Taking road trips can be a great family experience. Our family loves them and has had a lot of success with this type of travel. Check out our road trip tips with kids in the all new 2019 Toyota Rav4 Hybrid!
Disclosure: I am partnering with Toyota. All opinions are my own.
Road Trip Tips with Kids
I was talking with a friend the other day and she told me that her kids would never last more than 2 hours in a car for a road trip. Our kids are pro’s at road trips. In the last year we have spent more than 70 hours in cars during about 5 different road trips. Recently we took a short 2 hour road trip with our kids and we were talking about how well our kids do during road trips.
As a child, I went on road trips with my family a lot. My husband on the other hand, hardly traveled. One thing we really want for our own kids is for them to be able to see different parts of our country and other countries. To save money, it is sometimes better for us to drive. Although it does take time, the experiences, stops and time we spend together is irreplaceable and so important to us.
Road tripping with kids is not always easy, but we have a few tips to help make those long drives easier. Take a look at the list below and let me know in the comments if you have any other road trip tips with kids.
- Make it comfortable: We NEVER leave the house for a trip without a blanket, pillow and loved toy for our kids. They are in carseats and they need to be comfortable when they are riding. Making sure they they have a comfortable place to lay their heads, cover when cold and snuggle up with a loved toy makes the complaints low and the naps much better.
- Be Prepared for Motion Sickness: Many kids do not realize that the reason they are not doing well in the car is because they are getting motion sick. I grew up with motion sickness, and naturally I passed that right onto our kids. So we always have a bucket and children’s motion sickness medication on hand to help curb those issues.
- Bring items to Entertain: Whatever you bring in the car, make sure that it is something your child will enjoy. My kids are not big on coloring, so we leave that at home, but they will watch movies, so we make sure to pack some movies for them to watch as we are cruising.
- Play Games: We can always keep the kids from complaining if we jump in and play some games. Sometimes we play the ABC game with road signs, or sometimes we look for and tally license plates and sometimes we play I-Spy. The games do not need to be difficult but they can easily be entertaining.
- Plan Fun Stops: You will be stopping, your kids will need to potty, to stretch those legs to just breath air that is not recycled. So plan some fun stops. Gas stations are not fun, but a side of the road random history museum or biggest horseshoe or even a ranch can be a really great stop for your kids.
- Have Food Ready: I have a bag for road trip food. NONE of it is typically healthy, but that is what we like when we are traveling. My kids know that they can ask for something to eat and there is a never-ending supply of food. Food keeps them happy. Have food!
- Go in with Zero Expectations: I have found that when I have all these expectations and plans of exactly what is going to happen, that often those trips tend to be some of our worse experiences. When I let go, and just realize that we are going to get there, we are going to find fun places to stop (thanks Internet) and we are going to enjoy time together, those trips are the best.
Check Out the Beaten Path
We recently took a short family road trip through Rocky Mountain National Park and decided that instead of staying on the main roads, we would take some time during our road trip to check out areas that we wouldn’t normally see. We went down some dirt roads and spent a lot of time just taking in nature and trying to see parts of the state that we have not been too.
We highly recommend that you do the same. Our kids best memories from this recent road trip is that we saw so many deer and elk. We would have never seen the amount of wildlife if we would have stayed on the main roads. Advice here is to STAY IN YOUR VEHICLE when you come upon these majestic animals and do not try to actively disturb them. We sat here for about 20 minutes watching these two beauties eat, and even make some calls to each other.
We went off-road just a bit, we got out of the car when there were no animals around to check out the plants and just walk around. We tried to identify different plants and we laughed a ton. Our kids love when we just enjoy the space around us and they get to check out new areas.
The Road Trip Car Matters
We have road tripped in basically every type of car. From large family SUVs, to compact cars and let me tell you that the car matters. Gas mileage matters, comfort matters, and safety matters. We were so glad to get to try out the all new 2019 Toyota Rav4 Hybrid for our most recent road trip and check out all the features and road trip capabilities.
The 2019 Rav4 Hybrid is an all new re-design, that is much sleeker and sporty. The Rav4 is bigger and looks more like a traditional SUV. The trim packages can vary, but the hybrid XSE that we checked out has a 2-toned exterior color and a sport-tuned suspension. It was a smooth ride even on dirt roads and looked great too!
I love the feel of a luxury car with the price tag that meets my bank account. The 2019 Toyota Rav4 Hybrid is beautiful and luxurious inside and out. Honestly, I loved the blue stitching and accents throughout this car. The 8 niche touch screen was fantastic and the audio was crisp and clean. The seats were easy to wipe down and I LOVED the floor mats. They had some sort of velcro type technology that made them stay put but also made it easy to clean.
The intuitive technology on this car was awesome. It was easy to use the Entune 3.0 infotainment system and Apple car play. We loved that when we were out of our own cellular service area, we could easily contact the destination services program through the system for them to send us the directions and get to where we wanted to be. The rearview mirror was digital and it was awesome to see a video streaming of what was going on behind us. I could easily charge my iPhone without a charger through their wireless system which I loved as well.
As far as safety goes, the new Rav4 Hybrid has a 5 star NHSTA rating and some of our favorite safety features. From the pre-collision system with pedestrian detection and my husbands favorite adaptive cruise control which adapts your speed to cars around you, lane-departure warning with steering assist to keep you in your lane and automatic high beams which turn on and off based on oncoming traffic.
