In a couple of days, my family will be loading up the car for a daunting 16-hour road trip across the country. Are we crazy? Quite possibly. We are heading to my in-laws house for a visit. While we are gone, some friends will be house/dog sitting for us. Needless to say, I’ve been consumed with all of the prep work involved. I can be a bit of a perfectionist so my “to do” list may take an act of God to complete.

My oldest daughter is counting down the minutes! Her level of excitement is over the moon. At almost 5, she has absolutely no idea what it means to be trapped inside her car seat for that long. Our last road trip like this was almost 4 years ago. She was the age of our youngest daughter (just turned 1). Luckily she doesn’t remember that trip. We do, which is why we are a little nervous about how this one will play out.

I’ve been scouring the internet for ideas on how to entertain kids in the car. I think I have come up with a pretty good list of activities.

Road Trip Survival Guide Activities

1. License Plate Game – This was a staple for me growing up. Melia is just starting to read so I’m hoping it’s not too advanced. To help provide a visual, I found the best printable! Printable Paper has a map that includes a photo of the most popular versions of each state’s plates. I’m printing 2. One for each leg of the trip. Then we can see if we get more on the way there, or the way back.
2. Our Car Games – We play a lot of games in the car. Some we save for longer road trips. Cameron knew them well, Melia will be old enough this time to play them all. Here is an old post I did detailing our normal car games. These will be spread out over the trip to save us in times of boredom.
3. Milestone Countdown Surprises – I found an adorable printable from Dating Divas. They used clothes pins and string to hang their milestones in plain view. I’m thinking we will have one for each state we cross into. As we see the state sign, we will remove the milestone card, and she will get a surprise. I picked up a few activity based surprises (we will have 4 states). I picked up a Frozen sticker/activity book. Window markers to draw pictures on her window (with wipes to clean and draw again). Pipecleaners for bending, twisting, and creating things. A roll of foil for creating more things (I’m envisioning tiaras and fairy wands).
4. Personally Packed Bag of Fun – Melia is planning a few of her favorite books. Some stuffed animals and Beep (her favorite blanket). She loves to draw, write, and create so we will have construction paper, coloring books, stickers, and crayons. She begged for the glitter glue, though I’m pretty sure that one won’t make the bag.
5. Electronics – For long road trips, we break our electronics rule. We will have a DVD player. Melia is really into a collection of old cartoons we have (Betty Boop, Popeye, Tom & Jerry) and anything princess. She is just now getting to the point she will sit through movies. Our tablet and the Ninendo 3DS for playing games. Then some of her Tag Books she can use with headphones.

We’ve got 16-hours to fill. I think this will do a pretty good job. What does your family do during a road trip?