We are wrapping up our first LONG road trip as a family of 5. Ok, let’s be real, it’s my first long road trip since I was a little kid!
Our family of 5 (our kids are ages 4, 7 and 8) went on a 12 day road trip that started in Minnesota, went out to Washington state, down through Bend and Boise, through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and back up through North Dakota and back home.
We packed up our SUV with what we thought would get us by for 8 very long days of driving (the longest days of driving were 12 hours in the car which was about 15 hours on the road when you factor in potty breaks).
I’m happy to say that the majority of the things we brought were well used. We did have the benefit of doing a shorter road trip (just from Minnesota to South Dakota) last fall so I had a decent idea of what would work and what wouldn’t.
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Road Trip Essentials
I’ll go through each in depth or just shop them all on my Amazon storefront!
1. Zippered Pouches
Zippered pouches are a mom’s best friend at home AND on the road! I picked up this pack specifically for the road and it was perfect.
I used the smaller bags for things like stickers, markers, and smaller toys. The larger ones I put games (Guess Who and Tapple were a hit on the road) and LeapFrog books for our youngest.
The best thing that I did was take the largest ones and fill them with a variety of snacks. We went to Costco and stocked up on a variety of snacks so I made daily snack bags with a mix of all the snacks we bought. That way each day I just needed to grab one snack bag to have at my feet rather than having to make continuous stops for different types of snacks. It was the best!
2. Trunk Organizer
We love our trunk organizer in daily life – I keep picnic blankets, spare hats and umbrellas for unexpected weather, bug spray, etc.
As mentioned above, I made snack bags for each so I put those in the trunk organizer along with hiking shoes that we would need access to for rest stops, extra books to swap out for the kids, hats and a few other things. It really helps to keep things all in one spot!
3. Long Trunk Organizer
*This is a look at our middle row on the very last day of the 12 hour trip! You can see the middle trunk organizer FULL of books – I joke that we brought a small library with us but it helped so our kids only did about an hour total of screen time the entire trip so I’ll take the copious amounts of books!
We also use one long trunk organizer for in between 2 of our kids filled with all the things (books, coloring, leapfrog, etch-a-sketch) etc. We realized that having things easily in reach for our kids helped prevent boredom or whining at us to get stuff for them!
4. Cooler That Plugs In
This is actually something that we borrowed from a neighbor for our first road trip and it was so helpful! It plugs in to your car so you don’t need to use ice packs. You do need to bring it in each night which is a little annoying but not having to deal with ice was great.
We had things like go-gurt, drinks, fruit, breakfast cookies, etc for on the road and at our destination.
5. Hooks
Another thing we use in daily life are these hooks! We used them for the kids backpacks to give them easy access to them.
6. Charger With Retractable Cords
This was perfect for keeping our phones charged all day long as we were using them for directions, podcasts, music and all the things. I even used them for my computer!
This is perfect for not losing any cords and also keeping things a bit more organized since the cords retract. There’s also spots where you can plug things in if you need different types of chargers!
7. Charger With Apple Watch Charger
If you’re someone like me who sleeps with your watch on (I track my sleep and also use it as my alarm), then your watch will likely need a charge during the day.
I use this one daily in real life (we always keep one in our car since inevitably our phone will be dead at the start of our kids soccer game) and I used it daily on the road to keep my watch charged!
8. Washable White Board Markers
I make car finders and BINGO for my kids to have in the car and laminate them so they can use them over and over again. I learned the hard way that most white board markers aren’t actually washable so that’s when I went on a hunt and got these!
9. Retractable Markers
One thing I learned on our first road trip was that markers with caps were really hard for our youngest who is still in a carseat. He would drop the cap and not be able to pick them up which would result in a cap-less marker which not only caused messes but also dried out more than a few makers.
These were perfect not only for our youngest but our older kids loved them too! Nobody lost caps and no markers dried out. They’re a bit more of a splurge but worth it in my opinion.
10. Zipper Pouches
I made the kids activity binders full of activity sheets, coloring pages and more. I included 2 of these zipper pouches for them. One had the markers above and the other one had things like pens, pencils, etc.
11. Barf Bags
This is the item I hope you never have to use but you will be so glad you do if/when it gets used. Whether it’s car sickness (more on ways to prevent that next) or just a random upset stomach, these will save your car (and your sanity).
12. Sea Bands
I’ve been using sea bands off and on since I was a kid and they really help. I found them to be the best option for my daughter. she kept them on almost every drive and did great.
I also wore them along with one of our sons and again, they helped a lot! When we were feeling really bad we would on on the motion sick glass.
13. Motion Sick Glasses
I took a chance on these because my daughter and I can get super bad car sick and I knew we were going to do a lot of driving in a lot of curvy roads so I was willing to try anything.
I spent over 3 hours driving in the very back seat of our SUV (which is usually a sure way to get me sick) to and from Mount Rainer (read: very windy roads) with both the bands and the glasses on and I didn’t get the least bit sick. Yes, you look pretty silly but it’s totally worth it!
They’re super inexpensive and unbreakable and surprisingly very comfortable. If you’re someone who gets car sick try them out!
The One Thing I Don’t Recommend
There’s a few things that I feel like you see all over social media as a “must have” but one that I don’t think you need is:
Car Garbage Can
With so many things in the car that are a bit more necessary, we never used ours on our trip. I also didn’t want one kid responsible for the garbage can and instead had each child put their trash in their door and I just emptied them all out every stop we made.
I hope this helps the next time you pack up the car for a fun family adventure!