SURVIVAL GUIDE: Family Road Trip Edition!
Have you ever been stuck in the car for hours on  a long family road trip? If you donât prepare for a long  trip then you might be bored and stuck with nothing to do!
But donât worry, Iâve done some prepping for you and came up with a bunch of ideas you can use so you donât have to.
This way you donât have to just barely survive your next road trip, you might not even want to get out of the car at the end!
What are your favorite things to do during a road trip? Leave a message on đď¸Open Mic and let me know!
Keys for Kids Radio
Download the Keys for Kids app so you can listen to Keys for Kids Radio and your favorite audio dramas like Down Gilead Lane and Red Rock Mysteries. You can also read or listen to the Keys for Kids devotional on the Keys for Kids app, or get a free printed copy of the devotional in case you don't have data.
Each day's Keys for Kids story has questions at the end to talk about with your family and to think through for yourself. You can use these questions to learn more from each other and grow closer as a family!
Pack a fun bag
Pack a treasure chest filled with small toys, books and games that you can play with in the car. Growing up, my family called these “fun bags”. Each one of us kids had a backpack with whatever we wanted to keep entertained. I mostly had books, and on one vacation I packed no fewer than 17 novels!
Bring family-friendly audiobooks that everyone can enjoy. If your parents have an old smartphone, this could be the designated DJ device, and you can download the audiobooks and music you want to listen to before you leave. You can also purchase and download any or all episodes of Down Gilead Lane or Red Rock Mysteries!
    
Bring along coloring books and crayons for some creative fun. Make sure to bring a board or another hard, flat object that you can put on your lap for a good coloring surface. Just make sure to keep the crayons on the coloring page, and not on the car!
Create monster snacks!
Turn snacking into an activity by bringing along healthy snacks that you can turn into monster creations! You can use baby carrots for arms and legs, sliced cucumbers for heads, cut-up pieces of bell pepper for hair, and put them all together with toothpicks!
Or you can just slap on some googly-eyes and call it good! đ
No-toys-needed car games
Try the Alphabet Game or other car games:
The Alphabet Game: Challenge your parents and siblings to find all the letters of the alphabet on billboards, license plates, or other signs, but the rule is that you have to find the letters outside the car! It's no fun to pull a book out and quickly find all the letters inside. The first one to Z wins!
The License Plate Game: Players try to find license plates from all 50 states. It's handy to have a list of all the states written out first, and cross out the names as you go along. Don't worry if no one wins right away; you might have to play for your whole vacation before someone gets all 50.
The Name Game: One player says a name, and the next player has to say a name that starts with the last letter of the previous name. How many names do you know? This one gets hard fast!
20 Questions: One player thinks of an object, and the other players take turns asking up to 20 yes-or-no questions to try to guess what it is. Whoever says the name of the object first wins! If no one guesses it in 20, then the thinker wins!
Make a scavenger hunt list of things to find on the road trip and give each family member a list. Whoever checks off everything on the list first wins! You can put things on your list like a blue Toyota Camry, a mile marker with a 5 on it, or a road sign with the McDonald's logo.
Enjoy the journey
Plan pit stops in advance so you can stretch your legs and explore new places. You might have to stop at gas stations to fill up, but you may also find fun places like the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott, Iowa, or Miles the Monster statue in Dover, Delaware!
Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska
