Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Road Trip Tips - Your Guide to Roadtripping with Kids!
All of our favorite cards and links are here: https://beacons.ai/travelpartyof5
We think road trips are the EASIEST way to get started using points and miles!!! It's so low risk and can have big rewards.
If you've ever wondered how to make family road trips less stressful and more fun, this is for you. We're giving you all of our best tips for road trips with kids. We even reveal what it was like to take our son on his first road trip to Las Vegas at just six weeks old, offering insights that both seasoned road trippers and newcomers will find invaluable.
From managing food and entertainment expenses to ensuring a smooth ride, we cover all the essentials for a successful family road trip. Learn how substantial breakfasts and portable snacks can keep both your budget and your kids happy, and discover the magic of iPads with pre-downloaded shows for keeping little ones entertained. We also share tech must-haves like Bluetooth headphones and portable chargers, and recommend carrying a twin air mattress for that pesky extra kid (ha).
Join us for a road trip down memory lane and take away practical advice to make your next family adventure the best one yet.
All of our favorite cards and links are here: https://beacons.ai/travelpartyof5
We think road trips are the EASIEST way to get started using points and miles!!! It's so low risk and can have big rewards.
If you've ever wondered how to make family road trips less stressful and more fun, this is for you. We're giving you all of our best tips for road trips with kids. We even reveal what it was like to take our son on his first road trip to Las Vegas at just six weeks old, offering insights that both seasoned road trippers and newcomers will find invaluable.
From managing food and entertainment expenses to ensuring a smooth ride, we cover all the essentials for a successful family road trip. Learn how substantial breakfasts and portable snacks can keep both your budget and your kids happy, and discover the magic of iPads with pre-downloaded shows for keeping little ones entertained. We also share tech must-haves like Bluetooth headphones and portable chargers, and recommend carrying a twin air mattress for that pesky extra kid (ha).
Join us for a road trip down memory lane and take away practical advice to make your next family adventure the best one yet.
If you're planning a road trip this summer with the family, this episode is for you. We've got all of our best road trip tips for traveling with kids and why we think a road trip is the best way to get started using points. Hi, I'm Rhea. And I'm Dwayne, and we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.
Speaker 2:We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.
Speaker 1:So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.
Speaker 2:So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, welcome back to Travel Party of Five podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:My name is Raya. I'm here with my husband, Dwayne. Thank you for joining. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like the intro said.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, hey, you know what it's like the middle of July here, and it's just so hot I think my brain cells are melting and we probably have at least two more months left of summer in arizona. So if you are in phoenix or anywhere hot like we are, we stand with you in solidarity yes, two more months of hell october is near halloween, uh. So today we're gonna share our best road trip tips for traveling with kids. Road tip trips Road trip tips.
Speaker 2:Yes, road tip trips.
Speaker 1:You're saying it wrong. It's a tongue twister. So our best tips for road trips with kids Our best trips for tips with kids. Goodness gracious. Okay, so I grew up like I didn't get on. I didn't take a flight. I didn't get on an airplane until I was a senior in high school.
Speaker 2:I have yet to grown up.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, this is going to be one of those episodes, huh. Okay, so I grew up only doing road trips, and like long road trips, like I grew up in new york and we would drive from new york to florida every year for a couple weeks it's a long drive and we started doing it in like a van, like a minivan.
Speaker 1:then we graduated to a motorhome, like a really old motorhome. So like think it was 1990, like mid-1990s, and we're driving a motorhome. So like think it was 1990, like mid 1990s, and we're driving a motorhome that was like built in 1978. So like old, okay. Then my parents upgraded a couple years later to a bigger, newer RV. That was definitely nicer, but that's how we took vacations. So we drove from New York to Texas. We drove from New York to Texas, we drove from New York to Florida a lot like almost every year, but not one time did we ever get on an airplane, but you had a different yes, I, my road trip was always on an airplane air trip okay so, but did you ever do road trips growing up like in Japan?
Speaker 2:No, not really. I mean we would drive from base to base. That was a couple hours.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a couple hours really, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean because traffic in Japan was bad.
Speaker 1:But you never drove from like let's say where you lived in Japan to like Kyoto or any other parts of Japan.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:That's so crazy to me, is it like? Is that crazy to you as you look back?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, it's pretty crazy, but I mean we would take trains or buses oh, where did you take trains to? Tokyo osaka oh, but like oh, you did go to osaka maybe when I was really little, we took took a bus to Kobe, but that was with the basketball team. That was a couple hours.
Speaker 1:So your parents weren't into like traveling around Japan.
Speaker 2:No, my parents did a lot of bowling and yeah.
