Traveling Activities for Kids
Extended road trips are a fabulous way to introduce our kids to a myriad of fascinating places, scattered across the US, but how, oh how, do we keep them occupied during the long boring stretches of highway? We’re planning a multi-week trip this summer through New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah (for our Young Living convention), and maybe a few other states, and I want the kids to have more to do than watch videos! As you might guess, there are a lot of GREAT ideas out there, and I wanted to share some of my favorites with you!
Check out my list, and share your favorite ideas and activities in the comments!
National Geographic Kids Ultimate U.S. Road Trip Atlas.
This atlas gets great reviews on Amazon and is only $4.01! It has a couple of pages for each state, including a somewhat detailed map, fun facts, games, wacky roadside attractions, and cool things to do. I’m getting one of these for each of my two older kids.
Usborne’s Lots of Things to Spot Around the World is a great book to keep the kiddos occupied and working together. It’s packed with fun pictures, puzzles, games, and stickers. They have plenty of other Spot book choices too.
Usborne’s 100 Things to Do on a Trip cards are awesome!! Many moms punch a hole in the corner and then attach a little ring to them. The cards stay together, and are easy for the kids to flip through and do the activities. They are dry erase, so they wipe clean and can be used again and again.
I found SO many awesome ideas as I browsed through the Usborne site – I could keep listing those all day! A few of my other favorites included 100 Logic Puzzles (for Super D), sticker books, maze books, Wipe Clean books, and the Activity Packs. The Activity Packs are around $14.99, and are 3-4 books in one. The prices are really reasonable!
Another fun idea is to wrap a few little gifts like toy cars, little ponies, magna doodle boards, and crayola packs and hand them out when the munchkins get restless.
Audio books are a major favorite of ours. My kids cheer for two kinds in particular. The first is Story of the World. It’s a set of 4 audiobooks, written by Susan Wise Bauer and read aloud by the fabulous Jim Weiss. As the name suggests, they tell the history of the world, from a Christian creationist perspective, and put it into story form to keep it interesting. My husband and I are fascinated too – Story of the World is one set we listen to together!
Our second favorite audio book series is called The Brinkman Adventures. We’ve listened to Season 3, and just purchased Season 1 to take with us. This audio book is packed with family friendly adventure stories – both of the wild and crazy family nature and missionary adventures. I wrote a full review of Season 1 that you can check out —> Review: The Brinkmann Adventures, Season 3.
For fun that will only cost a couple of dollars, pipe cleaners and bendy straws can provide quite the entertainment for bored kiddos.
That list should get you started! Your turn! What are your favorite boredom-busters for long road trips?
Sarah Falk graduated from Baylor with a major in bioinformatics and is currently pursuing her Naturopathic Doctor’s degree from the Trinity School of Natural Medicine. She is a homeschooling mom to 3 and blogs at Renaissance Mama. She loves to escape to the barn for a few hours to recharge, or to sit near the lake with a chai tea latte and a good book.
