Traveling for me is a toss up between, "Yay, I am so happy to get away," and the reality of "Oh, wow, there is a lot to do just to get us on the road." It becomes a part-time job between organizing and preparing as I anticipate being the "flight attendant" in the car. I always have a decision to make; I could wait till the last minute leaving my husband and kids to do most of the work, or I can plan ahead and be joyful in the preparations. This is the difference between choosing to have a whiny trip where we are bound to be missing items or a happier, well-prepared one where we all are on the same page.
My goal is to have us ready for what I call, "the grab-and-go stage." These past several years, most of our travel started before the crack of dawn due to living so far away from family and friends. This means everything is in one place the night before we leave so we can load and leave with less chance of forgetting something. If I prepare well, our only jobs the morning we depart is to load the van, double-check on the pets (who will be cared for by someone else), turn off the lights, fix the thermostat, fill up the travel mugs, and rinse out the coffee pot.
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Prior to our trip we would sit down as a family after dinner and discuss any details the kids wanted to know. We discussed the dates we would be away, where we would be staying, what kind of items they would want to bring, the all-important decision of how many stuffed animals each child could bring, and what items they needed us to purchase. We would also write down a snack wish list.
In the past I would draw a calendar schedule with my children including little pictures of our vacation plans. This helped keep the endless daily questions I would get to a minimum. They would just look at their "vacation calendar" to see what we would be doing each day. I have done similar calendars over the holidays when we would have a lot of activities and visits scheduled. My kids are older now but sometimes they still like me to do the funny little drawings.
The most stressful part of travel for us all, hands down, is what I call, "point A to point B," aka getting everything and everyone out the door and into the van. Having the "grab and go" system ready the day before is our best method. Each child preps their own space with a pillow, blanket, the decided amount of stuffed animals, along with their own backpack of treasures that they packed themselves. I always have them show me what they have decided to bring with them ahead of time so we can decide if it is worth bringing, in order to keep them occupied.
Call me crazy, but we don't do DVDs and electronic games in the car. One time late at night after hours of travel with little ones we brought out Daddy's laptop for a movie. Most of our travel can be 12 or more hours at a time. So how do we survive? We have encouraged our kids to have their own bag of things to do and to interact with each other. We have built some great travel memories over the years singing typical car songs, playing car games, and talking about the craziest topics. We usually keep the car rather quiet early in the morning, gradually becoming livelier during the day, with a time of quiet in the afternoon before we stop for dinner.
We have used this marker board that I bought for a dollar for one of our favorite travel games. The kids and I come up with a theme and take turns passing the board around to add to the picture. As you can see, it becomes rather silly.
Our kids look forward to treats and treasures when we travel. To keep the "gimmes" to a minimum, each child is allotted a small specific amount and knows that once it is spent they have what they have. This has encouraged them to spend more carefully and bring home something more special. When we go to a fair we have a saying, "something to ride, something to eat, something to play, and a toy or a treat." Yes, I made that up, and with several kids it has helped us spend less and still have a memorable time together.
Travel can be a pleasant time even for this mom if I remember that by using my time and effort wisely in the preparations I can help all of us to have an enjoyable time together. Happy travels!
