Car Travel Tips

Do's and Don'ts of Traveling by Car

Beat the "are we there yets?" with these easy car travel tips.

Have some of your own tips you'd like to share? E-mail us and we'll include them in the list, send your do's and don'ts for car travel to: car travel tips@The-Best-Vacation-Destinations.com.

Decide do your kids do better in the early morning or evening hours for traveling? Which ever it is plan your travel to match, for this editor our kids don't travel well in the morning they do much better if we leave after 2:00pm and travel into the evening.
Stock your car with:

Favorite pre-bagged snacks for everyone even parents.
A cooler with lots of water and favorite drinks.
Colored pencils, crayons, a few coloring books, sticker books, travel games, travel journal for older kids

Take along Gameboys & games, personal CD/cassette players (even for little kids), and you can get books on tape from the library.
Do consider a portable DVD player, this makes 5 or 6 hour a day seem like 2 hours. It also cuts a lot of the unnecessary stops as the kids are involved in the movie playing.
Here's a great packing tip form a mom of 3. To avoid the difficulty of hauling in a suitcase for every person into a hotel for the 1 night stops. Pack a 3 day bag into which each person contributes 3 days worth of clothes. This way you take one suitcase of clothes in every three days.
Do pack a lightweight table cloth for outdoor lunch stops along the way.
Do get postcards from every major destination along the way

All kids are different but in general don't drive as far as the adults can go in one day, try to keep car travel to a 6 to 8 hour range of time.
Don't fill the inside of the car to the brim causing less space for the kids, instead consider a car topper for safe keeping of your belongings.