Part 2 How I spent my summer vacation: A guide to traveling with kids

This is the second of a three-part series on traveling with kids.  Come back next week for Part 3!

Today's post is about how to handle the "road" part of a road trip and where to stay when you get there.

Pit Stops

There are two kinds of pit stops. In the first kind, the word pit is a reference to the pit in car races when a race car stops to quickly refuel and get it's tires checked.  The main characteristic of this type of pit stop is it's incredible speed in getting back onto the track.  However, there is also a second type of pit stop which shares the same name but for vastly different reasons.  You may be familiar with this type of pit stop, the main characteristic of this type is that it seems to last forever and you feel as if you will never get back on the road.  You are symbolically stuck in a "pit."   This is how it goes for my family:  I stop to get gas. I ask if anyone needs to pee, and one kid gets out. My husband takes one child in to go potty while I pump the gas.  Five minutes later child number two declares they need to pee.  I assign child two a potty buddy, and the two of them enter the gas station together.   I finish pumping gas and get back into the car with two remaining children.  We pull up to the front of the store and park. Then we wait. And wait.  Then child number one pops his head out of the gas station door waving a candy bar.  Children four and five immediately jump out of the car and run into the store.  And I wait. And I wait.  Eventually I get tired of waiting, so I go in to see what the hold up is.  Child number three can't decide on a treat (why are we buying treats when we have a car full of snacks?  ask my husband!) and child number two is still in the bathroom.  Eventually husband and all five kids return to the car with snack in hand, and after only twenty-five minutes we are back on the road again.  Fifteen minutes later, child number one announces that he has to pee again.
           
When planning a pit stop, you have to really think about what it is you are stopping for.  Do you just need gas or a potty break?  Do the kids need a break to run around?  Is it more important to get there quickly, or to get there happily? A lot of times, kids just need a few minutes to run around.  This can mean pulling over for five minutes to read one of those historical placards beside the road. It only takes a minute, but that may be just enough to get everyone ready to go again.
 

For years we made the ten hour trip from Provo, UT to Phoenix, AZ several times each year.  We would always stop at the McDonald's in St. George because it was the halfway point of our trip. We would spend an hour or more hanging out there letting the kids run themselves to the point of exhaustion.  At the time, most of our kids were in diapers, so we didn't have to make any bathroom breaks for them, so we could get by with just one long stop in the middle of the trip (special note- we always put our recently potty trained kids back in diapers for long trips, it's just easier, we tell them all big kids wear diapers on long trips *wink*wink*).  Now that our kids are out of diapers (Hooray!!), it means a lot more potty breaks, so instead of one long break, we take several short ones.  Stopping at McDonald's is never short.  Lines are long, kids want to play forever.  So if you want a quick break, try a rest stop instead.  Kids can run around, everyone can eat a snack and take a potty break, and you can be loaded back up in the car in a matter of minutes.  We've also perfected the drive through drive by.  We pull up to a fast food restaurant. One parent and all the kids run in to go potty. The other parent goes to the drive-through and orders some food.  Everyone in the potty has to be done and waiting outside the doors by the time the car pulls back around the building.  Anyone not on time gets left behind, just kidding (well mostly, I did nearly leave my own mother behind once because she was taking waaaay too long in the bathroom).

On our trip this summer we were all tired and eager to get to our destination, so we only made one pit stop (aside from one brief stop to let a toddler pee on the side of the road- but that doesn't count). Halfway through the drive we stopped to fill up with gas and everyone went potty (no side trips for candy this time!).  Then it was back in the car and go, go, go!

Car Entertainment

I am a purist when it comes to having fun in the car.  We do not have a T.V. in our car.  Our kids do not bring electronic gadgets. No one owns an i-anything. 

What we do have are books and notebooks.  I get carsick, so I never read, but luckily most of my kids can easily read in the car.  Little kids also get books so they can be read to.  Everyone also gets a travel journal. This is a notebook I make before the trip filled with worksheets and puzzles to keep them busy along with several blank pages to write in every day to help them remember the trip.  My proudest travel-mommy-moment was a few years ago when I pointed out some cows on the side of the road and my four year old shouted, "Oh my gosh! Where's my travel journal?"  We write in our travel journals in the car during the day, and at night before we go to bed.  They are so fun to look back on even just a year or two later.

For those who can't read in the car, you can always try audio books. If you like torture that is. We tried it three times. Two of the books were completely torturous to listen to out loud.  We tried The Hobbit once, and it was okay, but our beast of a mini-van isn't exactly quiet, so we couldn't understand most of the story through those thick dwarvish accents. But I hear some people do like audio books, and you can get them free at the library, so try it at your own risk, I guess.