Speaker 1:Your parents are very social people.
Speaker 2:Yes, they are. They're in bowling leagues. Social obligations Throughout my childhood, my whole childhood.
Speaker 1:And that's why you're so good at bowling.
Speaker 2:Yes, I grew up in a bowling alley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also freakishly good at all card games, which is so annoying.
Speaker 2:And I know card tricks which I've just picked up over the years. It's also very weird Dwayne knows card tricks Dwayne picked up over the years.
Speaker 1:it's also very dwayne. Dwayne knows card tricks. Dwayne knows um, oh my god, I can't think of what it's called the oh yo-yo tricks. Like he knows yo-yo tricks, I couldn't think of the word.
Speaker 2:I wanted to call it yolo definitely not good at yo-yo, but I do know a few tricks you're better than me.
Speaker 1:He's taught our our son a couple of them. You're better than me, he's taught our our son a couple of them. Anyways, okay, so I grew up doing road trips all the time, so driving 10 hours in a car to me is not a big deal, but Dwayne thinks that sounds terrible. And I remember when we first started dating actually like I would be like, oh yeah, we should drive to California, and you would be be like that's going to take so long and I was like, yeah, but the drive is like half the fun Get to have snacks and listen to whatever you want, and like talk.
Speaker 2:Was I like that. I mean because before. I met you, I would drive to California all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know, but you were.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was just because we had a kid, that just seemed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we had a kid and that just seemed yeah but our kid took his first road trip when he was three weeks old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to vegas six weeks, six weeks old, took him to vegas, yeah he went to vegas but, to be clear, we were not partying in vegas. My I had a family member who was there on a work trip, and we drove from phoenix to vegas with the baby and stayed overnight just to see them. So that was a whole other experience, though, because our kids screamed the whole time. He was a teeny, tiny little baby. Okay, so we have done a bunch of road trips with our kids that are roughly six-ish hours, maybe a little longer if there's traffic. Next year, we just did an episode about our summer trip next year. Next year will be a longer trip, so it'll be 10-ish hours on the way there at least, and so I've compiled a list of all of our best tips, plus a few that we don't do now but that we will do when we take that longer trip. So let's get started. Um, the biggest thing by far is pack a cooler I have to have a cooler, have to have snacks.
Speaker 2:Kids want snacks every every 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:Every 30 minutes if, if that and it's even worse, like in a car or a plane ride too. It's like they're like oh, can I have a snack? And it's like you literally just swallowed the last bite of your first snack. Like what is going on here, or we'll, we'll stop for lunch and then they'll get back in the car and it'll be 10 minutes and they'll be like can I have a snack?
Speaker 2:It's like no they won't eat that lunch because they want a snack instead.
Speaker 1:So frustrating. Um, but yeah, so food is by far our biggest expense when we travel, and that's true whether we're taking a road trip or a flight, and it's because the hotel is free or mostly free, and the flights are mostly free too. So food is by far the biggest expense. And so when we take road trips, we always bring a cooler, because we aim to do one meal a day out of that cooler. So one, obviously it's for the road trip, so there's juice boxes and all kinds of snacks that the kids can have during the trip itself. But then we also use that cooler when we get to our destination as like a refrigerator basically, and we bring things like Uncrustables chips, fruit, juice boxes, crackers, cheese, yogurts, I don't know Whatever snacks your kids like and we refill it with ice. By we, I mean Dwayne refills it with ice. Yes, every day or every other day.
Speaker 2:And let me just add that we've probably said this before on a different podcast, but Ray and I grew up totally different and we always go out to restaurants and you always say what is it that you say? There's two types of families that go out to eat?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, there's a. I'll just have a water family, and then there's a.
Speaker 2:I'll have an appetizer, a soda, an entree and a dessert family yes, so my family was the appetizer and whatever we wanted to drink family. Rhea's family was the water family.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am still that way. I drink water at restaurants. The only time I drink anything other than water is if it's like a glass of wine or something. I never order soda or anything.
Speaker 2:So Rhea on vacation sometimes says we'll just eat lunch in the hotel room and I just, I'm just like what, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Dwayne really struggles with this like a lot yeah, I mean because in full transparency, you do right, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, just because I'm just so used to eating wherever it is we want to eat, you know?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, but as a kid, you weren't paying for it I mean, I know I mean it's a hundred dollars for our family of five to go eat somewhere at a minimum, usually like we can get in and out or some kind of fast food for cheaper. But if we're going to a sit-down restaurant we're talking a hundred dollars every time. So if we can cut out a hundred dollars a day you know a five to seven day trip we're saving 700 bucks.
