Mom2boys Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 We will soon be taking a roadtrip out west and I could use some advice. What kinds of things will help keep us all sane as we spend 17 days in our minivan together? My boys are 14 and 10, and do a pretty good job of keeping themselves entertained in the car. But we have never been on the road for more than 4 days before. Any advice from someone who has BTDT? What can I do to make the experience more pleasant for all of us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 I have three words for you: Portable DVD Players. And, for everybody's enjoyment, throw in some audio courses from the Teaching Company. We listened to Daileader's Early Middle Ages on our recent drive to Utah (18 hours one way) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 We love audiobooks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 Another thing that we found sanity saving: if you are not in a hurry, break the day into two chunks. Take a long lunch break, maybe at a state park or do some sight seeing. We all found that two chunks of five hours, separated by a good lunch and break , were much more palatable than 10 hours on the road with only gas station breaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
didadeewiththree Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 Mad-libs always entertain us, for a few minutes! As a kid, I used to enjoy license plate games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Geek Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 I spy 20 questions ABC game with signs Favorite music Let them help read the map and find hotels and that type of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeaganS Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 DVD players, video games, audio books, handicrafts (like knitting or cross-stitching), etc. One of my families' favorite games was what we called Song Horse. The person whose turn it is chooses a word. Everyone else has to come up with a song in turn that has that word in it. When someone is finally stumped, they can "challenge" the word chooser. If the word chooser can sing a song with the word, then the stumpee gets an "H" (like in the basketball game HORSE). If they can't come up with a song, then the word chooser gets and "H". The last person standing wins. This game can take forever! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impish Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 Sanity issues are what prompts parents to plan family road trips. ~Imp, who spent 16 hrs, round trip with a Wolf, 3 kids, and a mini pony in a mini van...for a wknd trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 We love audiobooks!We do, too! We love to travel and have taken lots of roadtrips with our kids. We've done longer audiobooks for the whole family (like SOTW, the Hobbit), or just let the kids do short ones in the back seat. DD6 loves read-alongs, but the rest of us get carsick. I've also read aloud to everyone in short spurts. Colored pencils, a clipboard for each, and lots of paper. (Crayons melt and markers lose their lids.) One from the Carschooling book that we tried our last trip was a roll of aluminum foil to be twisted into whatever strikes your fancy. It went over well, especially combined with roll of wide, blue masking tape one of the kids found under the seat. We often get a couple of small, new toys just for the trip. (Ours are still young enough to be impressed by dollar store toys.) Another thing that we found sanity saving: if you are not in a hurry, break the day into two chunks. Take a long lunch break, maybe at a state park or do some sight seeing. We all found that two chunks of five hours, separated by a good lunch and break , were much more palatable than 10 hours on the road with only gas station breaks.Definitely this! We've found that the first rest stop over a state border is often also a welcome center, with free road maps and travel guides. We geocache, so we always bring our GPSr (or now our phones) preloaded with caches at likely stops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2boys Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 Thanks for all the great tips! I have been stressing about this trip (it's my dh's idea of a dream vacation, not mine). Now I am going to take deep breaths and choose to believe that we will all still be on speaking terms by the end of this trip. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2boys Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 I have three words for you:Portable DVD Players. And, for everybody's enjoyment, throw in some audio courses from the Teaching Company. We listened to Daileader's Early Middle Ages on our recent drive to Utah (18 hours one way) The dvd player is charging as we speak, and the headphones have been added to the pile. :D Another thing that we found sanity saving: if you are not in a hurry, break the day into two chunks. Take a long lunch break, maybe at a state park or do some sight seeing. We all found that two chunks of five hours, separated by a good lunch and break , were much more palatable than 10 hours on the road with only gas station breaks. Good point. I need to look at our days where we don't have any sight seeing planned, and find a place were we can take a long break. We love audiobooks! I will head to the library to see what they have to offer. I did load our Jim Weiss cds onto their ipods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 DVD players, video games, audio books, handicrafts (like knitting or cross-stitching), etc. We use any and all of these. We've taken some really LONG road trips. I pack each kid a backpack full of stuff they have access too. I will say frequent breaks make a huge difference for us to stay sane, even if we need to sacrifice a couple hours of driving a day. My DH had us doing calisthenics on our last road trip out at rest stops. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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