2 Kids and a Road Trip....How I prepare.

Ok, I am nowhere near an expert on this, in fact we only set off on our very first road trip as a family at Christmas 2011 but we have done a few now and I have worked out some essentials that work for us.  I have to say that my kids are very good travellers, they have travelled long distances via all different modes of transport since they were babies so as long as I have a few things for them they are happy.

As we head off for our school holidays to Airlie Beach I made up a little pack to help them with the long stints of driving, so here is what I put together.

I haven't got any photos today but I don't think you really need them.  First I got a large brown gift bag and filled it with the following (they don't know all the stuff in the bag, so some is a surprise)

• New DVD's.  We went to the shops last week and they picked 2 new ones each and then during the week I found another one they would like so I slipped that in too as a surprise.  We are lucky that we have a roof mounted dvd player in our car...a must for our family and road trips!
• A magazine each.  Just for some casual flicking through/reading.  And they love getting those little gifts they come with.
• Travel games.  We already have travel bingo. I also found quite a few new travel games on Pinterest so I printed them off, laminated them and we have them now too (we have a little pencil case in the car with whiteboard markers to play the laminated games).  They incude; a new bingo (picture below), hangman, travel battleships, dots and lines, tic tac toe.  You can find the link to them HERE.

• A few little surprise packets of chocolates and lollies.
• An activity/colouring in book with new pens and pencils.
• And lastly a pack of glow in the dark bangles for when we get there.

We also travel with plenty of snack food and I have found the best way to travel with food is to put it in a small plastic tub/box.  This way nothing gets squashed or broken and it is waterproof and crumb proof.  We have a small plastic bag for the rubbish.  I always put a large towel down under the kids too so all the crumbs etc that do escape can be shaken off at each stop (there is nothing worse than a dirty car when you're away).  I haven't decided all of what is going in the box yet.  We will definitely put in some fruit, some Shapes biscuits, I have a packet of Fantales and probably some chips etc.  

Hopefully the kids will be happy and we will be too!

Now I have to go, this was a bit of a rushed post so I hope I explained everything ok.  I'm off to see my wonderful girl dance today before we head off.  

Have a fabulous school holiday Australian peeps, I'll be back in two weeks!