Traveling with Children this Summer?
COMMENTS FOR THIS GIVEAWAY ARE NOW CLOSED.
Thank you to all who shared a travel tip! I was amazed at all the wonderful suggestions our readers shared for traveling with children.
As a result of the large number of entries received both here on Moon Child and on Instagram, we chose TWO winners!
Congratulations to Meredith Baldwin (no relation) who won one of the Travel Baskets for sharing the following tip:
Travel tip: go to the bathroom before you leave 😉
I stapled a bunch of blank pieces of paper cut down to a smaller size for little children and told them to “write stories” by drawing pictures or using stickers and to tell me what was going on in their story. (They couldn’t write yet)
You can play this game: every person takes a turn saying a word or two going around to create a story. My girls LOVED a version of this when we made up quick fairytales-each person getting a turn.
Amanda Gregg @wholenessmom was the Instagram winner of the second Travel Basket.
All Moon Child readers are invited to SAVE 10% off all items our Travel Games and Toys Collection through July 31, 2017 with coupon code: TRAVEL10. Valid only on in-stock items, while supplies last.
Enter Our Summer Giveaway to Win this Basket of Travel Games, Art Supplies, & Crafts!
Last week on Moon Child I shared my “Top Tips for Stress-Free Travel with Kids.”
This week, Bella Luna Toys is delighted to host a giveaway for a basket full of exciting games, art supplies, and crafts that will make traveling with children a lot more enjoyable.
This exciting travel tote includes one of each of the following:
⭐️ String Game from Sarah’s Silks
⭐️ Children’s Card Games Set
⭐️ Travel Bingo Game
⭐️ Bag of Crayon Rocks
⭐️ Box of Stockmar Modeling Beeswax
⭐️ eeBoo Jumbo Double-Sided Colored Pencils
⭐️ Quick-to-Knit Scarf Kit
⭐️ Rainbow Covered Woven Lunch Basket
TO ENTER
Earn one entry for each of the following actions:
- SHARE A TRAVEL TIP: Receive one entry by sharing your own travel tip or leaving a comment in the Comments section below this blog post.
- FOLLOW + LIKE TO WIN: Follow Bella Luna Toys on Instagram and like our Travel Goodies Giveaway photo by double-clicking on it.
- TAG FRIENDS: Receive one additional entry for each friend that you tag in the comments section of our Instagram Travel Goodies Giveaway photo.
Entries must be received by midnight PDT on Saturday, July 22th, 2017. One winner will be selected at random and announced on Sunday, July 23th, 2017. By entering, you confirm that you are 18+ years of age, release Instagram of all responsibility, and agree to Instagram’s terms of use.
Happy Travels and Good Luck!
Enter our giveaway by sharing your own travel tip or leaving a comment below!
210 Comments
Lots of books! And snacks. And making up new stories in my head that they want to hear over and over again. We travel almost an hour every time we go to the grocery store so I love reading these new travel tips!
We are constantly traveling due to hospital visits for our daughter who is treated 3 hrs. From home. Audio books are our best friend, and I make up stories and tell them, they love being the characters in the stories.
Great giveaway! We are in the middle of a long road trip. Audio books are great and we also let them watch a film or two when they are really getting exhausted from the long drive.
Old school games, like I-spy, and conversations about what we see that’s different, what we will do when we arrive, what our favorite part was, etc. Also keeping new toys and activities that can be doled out as needed. For the older one lots and lots of books, and drawing materials.
My kids love to sing Music Together songs. Putting that CD in has stopped many a meltdown!
We like to play “sing your favorite songs.” We try to do action ones like head and shoulders knees and toes. We also play what do you see?
My kids love m&m’s and we bring a bag with us to play “guess the color”. They try to guess what color they are going to get. They love to guess and eat them as well.
I love playing ‘I spy’ games with the kiddo when we’re on longer car trips. Having some fun kid music along is nice too- stuff that doesn’t make me crazy. Elizabeth Mitchell or stuff from Recess Music are a few of our faves.
Snacks, books, and a few toys
No technology!! At all. Plus it makes a few of my children car sick 🙁 It’s just not natural in the car. Old fashioned books, games, songs, books on tape/cd are good for every age. A really good book on tape keeps everyone’s attention and quiet for a while too 😉
We listen to Laurie Berkner CDs and play the ‘rainbow game’ where each person looks for something red, then orange, then yellow, etc. The Melissa and Doug Water Wow books are also great for the car!
Definitely lots of snacks! Making up silly rhymes, stickers, crayons, books, and making plenty of stops. We like to find interesting places to stop on our way. Columbia, South Carolina has a great zoo right near the interstate!
Our family enjoys sharing stories about our favorite memories and the fun and special adventures we aspire to have together. I also bring photo albums of childhood pictures. We also like to have mindful conversations about life and problem solving situations. The kids bring lots of books, audio books, journals, and a few car-friendly arts and crafts. My older son enjoys using his camera to take photos during scenic routes on the drive. Music is great too. Car drives can be a great opportunity to bond as a family.
