Ways to Entertain Children on the Road

Summertime means vacation time for many families, whether it is just a day trip to the beach or a week long trip to the mountains. Although the hassles of traveling can be frustrating at times, they are normally worth it, as vacations are often among the happiest memories of childhood for many adults. For anyone traveling with small children the complications of traveling can be a little trickier. From comparatively smaller bladders to generally far shorter attention spans, road trips with little ones often take much longer due to a greater number of stops along the way. While many vehicles today come equipped with televisions for playing DVDs and many other children have their own gameboys (and their successive descendents), many families still have not turned to these modern conveniences to entertain their children during long road trips. For anyone like this who is traveling this summer, whether by airplane, bus, train, or personal vehicles, here is a list of things to bring/ways to entertain little ones during the long hours spent traveling.

1) Books: If you have an older sibling or another parent who can read aloud in a moving vehicle without feeling car sick, children will love the moments spent listening to a fascinating story. If your children are old enough to read on their own, try going to the library before a trip to allow them to pick out a few books for them to read on the road. If your little ones are still too young to read, having a few good and colorful picture books along is still a great way to keep them entertained for a bit.

2) Books on tape (or cd's): Similar to the book idea, books on tape can actually be entertaining for children without requiring anyone within the car to be doing the reading. Try to get a children's story that has good voice actors, to keep the story's reading more interesting.

3) Coloring books (or just crayons and paper): Perfect for any child who is going to be spending a lot of time on an airplane or a train (which is typically smoother than a road surface), coloring supplies are essential for the creative child to enjoy passing the time on a trip. Children's activity books (with pictures to color and puzzles to figure out) also fall into this category and are a great upgrade/alternative for older children.

4) A few small toys: While you won't want to be bringing along their entire closet, it is still a great idea to allow your children to pick out a few toys to bring along on a trip. Try to bring along larger items (such as a doll as opposed to Legos) so that your chance of losing them along the trip is slimmer. Medium sized stuffed animals or a few action figures are great toys to bring along the road.

5) Travel games: From counting the number or red cars that pass by the window to finding all of the letters of the alphabet on car's license plates or road signs, travel games can be a great and educational way to involve every member of the family in an entertaining way during a road trip.