Travel With Kids

With the unofficial start of summer starting today, many families are planning summer trips. Your family may choose a long trip or a day trip. As parents we all dread the question "Are we there yet?"

With a little preparing you can make traveling with your little ones enjoyable and stress-free by following these simple tips:

1. When possible, travel at night or get a very early morning start to your trip and let the kids sleep. But be cautious, because it's easy to get tired.

2. If you plan to travel during the day try stopping about every 90 minutes. By planning ahead, and using travel planning websites, you can find kid-friendly places such as parks with playgrounds, historic monuments to giving the kids a 15 minute break to work off some energy.

3. 1,000 bottles of root beer on the wall or B-I-N-G-O can really help to pass the time, and create some happy or sad memories depending on how good of a singer you are.

4. Create a goodie-bag. Toys, games, bubbles, coloring books can all help pass the time during a long trip. Bring toys related to your small stops, like footballs, Frisbees or soccer balls, which will encourage running off energy.

5. Have your children do quiet activities. Such as creating postcards or writing paper, or a journal to document where you’re going or where you have been on your trip. They can also practice the lost art of letter writing to friends they miss at home.

6. Of course if you need to you can always fall back on the hand-held games, CD and portable DVD players with earphones.

Let each child pack their own box or backpack of activities that way you can make sure they will like what they brought and it will keep their things organized and accessible.