The Road Trip Bag of Awesomeness

Hey y’all!

Every summer, we take a road trip. One of our favorite splurge locations? Disney World! While we can’t get enough of the mouse house, we are often forced to drive extremely long distances to get there.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I love road trips! I especially love road trips to Disney World, but it takes more than 16 hours to get there from our current location, and I’m not sure my kids share my enthusiasm for the whole road trip experience.

However, no fear here, because I have created the road trip bag of awesomeness, (also known as the please-don’t-let-me-hear-are-we-there-yet-in-the-first-hour-of-our-trip bag).

Yes, I realize I have a thing about bags (see my previous post here about my secret weapon PCS bag that military spouses love!)

This bag is so easy to put together for your little ones, and it offers most everything they could need right at their fingertips. I have three children, ages 3 to 8, and they have no problems handling their own bags and get super excited about traveling just so they can see what’s inside.

Here’s a peek at our bags for this particular trip.

I’ve included the following things in their bags, using their old backpacks from the school year:

• Coloring books
• Leftover crayons and markers from the school year 
• Various grade level reading material. (Yeah, I totally don’t feel guilty about sneaking in some learning along the way!)
• Electronic games that they already know and love (Nintendos, Nabis, etc). About a month before our trip, I gather all of these up. I charge them or change the batteries and stick them in the bags. After a month of not playing them, they are excited about seeing them again.
• The chargers for the various electronic items. (Side note: my oldest is good to plug these in on his own, but I worry about my youngest, so I just stick her chargers in a plastic zipper bag and shove them in my purse.)
• Snacks: We’ve heard “I’m hungry” more times than I can count, and adding snacks to their bags makes it super easy for hungry tummies to satisfy themselves. Their bags included: M&Ms, individual Goldfish bags, Sixlets candy, Fruit Roll Ups, fruit snacks, and animal crackers. I know, they aren’t the healthiest choices, but it’s vacation, okay? In my defense, I threw in an apple and cutie oranges for them the day of the trip. You could also add carrot sticks, celery sticks, or other cut up veggies. Obviously, your snack choices should be based on your child’s age and what you know they like.
• Various dry erase boards 
• Silly putty and Disney characters 
• Sunglasses or hats to keep the sun out of their eyes while on the road and once we get to the parks. Oh, and of course, the Mickey ears hats we bought on our last trip to Disney.
• A road trip activity book that I printed here from Pinterest.
• Travel sized tissues and hand wipes for runny noses and sticky fingers. These bags sit nicely beside them or hang from the back of the seats in front of them. Everything can be thrown in and zippered up when you reach your final destination.

One thing I will say is we don’t put drinks in the bags for two reasons: we don’t want them to spill in the bag and ruin anything and we don’t want any accidents in the car. We keep a separate cooler in the van for drinks and use small bottles of water or juices.

These are the things that will get us through this trip. I’ve also done similar bags for PCS moves and those various trips to visit friends and family, adjusting what’s inside based on where we are going (how about a map of the area for our PCS move that the kids can draw on?) and how long we will be in the car (obviously a four-hour car trip would need less entertainment).

Do you have some ideas for things I can add to our next bag of awesomeness? Share your ideas with us!