We’re off and running
-
- July
- 13
First, how to keep two active boys strapped into their seats for hour after hour on the road? Since we have my 9-year-old and my girlfriend’s 3-year-old, we decided to break the 14-hour trip into two days. Frankly, my son should be relatively ok, seeing as how he’s got technology on his side: A laptop, and an ipod.
He’s also got a ton of books which he loses himself in, so he can read while we use the laptop to play DVD’s to entertain the 3-year-old. Of course, being an active 3, we’re going to have to make several stops to let the little guy stretch his legs and burn off some energy. I’m open to ideas here.
The second issue is packing. I’m a horrible packer, and will err on the side of taking everything in case I need something I hadn’t thought of. So I have a bag for my son’s clothes, a larger bag for my clothes, another bag with shoes, swimsuits, towels, etc. Then there’s my son’s laptop bag, his backpack which will be stuffed with books, and another backpack of CDs, DVDs. That doesn’t include my girlfriend’s bags. And the thing is I know I’m bound to forget something despite my ridiculous overpacking.
Now, there is a ton of advice online on planning family vacations. There’s “this one”:http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/school/family-vacation-planning.html or “this one”:http://childparenting.about.com/cs/familytraveldest/a/familyvacation.htm or “this other one”:http://www.independenttraveler.com/resources/article.cfm?AID=405&category=21. They all kind of run together in my mind, kind of like an online blurr. I even found “a packing list”:http://travelwithkids.about.com/cs/carplanetips/a/amusekids.htm that I sought out for help on some packing decisions for the kids. It basically told me to bring picture books for the 3-year-old. Duh.
So in the end, I think we’ll wing it. You have two intelligent parents with their hearts and instincts in the right place. That should be enough to get us to the beach well-stocked and in one piece. Still, I have this vision of pulling up, opening the doors and a pile of junk spills out. Then I’ll fish through it everytime I need something. As long as we’re at the beach for a stress-free week, who cares?
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 10:56 am by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
Jorge,
Here’s my advice when traveling with kids, especially when traveling domestically: Be sure to take those items that would be problematic to buy, if forgotten, like medications, special toys and sentimental things. For all other things, that’s why there are Wal-Marts/KMarts and Target stores!
Have a wonderful trip and a safe drive.
Gayle;
Way ahead of you: Already checked and there’s a Walmart there! I’ll post from there.
Have a great trip, Jorge.
When I was a kid, almost all our vacations were in the car, and they were often torturous. We drove too much, the car wasn’t air conditioned, my mom was a heavy smoker in the car, and we had a short stay in a small motel room, and then turned around and did the trip again.
I’ve learned a lot about how to make a road trip more fun. For me, the first rule is not to drive too much in one day. I once drove to Myrtle Beach, SC in one day, and it was torture. Some of the adults on the trip were as bad as the kids by the last leg of that trip.
After that, I divided the Myrtle Beach trip into 2 days of driving, with about 2/3 of the driving on the first day and 1/3 on the second day. This meant getting to the northern part of North Carolina the first day on the way down, and hitting Myrtle Beach by late morning the second day. This fit well with check-in at the condo (full accomodations for the week, no motels for that long) and allowed nearly a full day of fun after a relatively short drive.
I tried to arrive at the motel in North Carolina early enough for a relaxing and fun swim in the pool, and a nice dinner at a fun restaurant like Outback, or something like that.
On the way back, I drove until just north of Washington DC on the first day. I favor the west side of the Beltway, because there are much better restaurants in Montgomery County than in Prince Georges County, for whatever reason. I found a hotel in Rockville, MD with a great pool, and there are some really nice restaurants nearby, and I found it really eased the return home to spend the last night of the trip not in an endless car ride eating at rest stops, but instead having a nice relaxing swim and a meal at a really nice restaurant.
Have a great time and let us know how the trip went.
Have a great trip. when my kids were all much younger we did a 14 hour trip to Tennessee with the dog.
did it with 2 stops. They slept i drove. we stopped gassed up, walked the dog stretched hit the road.
We are headed to Virginia at the end of the month this time around. woohoo. sans dog.