Hello! So me and my family are driving down to Florida from Virginia. We are going to have a couple of kids and its just going to be a long drive anyway. Is there anything we can do to make it go quicker, any games we can play to keep the kids happy, any snacks to bribe them with that wont send them over the sugar edge.
If you don't have one you may want to invest in a portable DVD player. They are cheap and will keep the kids occupied for hours. Another thing you could do is keep them distracted buy pointing out to landmarks and having them look at them. You also could get them excited about the park and ask them what they want to do when they get there etc. Greg
Portable DVD players or ipads are probably the easiest. If you're looking for non-electronic forms of entertainment, my parents used to give my sister and I a list of all 50 states and had us check each state off as we saw a license plate from that state. Since we were very competitive, that kept us occupied for hours since we didn't want to loose.
I agree with all the above. We still do the 50 states thing, there is an app for it. We drive from NJ every summer and sometimes in December too!
I love the 50 states thing. I even thought about somehow making it a competition between the cars. There be 2 cars in one group and 3 in the other group. We're probably going to meet up at some point on the way. We do have a the phones and tablets. I also thought, at least for my car, there will be 4 riders, we could each pick 3 of our favorite cd's and play 1 for each of house every 4 hours. I think that will make the time go by faster. I read a suggestion about a Kingdom Keeper Series. Can someone fill me in on what this is. Thanks for the suggestions, LaKiya
Thank You Elinder! Those sound interesting. I never would have thought to write a series about a theme park. Have you read them? I think I'll get the audiobook to listen to on the way down there. My likes to listen to them while driving and it'll be a great topic for the occasion. Thanks for the suggetion.
As for snacks, you might want to make it a mix of healthy stuff like fruits and veggies with a few treats on the side like a bag of their favorite cereals. If it's going to be an especially long trip, a few sandwiches would be nice. Remember to bring water bottles and sunscreen and ask them every now and then if they have to use the restroom (or make sure they use it every stop or so along the way). Also, beware of spills. If their dexterity isn't excellent, stuff that can spill and make stains and attract bugs will do so. I don't recommend things like chocolate milk or apple juice, even if they're in boxes.
Great tips, guys! We drive from Ohio down to Orlando so I feel you! Also, is it bad that I'm an adult and find those Kingdom Keepers books interesting? I kind of want to read them now.
We always print out papers with the states on them and then everyone marks off the state when they see a license plate from there. You'll probably be traveling on I95 like we do from the northeast, and the number of states and Canadian provinces is always a lot higher than we're expecting to see. We also make a game out of finding the Pedro's South of the Border billboards. They used to start soon after we were past Virginia, but the last few years there seem to be fewer of them than there were in the past. They're fun to read. We also make up songs as we're going along. Oh, and you could do a little research about landmarks for the kids to watch for. Things like Pedro's (on the border between North and South Carolina), the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum's plane by the side of the road (Pooler, GA), the beautiful Lake Marion to drive over... well, lots of landmarks to look for, including all of the state's welcome signs.
I love to take road trips as this is part of the whole vacation experience. I like to sit in the passenger seat so that I can take pictures along the way of everything we see. We are going to be driving to Disney next year when we go to visit.
