Great Tips for a Fun and Affordable Road Trip with Kids

Parents considering taking a road trip with their kids may think that they are setting themselves up for a lot of miserable hours cooped up in the car with cranky kids, or that this type of vacation will bleed their bank account dry. The truth is, that making a road trip out of your vacation not only has the potential to be a lot of fun, but also educational and reasonably affordable. Before you dismiss the thought of taking a road trip with your kids, consider these tips and bits of advice. You may find that a road trip with the kids is a great option for your family vacation this year!

MAKE THE MOST OF THE PLANNING STAGES

A road trip can be an extremely educational experience for kids, particularly those road trips with many planned stops along the way. To enhance the educational benefit of a road trip, include your children in the planning stages. Pull out the road atlas, show them routes that will be taken, as well as sights and attractions that you have planned to stop and visit along the way. Do a little web surfing during the days and weeks leading up to the trip, to show the kids where you will be going, places they can expect to see, etc. Remember, this may be the only time your children visit these places, so make the most of the experience!

PUT TOGETHER YOUR OWN ROAD TRIP GUIDEBOOK

For a two week long road trip and vacation that my husband and I took our children on five years ago, I created an itinerary for the entire trip. Since we were traveling from the Los Angeles area all the way up to Canada, we had planned to make several stops along the way to various tourist attractions and national parks. Having a plan for each day not only made the planning stages of our vacation more fun and exciting, but also came in tremendously handy while we were on the actual road trip.

Creating this guidebook was a lot of fun, and the best way I found to do it was to get a flexible report cover with three prong fasteners, and use labeled dividers to create a section for each day of our trip. Within each section, I placed our itinerary for that day, maps and directions we would need for that day's travel and sightseeing, printouts from attraction, hotel, and campground websites containing directions, contact info, schedules, and any associated prices and costs, as well as space to jot down notes incase I needed to call for directions, etc. Since we were traveling to Canada, I also secured all of our birth certificates, each in it's own page protector, in the rear of the guidebook for easy access. If you prefer, you could use a thin 3-ring binder for the same purpose. While visiting all of our destinations, we stuck any stickers, parking passes and other memoribalia that would normally just get thrown away into the pages of the guidebook. This way, the guidebook became a sort of souvenir in itself, one that we have kept all this time.

CONSIDER CAMPING

There are so many terrific places across the United States for camping, that it makes a great deal of sense for those considering a road trip with kids to consider taking advantages of the benefits of camping. One of the most appealing aspects of camping during a road trip, is that the cost for a camp site at most campgrounds is typically $25 or less, making it very affordable. Kids love camping, and these days the tents sold are so easy to set up that the kids could practically do it themselves! Tents are very affordable too, even very large ones with multiple rooms are generally under $100 at discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target.

PLAN MEALS AHEAD OF TIME

Most people would agree, that a major cost during any vacation is food and meals. If you plan ahead of time how many meals per day you will be eating in restaurants, and how many you will be making yourselves out of the ice chest in the car, or even preparing at a campsite, you will find that you save money. Additionally, putting the effort into planning meals now, will no doubt save you some stress and time during your road trip.