Speaker 2:I mean, I totally get it, I just just how how I wasn't raised.
Speaker 1:Yes, it has been, it has been an adjustment and even still, when I say it like I can tell that he just dies a little bit inside. But here's the thing, here's, here's how we do it and this works fine for me. You can tell me if you feel differently. But we eat a big breakfast and then the kids eat lunch at a regular time and they eat Uncrustables or whatever it is, lunchables, whatever we happen to have for them that trip. And then, duane and I, we don't really eat much. We might, might order, like if we're at the pool at a hotel, we might order like some chips and salsa or something. We don't eat much for lunch.
Speaker 1:And then we eat dinner as a family at a restaurant yeah and that works fine for me I mean, that works fine for me too I do bring protein bars, so like if we do get, we can eat that as a snack. We bring, like beef jerky and that kind of thing, so like we have snacks. I mean I feel like that works fine for me. And even doing that we still spend, you know, two to three hundred dollars a day on food, just depending.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And we always make the mistake. Our youngest one never, never, eats her food, and our middle child rarely finishes, is so what ends up happening is our oldest eats, whatever they didn't eat. Yes, I mean we buy three meals for the kids because we're there's three of them, but we should really only be buying two, and yet we always do it, every time, every time.
Speaker 1:So that's like, I think, hands down number one tip Bring a cooler and then, if you you know you can also go to a grocery store when you get to your destination and you can restock if you need to. We generally don't do that because we're staying in hotels and we just bring what we need from home.
Speaker 2:But we didn't.
Speaker 1:Costa Rica oh yeah, we did Well. Yeah, because we flew there.
Speaker 2:We're in Airbnb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah, we did well, yeah, because we flew there, so we didn't have an airbnb. Yeah, um, okay, so number two. My number two tip would be ipads or some kind of screens with individual headphones. Our kids do not get to use their ipads at home. We have gotten to the point where we just save it only for travel. So if they're on an airplane or a road trip or something like that, or they get to use them, like in the hotel, but beyond that, at home they do not get to use their iPads. And there's a lot of reasons for that, but primarily they just become really bratty kids when they've been staring at an iPad.
Speaker 1:Somehow the iPad is different than the TV. I don't fully know why. I'm sure there's some kind of science behind it but they only get iPads when we travel, and the good part about that is they each have their own iPad. They have games and whatever on there that they don't get to play any other time, so they're more excited to play it when they are stuck in the car for a long time, and then Dwayne is in charge of the technology, but he asks them before the trip what shows do you want me to download? And he goes into Disney or Netflix or whatever and downloads the shows that they each request on their own individual iPads, so they each have the shows they wanted to watch downloaded. They have their headphones, so our car rides are generally fairly quiet, yeah, after the first hour.
Speaker 1:Well, because we don't let them get on the iPads until we've, like, left the city of Phoenix and like we're like on the main road, so we just try to delay it as much as we can. And then we're like, ok, go ahead, and they get so excited. We just try to delay it as much as we can and then we're like, okay, go ahead, and they get so excited. Tip number three is well, do you have any tips on the technology? Because you're the one who does all that. You make sure they're charged.
Speaker 2:You do all that. Yeah, you just got to make sure they're charged, make sure you download some movies, some shows that will keep them occupied for a couple hours.
Speaker 1:We have kids' headphones that are Bluetooth couple hours.
Speaker 2:We have kids headphones that are bluetooth.
Speaker 1:Well, they have a cord too, but we use the bluetooth.
Speaker 2:Our kids know how to connect them now, so they do a good job yeah, but other than that, oh, we have the little battery, portable batteries, those are always helpful.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we have those, and portable chargers that we bring and we have a car plug, so like it plugs into the cigarette lighter. I think Is that right? And it's an actual plug, like a three-prong plug, so you can bring like a regular charger in there if you needed to and you can charge that in the van too, or whatever your car is, we have a van. Third tip is we bring an air mattress and we have a twin air mattress that it doesn't self-inflate but you like pump it up with your foot. Is that right?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I never do it yes, you pump it up with your foot and so it doesn't take up a ton of space.
Speaker 1:And we do that because sometimes it can be tricky fitting five people into one hotel room and it just depends on the size of the beds. Like if if it's two Queens, we're fine, but if it has two double beds, then that's a tight squeeze. Also, sometimes the sofa beds in hotels are not like. The width of them varies greatly. So like we've stayed in ones where all three of our kids can fit on the sofa bed and then we've stayed at ones where barely two of them can. So it just depends. So we on road trips, when we don't have limited space, we bring the air mattress. That way we always have it. Because one of the worst things, in my opinion, is just not being able to get a good night's sleep when you're on vacation. That's why partially why I don't enjoy camping. Um, what else? Let's talk about getting car sick.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we give the kids Dramamine.