We also pack a few quiet games, like a Rubik's cube or an I Spy puzzle (Kate makes awesome homemade I Spy packs!).  Anything quiet and self contained will do.  The travel sized Hungry-Hungry-Hippos game was a mistake I will not make twice!!

When that fun wears out, there are plenty of great family games to be played aloud in the car. Searching for the alphabet in street signs along the road.  Naming every song you can think of that has the word "dog" in it.  Holding our breath on bridges and screaming in tunnels. Resist the impulse to entertain your kids.  Most kids are use to constant bombardment of media. Let vacation be a break from that, and give their little brains a chance to learn how to handle themselves. And if all else fails, they will eventually get bored and fall asleep, right?
 

The hardest part of travel for little kids can be their inability to measure time.  A trip seems like forever when you don't know how long it will take. And even if you've answered the, "How much longer?" question a million times, your answer will still be meaningless to your toddler.  I do have two techniques I use to help my toddlers gauge the length of our trip.  First is the Dora Method.  We pick two major landmarks and repeat them all through the trip.  "First we go through the tall forest, then we cross over the big dam, and then we get to Grandma's house!"  Then when we pass through the tall forest, the toddler recognizes that you are making progress on your trip.  The next method is using your body as a map.  When we leave our house we say we are at our toes, and the top our our heads is our destination.  When the kids ask how much farther we have to go or where we are, we give answers like "We are at your knees" or "We are almost to your eyebrows!"  Again this helps kids to see that we are progressing towards our destination and the trip won't last forever.

During the ninth hour of a ten hour trip my three year old once asked, "How much longer?"  I told her we'd be there in  a few more minutes.  My five year old (who could tell time and liked to be precise) began to argue that we were in fact still more than 30 minutes away.  I explained to her that toddlers can't tell time, so an answer of 5 minutes is just as good as an answer of 30 minutes.  I told her that we could say anything, and it wouldn't matter.  My five year old then turned to her sister and said, "Don't worry, we'll be there in a circus."  It seemed as good an answer as any, and it has been our traveling motto ever since.  We'll be there in a circus!  That about sums up most of our trips.

Lodging

So where do you stay with lots of kids?  That is a tough question. We like to camp, because it is inexpensive, and we have as much room to run around as we want. Camping is my number one go to option for family adventure. Not only is it the cheapest option, but camping is the fastest way to bring your family together and leave the world behind.  Looking to clear your mind? Get up into the mountains.  Need a place to teach good values to your children? Try wandering in the wilderness (think Israelites here). As a family we have camped with all ages of kids from 3 weeks old on up.  Camping with kids who crawl is the hardest, but we just pack a port-a-crib and lock them up, errr... I mean contain them for their own safety and well being.
      
We also love to stay with friends.  Not only is it super cheap (I mean free) but in many ways it's more fun.  The kids have playmates, the adults get to stay up late socializing and playing games with friends, and you aren't cramped on top of each other the way you would be in a hotel.  I know this isn't the best option for everyone. Some people really like their privacy (sadly my husband is one of those people), but it is at least an option worth considering.  I LOVE having people come to stay with us.  Kate and her family come to visit us every summer, and they always stay at our house.  If she ever got a hotel, I would be totally offended.  Hotels can be hard for big families because you have to have two rooms, and not all hotels have adjoining rooms.  I hate having to split up, and I hate even more having to walk down a public hallway to reach the other half of my family.

When we do stay in hotels, we try to always get two adjoining rooms.  Even when we were a small family and could fit into one room, it was always better to get two.  It is so hard to get a baby/toddler to fall asleep in a room crowded with fun people.  After many years of laying on the bed in the dark pretending to sleep while we waited for our toddler to tire out, we finally gave up and started getting a second room, so that we could put the baby down in one room and then slip next door and read or watch TV while waiting for the baby to finally fall asleep.  For us, hotels must have two things: an indoor pool and free breakfast.  The pool is often the most exciting part of the trip for our kids, and being able to swim right after breakfast or just before bed is a real treat.  Personally I love hotel breakfasts. My favorite type of food is anything that's cooked by somebody else.  So waking up to a warm meal that I didn't have to make is awesome!   To take a family of seven to Denny's could easily cost $50 or more. So if you get that same quality of food at your hotel for free, that almost pays for the cost of the second room!

This summer we spent part of our time in cabins near the beach and part of our time staying at our friends' house (thanks Nick and Shannon!).  The cabins were a step up from camping because they had a bathroom/shower and a kitchen!  They were much better than a hotel because they were in a fun forest location, and the kids could run around outside all they wanted.  And the best part is they were super cheap. They were much nicer than most of the places we looked at, and yet still cheaper than even the worst motels.

                     

Getting excited about taking a trip with your kids yet? Labor Day is coming up! Come back next week for more ways to have fun without breaking the bank!

Marcia