After 18 days, thousands of miles, and countless memories made, we completed our first cross-country road trip with our kids! It was an awesome adventure and we will most definitely do it again (and have since!). But we learned a few things on this road trip that we hope to implement next time.

Space out the driving days throughout the road trip

I talked about this briefly during my last few posts about the road trip, but this was our biggest lesson learned! We did a lot of sight-seeing with short driving days on the front end of the trip. There were tons of things we wanted to see in the west that we never got to see while we were living in Las Vegas. When we found out we were moving to the other side of the country, I quickly tried to figure out how we could see everything we had missed! We obviously couldn’t see it all, but I tried hard. As a result, after a full week into our trip, we had only made it to Colorado, 2 states away! We had visited lots of amazing places, but we hadn’t done much driving yet. After our stops in South Dakota, we had 4 straight days of 8+ hours of driving to make it to where we needed to be. The kids were exhausted and ready to be out of their car seats and we were exhausted too! This was not an ideal ending to our trip.

Make sure your phone has some space on it

This seems like a common-sense thing, but somehow in the chaos of moving I forgot to download pictures from the last few months of goodbyes and Las Vegas memories off my phone. This resulted in a “storage full” message on day of our road trip on my phone! We didn’t own a laptop at the time and I had no way to get the pictures off my phone to make more space. We did some creative tinkering to allow me to get a few pictures here and there, but this was a huge bummer when I just wanted to be able to snap away in some pretty incredible locations!

When the GPS says 5 hours of driving, count on 6-7 hours being reality

With young kids, driving time always multiplies. Emelia needed to go potty or Philip needed out of his seat or someone couldn’t find a toy. Whatever it was, we stopped a lot more than expected. When I calculate times in my head, I always forget this fact.

Having an extra hand in the car is absolutely necessary

Because we were moving across the country, we drove both of our cars (plus the camper) the entire way. I knew I would need an extra hand in the car with the kids so that I didn’t have to stop for EVERY whine or cry, but I didn’t realize how necessary this was until there was one day of driving without someone else! Luckily my brother, Jack, joined us from Vegas until Colorado and Todd’s mom, Sue, joined us from Colorado to D.C. However, there was one day in between with only the two of us. Trying to help two young kids in the car without another hand while driving was next to impossible. Not only is it likely to test your sanity, but it’s just not safe!

Watch out for tolls!

Thanks to some GPS confusion in Denver, we shockingly received several toll bills about 3 months after our trip! After going to our old address and then being forwarded to two new addresses, we finally received our lovely photo on the Denver highway 2 days before it was overdue! Whoops!

Visit as many friends along the way as possible

As we were planning our route, we realized just how many friends and family we were going to run into along the way! We were able to stay with some and enjoy dinner and play time with others. This made for a super fun bonus to the fantastic scenery! We definitely plan to repeat this lesson.

Be flexible

While some who know me might laugh at this lesson, it was one I had to learn the hard way on this road trip. Whether it’s car trouble, traffic, or sick kiddos, there are always going to be things that don’t go the way you plan. The best course of action in this case is to try your best to be flexible. I know there are plans made and reservations booked, but try to look at the blessing in your hold up. Do you get more time in somewhere you’d wanted to stay? Do you get a down day to just rest a little? The places will always be there, and you can always go back!

Have any of you traveled on the road with your kids? What lessons did you learn? Please share your tips in the comments!