Speaker 1:Kids Dramamine Chewable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that always helps out, because again we're in a car for hours. They're looking down at their iPads. Was it motion sickness?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and our oldest likes to read in the car too, and so the Dramamine helps him. He doesn't really get car sick, but he does if he reads, which is the same way that I am, and the Dramamine helps him be able to read, which I would prefer he read versus watch the iPad.
Speaker 2:And it makes him a little drowsy, so sometimes they take naps.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's not a bad thing either. No.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:It's not a bad thing either, no so. And our younger two. They both get carsick One a lot Like. We've had some moments with him. He's never thrown up but he like cries so loud because he feels so bad, like that happened to us on the road to Hana and again in Costa Rica.
Speaker 1:Costa Rica was worse. You can also bring. If you don't like giving your kids medication, you can. Also, they have these little pressure point bracelets you can get. We had those, um, for Costa Rica as well, and basically they're like these bracelets that you put around their wrist and it has like this little circle that's supposed to hit a pressure point that helps relieve nausea. Um, I don't know that I would use it on its own because to me I don't know that it works all that well, but combined with a Dramamine it works pretty good. And then our youngest has. She has actually gotten car sick before, but it was like on a road trip in North Carolina. You weren't there, I was with my sister.
Speaker 2:I wasn't there.
Speaker 1:But she was forward facing, so normally she's rear facing. But it's a whole long car seat saga. But basically the car seat that I got, I couldn't figure out how to safely install it rear facing, so I had to install it forward facing and I mean she's she's still rear facing to this day and she's four and a half at home. But on this trip I just I couldn't get it right. So forward-facing was better than not having it safely installed rear-facing. And she got car sick and I think it's just because she was forward-facing and she wasn't used to it and so we had to, we had to stop at a rest stop and it was a whole thing. But that brings me to my next tip, which is bring stuff to clean up messes. So with kids, messes happen, they throw up, they have bathroom accidents, you never know, maybe they just spill something. But we always have a roll of paper towels, some some plastic grocery bags to like put dirty stuff in and seal it up and then like some kind of cleaning spray.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those are a must. Speaking of bathroom, so all of our kids are potty trained. But when they're learning to potty train, I know that road trips can be tough, especially like for us when we drive to California. There are like several hour stretches where there is no bathrooms, there's nothing. You're literally driving through the desert.
Speaker 1:And so we've done a couple of things, we've used pull-ups and we just tell them like hey, like you're going to wear this and you know, let me know if you have to use the bathroom. This is here just in case. And they've never had an accident doing that. They've still always been able to hold it to make it to the bathroom. But that gives me the peace of mind as a parent to know that I'm not going to have to clean up a mess. So that would probably be how I would do it if I was in the middle of potty training.
Speaker 1:And then you have to. I mean, you know your kid too. Like we tell the kids like hey, if you need to use the bathroom, you need to tell us as soon as you feel it and then give us time to find a bathroom because there's not one readily available. I mean, or you know our older, to our boys. I guess for them that we we've pulled over on the side of the road before so they can use the bathroom, but that's not super safe to do on the highway and it's really not something we can do with our daughter.
Speaker 1:So no, sometimes I want to give you a pull-up because you use the bathroom a lot it's only because I drink an incredible amount of coffee in the morning and like then I'm like, yes, I do have to use the bathroom quite a few times. So, yeah, sometimes it's not even the kids, sometimes it's me.
Speaker 2:Yes, sometimes she's always like when's the next rest stop?
Speaker 1:yeah, but I can also hold it for hours, and I do. You have to. You have to agree that that's true, yeah it's true um, the other thing that I wanted to say.
Speaker 1:So this is not something that we do, but some people do this and you have to decide what works for your family. Some people will leave at night, so they'll put the kids in the car, like at bedtime, and they will drive through the night, depending on how long you're driving, for that is not something we would prefer to do. Do you agree, like, why are you so far away?
Speaker 2:I agree your mom is your mom is texting me, oh, not me us um hey, welcome back to travel party of five oh goodness.
Speaker 1:So I think we I've lost my train of thought, but I think we're saying some people leave in the middle of the night to drive overnight with kids to make it easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And their kids sleep in the car.
Speaker 2:I'll never do that.
Speaker 1:That is not for us Just sounds miserable to me. I enjoy sleeping in a bed. I wouldn't sleep in the car, so no thanks the other. Or they leave super early, we don't even leave super early, um the other. Or they leave super early, we don't even leave super early, but again, we're only driving five or six hours. We will leave pretty early next year when we drive to Yosemite and if you missed that podcast, that is last week's podcast we were originally planning a trip to Yellowstone.
