
Top 10 Tips For Travelling with Kids
And there we go, lots of different ideas to keep the children entertained on Long Car Journeys, do you have any more to add ?
2 of my 5 kids have horrific travel sickness, I am DREADING our next jaunt, it knocks them out of sorts for hours after we arrive bless. Was just on the hunt for ideas to try and (hopefully) take their mind off it, I am at the point where anythings worth a shot.