The kids travel packs I made (that blew up in my face)
We recently took a trip to Michigan to visit my husband’s side of the family. It is always such a treat when we get to do this, although traveling eight hours with two kidlets can be, well, challenging.
This time I decided to be more strategic in my attempts to keep the backseat happy. So I put together a kids travel pack for our 7-year old and 1-year old. I originally got the idea from my friends over at The Domestic Four.
I picked up two plastic containers from the Dollar General store for $1 apiece.
Then I headed over to the Dollar Tree to fill each container with fun items to keep the littles busy during the trip.
Here’s what I picked up for our girl:
And here’s what I got for our toddler (aka “Destructo Boy”):
I gave them each one item from their respective travel pack about every hour, so they would continue to have something to look forward to along the way.
Overall, the packs were a great success, EXCEPT for the fact that I think they triggered car sickness in our 7-year old. I had purchased a few small games and reading the instructions may have brought on the car sickness.
Also, if you decide to do something similar, be prepared for your backseat to look like a dumpster when it all shakes down.
Our daughter still tells her friends about the “special pack” she got when she went on her trip to Michigan, despite the fact she got sick. So I’m giving the travel packs a thumbs up … with a warning. If you have kids that are prone to car sickness, be sure to choose your items carefully.
Happy traveling this summer! 🙂
I did something similar for my 5 yo last time we went to my in-laws (about 6.5 – 7 hours) and it worked great. Luckily, she is not prone to car sickness!
About 18 years ago, I did something similar with our youngest five kids when we had to make a three day car trip from Ontario to Saskatchewan, to take eldest son and friend to college….then the return trip we came back thru the states to visit our eldest in Chicago. The age range of the kids at the time was 12, 9,7,4 and three. I purchased these plastic boxes that opened and closed like a suitcase …we called them their buddy boxes. Since we had a full size 14 sweater van the boxes could fit under their seat area and they were able to access them when the wanted them…..we didn’t have a lot of money, so we told the kids they could fill their buddy boxes with their favourite treasures, ( small enough to fit) which they did…I think I did buy some colouring books and crayons for the little ones…but they were thrilled and just this past week, in purging the stuff from the basement we came across two of them! We also borrowed a pile of Odyssey tapes (CDs hadn’t been developed yet) from the church library, and the kids (and us the parents) were pleased at how attentive they listened to the recorded stories.
What a beautiful story … and memory for your family, Marie. You definitely had your hands full with all those kids, for sure. 🙂 I love the Adventures in Odyssey stories. We used to watch those on VHS, too.