While we don’t have plans for any big trips this year, we do often travel up and down the California coast to visit family. My kids are going through a coloring phase and they also like to make up their own games, so these would be perfect for them to do them during our road trips!
I have a little baby and lately we’ve been adding verses to children’s songs that are funny. This helps mommy and baby get through car rides!
Love this giveaway as we are about to go on a long roadtrip soon and we have been traveling a lot for work and taking our own six year old with us. We play a lot of i spy if in the car, we have an ongoing story about a boy and a girl who happen to go on similar journeys such as we do so – and this story is his favorite ongoing thing right now – we do a lot of coloring, and we like to collect and press leaves and flowers from
Our travels and make a little journal. one recent idea that was a hit was taking Polaroid photos of things he wanted to remember – we had to moderate This with a “only 4 photos a day” as we had a limited amt of the sticker film, but it was so much nicer than just digital pictures! We also play go fish a lot!
On car trips, we take along a flat board and a new LEGO set. Our 4 year old will spend 2-3 hours easily building a LEGO kit. It’s been a great way to pass the time for him.
We live in Cambodia and fly every summer to see grandparents in either Oregon, Australia or London. Over night flights are our salvation along with books, note pads and crayons. We also let the kids walk/run as much as needed throughout even if it means pacing the aisle of planes multiple times or finding crannies near the back to do “yoga”.
We love reusable stickers and homemade playdough. Wrapping little surprises in brown paper packages tied up with string and then passing them out every couple hours seems to break things up nicely as well. We love your store and blog, an awesome resource for my 2 and 3.5 year old!
Story telling
Painting
Wax
Swimming before a long trip
When my kids were smaller I would wrap up mystery gifts. Most of the time they came from their own play room, but it was something that had gotten buried. Now they like to each have a clip board and pencils/pens. Audio books are great. Last summer we listened to a Harry Potter book and then watched the movie. We got through the first two books.
“Guess what I’m thinking of” type games work well for us in the car.
What a generous giveaway Sarah! Thank you. When we do go on a long trip with our 5 and 1/2 and 3 yr. old boys we like to go on a nice long walk or bike ride prior. Then lots of books , snacks, coloring, and a few stops along the way to run around.
From Memorial Day through Labor Day, we have always a played the license plate game. The goal is to sight and write down the plates of the states. It is quite hard to collect all 50 we’ve only managed to Once! Many states have multiple styles and there are many different ways to chose to play. We keep track on one list in our family vehicle. It’s a great way to learn our states and postal codes, i.e., RI, CT, NY.
Books, books, books! In the car we do audiobooks that everyone can enjoy. I highly recommend Matilda by Roald Dahl read by Kate Winslet!
Snacks, plenty of snacks and water. We have been stuck a few times (behind a mud slide, on the tarmac) and that’s when you don’t want anyone hungry.
Wipes. Even now at 8 and 10 yo, someone always needs wipes.
If your are traveling on an airplane in the evening, pack pjs in carryon, along with full changes of clothes for everyone, toiletries, and snacks, books, and lovey/stuffie. Being able to get kiddos completely ready for bed of you arrive super late is great. Once we got stuck at our layover over night and not having to try to get our luggage out of the airplane at midnight saved us a lot of time.
I am a first time mom and my little one is only 14 months, but for long car rides, we make sure to have a bunch of children’s music for her. She loves clapping and singing along to the music which keeps her from getting very fussy during the trip.
When my grown son was a very active 2 1/2 year old, we flew from the west coast of Canada to England. We helped to pass the time by wrapping small gifts to be handed out over time. I recall that we got a lot of mileage out of the lump of homemade playdough. We read alot of books ( quietly!) and apart from the inflight movie, made it media free – ’cause that’s what we did back then! On road trips when the other two were born, we’d listen to lots of audio books, those by Jim Weiss being well-loved and fondly remembered by the grown kids even today.
We visit family each summer and books, portable travel games, colouring and music are a must for long trips. If we are in the car, we try to stop regularly and stretch with a bit of yoga or have a picnic. We love this giveaway, more ideas and resources are always welcome. Thank you Bella Luna Toys!
When we travel with our children, I like to have a something like a coloring book that is gift wrapped to give them along the way. Having it wrapped makes it extra special and engaging for them.
The Alphabet Game – find each letter of the alphabet, in order, on various signs, license plates, etc.
I Spy, audio dramas, magna doodles, color wonder (for the toddler), colored pencils and paper (NO crayons -they melt), lots of books and snacks in snack bags (we pack them to save money over the prepackaged ones) are also great.
Whoops – forgot our all time favorite. Copy off a US map beforehand. The kids color in the states as they see the license plates. Great for geography!
