Home » Travel & Places

Long Trips Made Longer: How To Endure Road Trips With Your Kids

Ranked #38,631 in Travel & Places, #955,779 overall

For many people, the simple thought of having to travel with a kid is enough to give you nightmares. Plane tickets are very expensive for a traveling family, and this generally leaves the family car as the only method of travel. And with the economy doing its best to restart itself, many people have completely eliminated vacations from their budgets. This doesn't need to happen to you. Some of my best childhood memories are from family road trips. Mexico and Canada, since they are so close, provide a close vacation that feels like it's worlds away, and with the relatively new US passport id card, you and your family can go on a great adventure.

Ideas For Entertaining Kids In The Car

My absolute favorite thing to do on car trips when I was younger were coloring books and craft sets. I remember specifically owning a Barbie coloring book, one with animals, and a huge baggie full of markers and crayons. With these supply in hand, I would spend hours coloring pictures for everyone in the car. Besides these coloring books, I absolutely loved these big felt pieces in all sorts of shapes that had holes in them along the edges. With a shoe lace or a string, it made the perfect little girl sewing set. My brother loved the jumbo building blocks, which could be put together in all sorts of shapes.

My mom would bring along these "worksheets" that had little puzzles on them. As we were driving, she would give me one that I would work really hard to complete, and I would give it back to her to "grade." I always got A's, although I doubt I got everything right, but this fostered in me a love of learning. As I got older, she would give me whole books of puzzles that taught basic addition and reading, and I definitely felt so proud of myself after I completed a page. These trips really do present a great educational opportunity.

Technology has a huge potential to keep your children busy and entertained. One of the best things I've seen is the Leapfrog Leapsters, which is basically a hand-held electronic device that plays fun and educational video games. Another good idea, although it's not quite as technologically advanced, is recording your child's very own audio books. Using a tape recorder, record yourself reading some of your child's books, and let your child listen to them. You can even change the names of the characters to let your child play his or her favorite part in the story!

In order to get your passport card, you can either visit a pass port office or apply on the internet. These cards are dramatically cheaper than regular passports. They allow you to travel by land or sea to various destinations, but they won't be good for a plane trip. This way, you and your family can go on vacation and not have to worry about dropping half your travel budget on investing in new passports.

So if you just need to get away for a while, you don't need to dread taking along the kids. If you are thinking of hitting the famous beaches of Mexico or seeing some of Canada's natural landscapes, all you need to do is see your passports agency or go online and apply for a passport card application. No matter what you decide to do, the memories will be worth the little extra hassle. I certainly have some great memories with traveling with my family, and I wouldn't trade those memories for anything in the world.