Stress-free travel with small children
Tiny hotel room with a lot of small children? No problem! Read how we combat this and other obstacles and comfortably travel with six kids ages 10 and under.
1. Set realistic expectations. When we were kids, we had to look up hotels before we left home and set a schedule for each day based upon our stopping point. In todays world, with booking apps at our fingertips, you can find a decent hotel almost anywhere. Aside from the one location we spent 3 consecutive nights, we didn’t know where we were going to stay until half an hour before we stopped each night.
2. Know that potty breaks will happen regularly. Encourage all passengers to try, even if they don’t feel like going.
3. Pack mess-free, healthy snacks. Ok, with kids nothing is mess-free. But we CAN be intentional to eliminate the need for snacks, or at least have filling snacks that eliminate cost, waste, and mess. For this trip (over 40 hours round trip in 10 days!) we brought along carrot sticks, fruit leather, granola bars and freeze dried fruits. We are on day 10 today and haven’t even gone through the small amount we brought along. I attribute that to encouraging the kids to eat a well rounded breakfast at the hotels that include protein (even if it’s just peanut butter toast and yogurt! Protein goes a long way for full tummies.)
4. Hotels: if your kids are small, turn them sideways on the bed. Our boys ages 8, 6, and 4 easily sleep sideways on a double-sized bed. In fact, that’s what they prefer do at home even though they have two beds in their room!
5. Most hotels have complimentary pack n plays for littles, and most will accommodate giving extra blankets. Usually, we try to get two queen beds and a pull out sofa. Last night, we made a pallet on the floor for our 10 year old (she said she was a cowgirl on her bedroll) and emptied out the suitcase for the baby. (Funny, but it worked!)
6. Travel light! I cannot stress this enough. 3 outfits for kids, 2 for adults. Do laundry at the hotel. This minimizes the luggage you’re carrying in and out every day.
7. Along those same lines, don’t bring STUFF in the vehicle. This may shock some, but we intentionally chose a vehicle without a dvd player and we don’t bring electronics along or allow toys. Our kids can have a notebook and pencil, a book, and this time we brought an etch a sketch. They entertain each other and we do a lot of audio books. Some of our favorite audio books are: the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody, Real Cool History for Kids podcast, Louis L’Amour, The Boxcar Children, and Little House on the Prairie books.
8. We don’t eat in the van, other than the snacks I mentioned before. Drive throughs are expensive, unhealthy, and don’t really save much time. None of us like fast food, it makes us sick, and makes the car stink. We stop and picnic or go in to good (semi quick) restaurants once or maybe twice a day.
9. Focus on the scenery and enjoy the ride! We live in a beautiful country with endless sights to see and things to learn. Much of what we did on this trip was totally free and things many people don’t realize exist! Don’t be so concerned with the end destination that you miss the “roses” along the way.