Are We There Yet?

Will you be traveling a long distance with children this Thanksgiving or perhaps another holiday coming up? Traveling with children can be, well, interesting to say the least! Surviving the drive to your holiday destination does not have to be a nightmare, so don’t worry; just have a game plan in place to help reduce your holiday stress! At least there are portable DVD players these days; they didn’t have those around when I was a kid!


One super-mom I know shared one of her travel secrets with me recently, her advice, drive at night. I think that this is such a great idea. Your children can be safely strapped in the back seat sleeping while you make the long trek to wherever it is you are going. The silence will allow for you to better pay attention to where you are going and what is happening on the road. Also, you will feel more relaxed not having a screaming kid(s) in the back or being repeatedly bombarded with that all time favorite question, “Are we there yet?” Another bonus to traveling at night, the roads should have less traffic on them since most people will be traveling during the day! So if you can make the trip at night I say, go for it!


If you can not travel at night or your kids are not sleeping even if you do, make sure you have lots of entertainment for them! Portable DVD players are great to take on a road trip if you can afford to purchase one. Your kid(s) will be distracted by whatever you throw up on the screen which will keep them happy and hopefully quiet. If you have headphones for the little ones to use that is even better, no distraction for you whatsoever!

There are also so many travel games out there to keep your children occupied during a long drive! There are even games you can play that don’t require you to purchase a thing! Play the license plate game. When I was a kid my sister and I would play the license plate game for hours! I think there are many versions of this game in existence but here is how we did it…Look out the window and look for license plates from different states; whoever spots the most license plates from the most states is the winner! Nice and simple, isn’t it? This game can also be played by replacing the state the car is from with what color the car is. Use your imagination to come up with more game ideas like this for hours of entertainment!


There are also a million different board games with travel editions on the market these days. You can get everything from travel Apples to Apples to travel Scrabble. So no matter what age(s) your kid(s) are you will be able to find something fun for them to play while you travel!