We sing alot, count the colours of different cars., create our own stories by each person adding on, take lots of breaks for tag and snacks. Thanks for the beautiful offer it would be used by many.
We love to travel and see the world as a family. We recently got back from Italy, which was a 30+ hour trip each way from our home in Honolulu. We rely on a couple of small new toys to excite our girls, as well as a few favorite books and portable art supplies like modeling clay and crayons.
It is all about the snacks and the activity books for my 3 and 8 year old. Also, the games you can play with no physical supplies are great too–alphabet game, going on a picnic, 20 questions, I spy, thumb war, etc.
Audio books and CD’s with songs top our list of traveling to-do’s. Some are saved just for car travel and not used at home. I stock up on sale items, saving them for car trips in the future. I also have snacks, water, books, spiral pad of paper and color pencils, bingo boards, and wax sticks for creating things.
Clothespin gnomes are always a hit 😂 And singing helps the time go by.
But I always recommend finding places to stop where the kiddos can run around for a bit. Everyone is happier if they get some fresh air!
We like to read books while traveling and pointing out new and exciting things! I spy type of books or games offer endless fun because of all of the time you could spend soaking in details. This post/giveaway gives me more ideas on what would be good for travelling with little ones. Thank you, Bella Luna Toys!
We play memory games from past vacations. We will ask them a question specific to a place or event and see who can answer. It is fun and helps the kids remember past trips. They get pretty excited about what they can recall. Usually many other memories come flooding back from one singles question or answer.
Listen to Around the World Stories! We LOVE them!
We have a 4 year old and an 8 year old and we have been on the road through Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Bighorn Mountains, Black Hills, Bitterroot Mountains, Portland, Oregon coast, and now Tahoe for the past 3 weeks. Lots of stops and junior ranger programs have been wonderful, especially as there are often more activities in the junior ranger books to continue and so much to discuss afterward. My 8 year old is an avid reader, but doesn’t want to read to his sibling, so I do a lot of reading to them both. We also subscribe to Sparkle Stories, which they adore. We learned a fun game from one of the Sparkle Stories: one person says “My mother has a grocery store and in it she has something that starts with an H” (or you can use the sound or a word to describe the thing), and they guess what the item is. It can get pretty silly and the kids of stores can change as well as the owners. We also have a license plate sticker game, a box of kids chat topics, a box of travel I spy cards, and an atlas. We have plenty of paper and colored pencils and activity books. And we listen to a lot of Okee Dokee Brothers and Banana Slug String Band. Overall, we have had a pretty great time traveling together on our first epic road trip!
We make up stories together! More like a mad kind for toddlers. I will start and then he will fill in the blanks. Endless fun!
Mad libs! Silly autocorrect.
I try to pack new books that my children haven’t read before and pull them out at intervals during the trip. We also pack games, art materials, and snacks. If possible we try to stop at welcome centers so the kids can get maps and follow along on our journey.
Our best travel product has been travel foam trays. I picked them up when my oldest was two. She is twelve now and they still get used weekly by all the kids. Our favorite activity is Stockmar beeswax and wikki stix and new art kits. My son loves traveling with his Playmobil and playing on the tray.
Great ideas here. We have small children so it always helps us to plan stops. I have found that visitor’s centers or state welcome centers are usually great places to stop.
Travel tip: go to the bathroom before you leave 😉
I stapled a bunch of blank pieces of paper cut down to a smaller size for little children and told them to “write stories” by drawing pictures or using stickers and to tell me what was going on in their story. (They couldn’t write yet)
You can play this game: every person takes a turn saying a word or two going around to create a story. My girls LOVED a version of this when we made up quick fairytales-each person getting a turn.
Oh, yes! Bathroom trip before leaving is an excellent travel tip! 😀
We listen to audio books that come with the book so they can follow along and look at the pictures at the same time. As well as the license plate game, telling stories of past road trips, and listening to music and podcasts. My active boys don’t like being in the car for a long time so it’s great to get more ideas of how to keep them occupied while traveling.
Lots of music, stories and snacks. But I’m currently planning for our longest road trip yet and these ideas are wonderful!
Long road trip are filled with: music, audio books, yummy snacks, finger knitting, and – most recently — loom work. Thanks for sharing!!!
We like to have little toys and surprises packed in brown paper bags that can only be opened at certain times of the trip. It takes a lot of foreplanning but is so much fun!
My kids get carsick if they read or draw for long, but they entertain each other with silks or car toys (my toddler has a set of toy car keys and a toy cellphone), and we have a playlist of kid-friendly songs they sing to. I’ve done some I spy with my school-aged kid, but the toddler not so much.
Breaking up the drive with fun stops where they can run around and play to release energy (I usually plan this for lunch(ish) time since we’ll be stopping anyways. My kids’ favorite places tend to be places with water and/or a playground so it does help to bring an extra set of clothes! Many airports even have play areas- Chicago even has a mini children’s museum- I look for things like this ahead of time.