Two years ago we met our best Raleigh friends in Nashville, TN for a few days of fun together. It was an excellent trip- drivable from Chicago, warm weather, and tons of fun family things to do. We had the best time. Like most, we have been home for the last year, and wanted to take a trip to a place we could drive in one day with our two kids, that would be warmer than Chicago, and where we could feel safe doing some outside activities and otherwise keep to ourselves, so we decided to go back to Nashville for a week this spring!
As you probably know I love organization and also try to minimize what we bring- until 10 minutes before we leave when I panic-pack whatever is in eyesight. When we road-trip, I pack a bag for the kids of stuff for the car and then a bag of stuff to use while we’re on our trip in down minutes or in case of rain. I’ll share all of that here this week!
In our car bag I always pack a few books, a few mess-free coloring items, and some snacks. Ok snacks = candy. Sometimes you need candy to get through a long drive. Each kid gets to pick a special treat and I try to fend them off until after lunch. It’s a fun game for me, then 🙂 . Let me show you what else we brought for the car.
These are the books we’re still reading together. You can see my post about The Bad Guys and Jada Jones: Rockstar here. We also discovered CatStronauts and are loving it so far. These are great for the car for us because my older kid gets a little green around the gils if she reads in the car, so the pictures are much better for her as I read aloud.
Melissa and Doug, a company known for their high-quality, durable toys and activity books, created these Water-Wow water-based paint books. They’re genius because the color appears when the picture gets wet and then, unlike other products, when the picture dries it goes blank again. They’re reusable, people! There is a little built-in storage spot for the paintbrush, which unscrews to hold the water in the paintbrush itself so it’s truly mess-free. We bring these every time we go on a trip, and they’re also in my kid-bag for restaurants and other outings too.
Thank you, Target Dollar Section for these mess-free coloring books. They were gifted to my kids when my youngest had a Trolls-themed birthday party, and they’re perfect for the car. A little plastic section holds the marker that only works on the paper- no clothes or other materials unless they’re left uncapped and on the fabric overnight (cough cough trust me on that one). There are tons of different versions of these, so we grab one or two a few times per year to keep around for restaurants or trips!
Melissa and Doug for the win again! My mother in law gave us this sticker set and it is perfect for this trip. While I normally don’t allow stickers in the car, these are so cute and take a little while to make. The directions are really easy to follow and the kids like to make and play pretend with them. You could also give them some paper to create a scene for the creatures they make!
I would bring all these materials on a plane or other long trip since they all travel so well and not messy at all. What other products do you all bring on trips with kids?
You can find all the art materials in the “Arts and Crafts” list and the books in the “chapter books we love” list in my Bookshop store. These are affiliate links; thanks in advance for your support!