Remodeling This Life

Lynnae over at Being Frugal posted this excellent article about Vacation Tips For Traveling With Children that I have found very useful this week in preparing for our vacation in a few days. Because my kids are 3 and 15 months, I have had to make some special considerations for the needs that go along with travel at those ages. We are driving approximately 1500 miles - considering sometimes a trip to Target is too far before the whining starts, I have been preparing accordingly.

Lynnae has some really excellent tips and I am doing most of them with a little tweak here and there for our needs.

For our trip, here’s what I am doing.

Travel

• We have chosen to do our driving during the day. But we are simplifying things by not over extending ourselves or the kids by taking our mornings slowly, getting breakfast at the hotel and playing in the pool and then piling into the car at around 11 or 12 each day right in time for the toddler’s nap and driving for 6 hours. It’s not the most efficient way, but we think it will buy us the most quiet hours in the car without having to drive at night.
• I have packed lots of entertainment for the car. My mom has a car DVD player so we’ll have that for my 4 year old and I bought her a brand new movie so that it’s new and exciting and she’ll watch it quietly. I also made sure to pack lots of crayons and activity books and her LeapPad for the car. She’s really into reading signs right now too, so I am sure we’ll do lots of games involving finding letters and words on signs as we drive. The key will be to keep things simple and interesting for everyone.
• I’m stocking the cooler with snacks and drinks for everyone. Less stops for every little tummy rumble will save time and money. I’ll pack string cheese, goldfish, granola bars, crackers, and a few other favorites. For drinks, I’ve purchased a backup pack of sippy cups because somehow we always lose the lids. It’s like the missing sock in the pair. No idea where they go. And the last thing we need is open cups in the car.

Packing

• I think I packed pretty lightly, considering we are going away for 6 weeks. I got all of my clothes into a medium duffel and all my kids clothes into a medium shared duffel. To simplify our stops at hotels at night, I have a separate tote packed with clothes and swimsuits just for the 3 days in the car. That way, I am not digging through the car every night and going through all of their vacation clothes for a couple days worth of outfits. I have packed extra clothes for the car taking into consideration that my kids will spill and be messy and need to change their clothes at least once per day.
• I am bringing large ziplock bags to put dirty clothes in from those travel days in the car. I’ll have a stain stick on hand, and clean up wipes for hands and faces in the car.
• For me, I plan to bring a lot of my favorite things to do that I don’t get to do often enough because of kids climbing on me. I’ll have my sewing with me, some magazines, and I imagine a few hot Starbucks coffees

I am hopeful this will be our best travel and vacation yet. I think it will be because both my mom and I have gone out of our way to plan and make this drive as simple as possible for all of us. We want it to be relaxing and not rushed so we feel like our vacation is starting the moment we leave home, and not a bunch of stress and chaos until we reach our destination.

June 11th, 2008 | Category: Simplifying | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL