Kate's Take Travels - Entertaining Kids On The Road

I was in Whole Foods earlier this week buying magazines and snacks for our upcoming road trip. I haven't read a magazine in ages so I'm thrilled about the prospect! While checking out one of my kids told the cashier about our travels and she asked me how I planned to keep the kids entertained. I'll admit this is our first multi-day, 15 hour+ adventure so I don't know exactly how they will handle the trip but I do have some ideas on how we will keep them entertained. Read on for my TAKE on how to keep kids entertained on the road.

Aside from the occassional movie and iPad apps the kids spend their time in a variety of different ways and fingers crossed sleep a little! Some our favorite ways to pass the time are listening to audiobooks like I talked about in this post, play magnetic games and during this trip we'll be tracking our progress in our favorite book about The 50 States along with these printable maps that I found on Mr. Printables.

For all trips the kids get their travel backpacks filled with fun snacks that I don't often allow in the house like fruit snacks and a couple of items to entertain them. I'm trying something new this trip and we're surprising the kids with a gift as we pass into each new state. I remember my mom doing this when we were little and I've been saving this idea for our first multi-day road trip. I was a bit overzealous and decided to free hand the states that we would be driving through on these labels from Paper Source. My husband could not contain himself over the inaccuracy of my drawings but I'm hoping the kids can decipher them. 

We're hoping the added incentive of a surprise in each state will encourage them to be well behaved. I tried to select items that would engage them like this Melissa and Doug activity pad, MindWare Imagination Magnets and Plus-Plus Basic. I'm most excited to try this Travel Scavenger Hunt game and of course, to have them open up their surprises along the way. Wish us luck!