Speaker 1:We procrastinated and did not book in time, and so now we're going to Yosemite instead, which is around a 10, 11 hour drive. That's actually what prompted this episode is. I thought you know, if you've never taken a long road trip with your kids, that could probably feel overwhelming. I also think that a road trip is one of the best ways that you can get started using points and miles, because it's like a really low risk trip, right, like all you have to do is figure out your hotel and then you just can drive there and use points to stay for free, so really you're just paying for gas, don't you think that's such a good like? If I were going to use points for the first time, that's how I would do it. I would test it out. Book a hyatt or something. Wherever you are, look up hyatt website somewhere too, not too far yeah, three, four hours, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't depends where you live, but I mean, I just feel like that would be a great way to dip your toe in the water of points without having to worry about flights getting canceled or booking flights or all that fun stuff. You know, the other tip that we don't do this because, again, we don't drive that far, but we will do this is when we go to Yosemite is try to find a playground or something where the kids can get out and run around for 20, 30 minutes. And you could even make that your lunch break, like grab some food or pack some food and have a picnic at a playground and then get back on the road like.
Speaker 1:We will for sure do that when we drive to Yosemite oh yeah, we're gonna have to get some of that energy out yeah, because I mean, not only is it good for us as the adults, but like no one wants to deal with kids that are overstimulated and cranky, you know. So giving them some time to play, I think is is really good. Remember, we actually did try to do this once when we drove to California. This was when we went to LA and we don't know, we don't drive to LA a lot, so there is. I forget what it's called, but do you remember when we tried to go see the dinosaurs? What is that place called?
Speaker 1:I have no idea, but it wasn't as cool as we thought it was going to be our kids literally looked at it out the window of the car and they were like, yeah, we're good, we're not going to get out, let's just keep driving hold on but yes, it was definitely not worth it and it was hot outside okay, it's called the cabazon dinosaurs c-a-b-a-z-o-n, so they they have long been regarded as one of the most iconic roadside attractions, featured in cult classics such as peewee, herman's big adventure and the wizard um. So basically, it's like these giant dinosaurs, way bigger than than like humans. Well, obviously.
Speaker 2:I mean, I hope they're bigger than humans and they have.
Speaker 1:So there's like a free portion where you can just like drive, drive by or walk by the dinosaurs, and then they also have a paid portion and we where you can like walk in the dinosaur.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think they have like a little area where you can maybe dig for dinosaur fossils. I mean, it's, it's fake for sure. But yeah, our kids were like nope, we're good, like just carry on, and I think they paint the dinosaurs different colors sometimes. But anyways, I mean, if you, if your kids are not bougie, spoiled kids like ours are, they might enjoy it. Ours were like pass so, but that was on the way from phoenix to la yep, oh yeah, anyways, goodness, so many messages, um, okay, what else? Do we have any other tips?
Speaker 1:I don't know you're the driver you're, you're the driver, so what are your best driving tips?
Speaker 2:Stay awake, pay attention.
Speaker 1:Red Bull Dwayne drinks a lot of Red Bull.
Speaker 2:Yes, I drink Red Bull, for sure.
Speaker 1:When we drive.
Speaker 2:Or coffee, maybe both sometimes. Yeah, check your tires, you know what I mean. Make sure there's enough air before you go.
Speaker 1:Clean the car. Dwayne's forever cleaning the car before we go on a road trip and when we get back.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean you got to Especially with kids inside. Oh my.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:I can do a whole episode on that. Matter of fact, I was taking the kids to school today and I had to vacuum out Aria's car seat because you let her have chips in it yesterday on the way to gymnastics. And I think more fell on the seat than went in her mouth.
Speaker 1:Listen, she packed her own snack, okay, and she didn't eat it on the way. She ate it on the way home. To be clear, it was crackers and like one-fourth of an Oreo that she somehow got in there. I don't know where the Oreo came from, but she had it, and sometimes it's just better to let them eat the snack than it is to argue about it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, well, hopefully this was a little helpful.
Speaker 1:If you are planning a road trip with your family, I would love to know where you're going. So maybe you can find us on Instagram and tell me, because I like to look up new areas and that's always fun. So we appreciate you listening. If you are so inclined, we would love a review wherever you listen to podcasts. I think you can review on iTunes. You can rate on Spotify. Those are the two main ones, I think. So thank you so much and we will catch you on the next one.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. Two main ones, I think so. Um, thank you so much and we will catch you on the next one. Yes, thank you, have a good one.