Planning road trips with young kids can be a daunting task! What will I do to keep them entertained? How many times will I hear “Are we there yet?” from the backseat? Will they even enjoy the places we visit? All of these questions and more were some reasonable concerns I had before departing on the open road with my little ones. Today I’m sharing 7 tips (that I have used!) to get young kids involved and interested in a road trip!

Let them help plan the route and/or events at each spot

Since our kids are pretty little (2 and 4), we don’t get them involved in planning the route. But, our daughter is already starting to express her opinion about what she would like to see. So, show them a map and get them involved! This is a great way to teach some geography skills too. Maybe start with your beginning and ending points and then show them what is in between.

To really get older kids involved, let them name some locations they would like to visit and see if you can fit them in on the trip. Have they heard about somewhere cool that someone else visited? Have they learned about a new state or city in school? This is an excellent way to get your kids very excited about where you are traveling. And, I’ve found that generally the more invested our kids are in where we are going, the more excited they will be to be on the trip!

Even if your kids are a little young to help plan routes, they can always help with planning things to do and see at each stop! A great place to start is Trip Advisor. Trip Advisor always has suggestions of things to see and places to go. If your kids can’t research on their own, present them with a couple of suggestions from each spot and let them tell you what they are most interested in. Again, if the stop is specifically suggested or planned by your child, the chances are they’ll be excited to visit! Don’t forget to tell how much fun you had at their spot afterwards!

Map the stops and route ahead of time

We always prepare a map of our route for each road trip we take. Whether you create one in Google Maps or buy a paper map, the visual of where you are traveling is a great way to ensure your kids are involved in each stop! We like to put a paper map on the cork-board wall in our camper and plot each spot with a push pin.

One trip when our daughter was just learning the different states, we bought a big color map and each night we would find our spot on the map and draw a star on that location to connect to the previous star. She still has that map! It also serves as a great memento from the road trip that your child can hang on to. Kids can also plot out the whole trip prior to leaving so they have a visual of where you are going next each day.

Journaling

I love the idea of keeping a journal for all of our trips! But, I’m not always the best at follow-through on this idea. Things get busy, the day runs late, and then we’re all rushing to bed and the journal gets thrown out the window (not literally). But, with a road trip, there is a lot of time in the car for kids to work on their journals. Since my kids are still little, I usually have to help them with the journal concept. But my daughter is now starting to get more and more interested.

After we’ve planned the route for our next trip, we always make a stop at the local craft store. Here we pick out a book or journal together to use for the trip. Then we gather stickers, paper cut-outs, glue, colored pencils, and all the other supplies she might need for her journal. We usually start the journal with a map of our road trip itinerary and then we journal daily for each stop. Before my children could write, I would include the location, date, and then ask them their favorite part of the day that we could write on their page. Each page is decorated with stickers and drawings. We also include ticket stubs, brochures, and I usually leave a space or two for some pictures to add later.

These journals provide a great way for the kids to remember each day and give you some time to talk through their day with them to find out what they enjoyed best. I usually learn a lot from my kids during our journaling time!

On the way to the next stop – color or read about what is next

During each drive to the next location, we talk about what’s coming up! If your kids helped to plan the route and activities, they should be familiar with some of your stops. To get them interested in what’s coming up, prepare some coloring or some reading about what you’re going to see. This is where Pinterest or Google can be your best friend! Many historical sites or museums offer materials for kids on their websites, but if not, you can Google your location and “coloring sheets” to see what you can find.

I also like to check out books at the library before we leave for information on each stop. You can either read it with them, or let them read about the next stop during the drive there. If your kids are a little older, they could even prepare the information for the next stop for you by doing the research ahead of time. You’ll have tiny tour guides at every stop on your trip!

Road Trip Scavenger Hunt

As a child, I remember playing endless hours of “I Spy” in a car moving 65mph down the highway. It’s really difficult to play when you are moving past things faster than you can list the color. There are so many suggestions of games to play on road trips. But, I love games that can continue throughout the trip, such as marking off state license plates or a scavenger hunt. With little kids, I like to create a picture scavenger hunt since they can’t read yet. Include things like dump trucks and certain color cars, but also include things that they will see at each location such as the entrance sign to national parks or a monument like the Las Vegas sign. You can even make a photo book out of all the pictures of your child at each location.

Souvenirs

I love to collect a souvenir from each location on a road trip, but I do not want a house full of tiny figurines or shot glasses. So, I decided to collect Christmas ornaments. This way I can pull them out once a year and remember all the fun memories from each location. My tree is quickly filling up, but I just have to remind my husband that he only has to see them once a year!

For our kids, we quickly grew tired of them begging for a stuffed animal or a bag of rocks at every location we stopped. What was something they could get that wouldn’t be expensive or take up a ton of space? Well, we discovered pressed pennies and love them. For us, 51 cents at each stop was something we agreed we could spend. Plus, our kids love searching each new location for, as we call it, a “penny squisher”. We have little books that they store their pennies in. When we get home, they can look back and remember all of our fun trips!

Hint: There are several websites that help you locate penny squishers all over the world.

Postcards

I’ll never forget a long road trip that my family took over my 16^th birthday to the Grand Canyon. I was grumpy to be there instead of at home with my boyfriend and friends. Who wants to spend their 16^th birthday in the parking lot of a Manhattan, KS hotel? The point is that I loved writing postcards from each location to send home to my long lost boyfriend who I just knew was missing me terribly. (Insert eye roll now.) Now I’ve passed the love onto my children, and they do love sending them! Along with a Christmas ornament and a squished penny, we always look for postcards at each stop.

Before our last road trip we bought a roll of 100 postcard stamps! (And used them all!) Our daughter has started helping write a few of the postcards, but I mostly write them out with her favorite memory from each stop and she signs her name. We also always send a postcard from each stop to our own house. When we get home there’s a reminder of each stop from our trip to include in our kid’s journals.

There are so many ways to get your kids excited about traveling! Road trips can be very family-friendly! While the miles and miles of open road with toddlers in tow might seem daunting, I promise with just a little planning, the time will go faster than you thought. And, your kids will be excited and interested to see everything you have planned together!

Have you used any of these (or other) activities to engage your kids while traveling? Please share in the comments!