Summer Road Trip Must-Haves

Recently we took our toddler on a road trip. Before leaving I stopped by my favorite store and stocked up on some road trip toys to keep my kiddo entertained. I prepped a couple of wet bags with different activities and traded them out after stops. It was awesome!

Here are some great ideas for the kiddos in your life to make their road trips more entertaining.

Babies
When your kiddos are little, you need something soft and engaging for them to work with in the car. Try one of these awesome Jellycat Tails books. My kiddo loved having things to grab onto and pages to crinkle. If you don’t have a fun new teether that you can attach to your kiddos clothes, that’s a must have. You won’t need to turn around and save the day nearly as often when they stay attached. Pro Tip - I loved to attach teethers and pacifiers to a great bandana bib so I didn’t have to worry about the car seat getting gross, nor did I have to worry about clothes and those clips with the car seat straps. Win Win!

Toddlers
On our recent road trip we grabbed a set of Tegu blocks and my girl happily put together creations for quite awhile. She’s usually got a short attention span, but these were great for her in the car. Whenever I turned around she’d made something new. Melissa & Doug have great magnet sets. Bring one of them along with a small metal cookie sheet and let your kiddo enjoy those. They’ll also be less likely to fall down since they stick.

Older Kiddos
Squigz are great for the car, you can suction cup them to the windows and make creations for ages. Give multiple kiddos each a matching set of squigz and challenge them to create different shapes or make the sturdiest creation. Coggy is another great road trip toy, though you may need one for each kid. Coggy is a great fidget toy with lots of brain teasing puzzles with varying levels of difficulty that’ll keep your kiddos working on challenges for quite awhile. And when they’re tired of puzzles, they can twist and twirl the game around and fidget to their hearts desire. Your favorite part? The pieces are attaches so they’ll not make a mess in the car!

Regardless of the ages of your little passengers, make sure everyone stays hydrated, has plenty of snacks, and gets frequent breaks to stretch their legs. 

Jenny Ditch loves going on adventures that let her take short breaks from southern Illinois with her daughter and husband, but she can’t seem to leave for long.