As the proud parents of two toddlers who have realistically spent a good chunk of their lives on the road, we’ve come up with some things to do to entertain toddlers on road trips. Amazingly, we’ve personally never given Charleigh or Liam a tablet or phone in our car. This post is all of the things we’ve found work really well for us and our kids, including links to specific products. Before diving into those, though, we have a few tips about setting expectations and setting yourselves up for success.

The Innate Truth of Entertaining Toddlers on Road Trips

Let’s start with an obvious disclaimer – toddlers are unpredictable creatures that can have a meltdown even in the best of situations. These are tips, but they’re not a guarantee to make your trip run perfectly. Our trips never run perfectly. One of both of the kids meltdown or get bored or get cranky or refuse to enjoy their favorite snacks. However, we have put in tens of thousands of miles of road trips over the last 3.5 years, so we have tried things that work really well and things that didn’t work as well for us.

Don’t Forget…

Be sure to make your kids as comfortable as possible. Don’t load them in clothes that will be too warm after lots of time in the car. Charleigh hates to get a sweaty back. Do they have a favorite blanket or stuffy? Be sure to keep them with your little one and within arm’s reach. Let them take their shoes off if that makes them more comfortable. It’s the little things they ask for that are simply for comfort that can make all the difference.

How We Setup Our Backseat for Success

Our kids are on either side of the car with the middle space open. So, we put a toy bucket in the middle seat that we fill to brim (maybe a little over) with a lot of the things we talk about below and some of their general favorite toys. We make sure that they each have a full water cup in a relatively spill-proof cup in their cupholders and I put the snack bag on the floor between their seats so whoever is in the passenger seat can easily grab any snack that’s being asked for with ease.
Also, at every gas stop, I pile all the toys back into the bucket so we can have all the options because inevitably, these things get tossed down into the floorboard as the trip goes on. It just keeps it simple to know when you’re at a stop, that’s when you’re going to do that little chore. I also recommend getting trash out at these stops because it gets cluttered quickly if you don’t.

We Don’t Force Our Parents to Be Screen-Free With the Kids in the Car

We travel fairly often to state and national parks with my parents. Because of this, they’ll sometimes take the kids’ (especially Charleigh so far) in their car on our way back to the campground. And one time, they simply took Charleigh a full day early on a drive that Matt, Liam and I did in one day, they broke up into two short days and wanted the time with CJ. But even though we don’t do screens in our car, if our parents want to drive them on a road trip, I’m never going to try to completely control that situation. We just hold firm to the boundary of what we do in our car and say that screens are only in Mimi and Papa’s car sometimes. And it hasn’t been a problem for us at all.

9 Screen Free Things We Do to Entertain Our Toddlers on Road Trips

We Take Turns Choosing What to Listen to in the Car

This has made a huge difference. It started with Simple Songs that would soothe the little ones, and then realistically turned into a situation where the kids were choosing the vast majority of what we listened to, and Matt and I were miserable because you can only hear “One Little Finger”, “I Love the Mountains” and “This is a Happy Face” so many times on an eight-hour road trip without losing your mind. So, we now take turns in the car. Luckily, the kids are also over simple songs for the most part too. Matt and I get 10-ish songs each and in between those, the kids get 5 songs or a “story”. And let me tell you about the stories… So, Spotify has loads of stories in their app that our kids love. They especially love the Disney Storyteller Collection. They have several of the Disney movies narrated out like an audiobook and most of them have the songs in them too. They’re so delightful and our kids have heard more Disney stories than they’ve seen. As people who already have Spotify Premium, this is such an easy function to add entertainment to our road trips, but there are several stories and books available on Spotify.

Books, Books and More Books

Both of our kids love books. They love to look at the pictures, flip through the pages and Charleigh is in the very early stages of reading. Even still, we like to tell them to look at the pictures and tell a story about the pictures, which they love doing – especially Charleigh, just because she’s a little older. If it’s a multi-day road trip, I bring several books and try to cycle them out so they stay fresh and exciting.

These Are Books Our Toddlers Especially Love: Acorn Was a Little Wild, Let’s Go On A Hike, Teddy Roosevelt Loved the Outdoors, Georgia O’Keefe Loved the Desert, The Adventures of John Muir, Little Blue Truck, all the Grumpy Monkey Books, Daniel Tiger 5 Minute Stories, Zero Zebras, Woodland Dance, and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

Interactive Toys That Help Them Get the Fidgets Out

We have had several long days in the car. Like, 12+ hours (granted, we try not to have those days often), but sometimes you have to have them to get places. So, we have definitely found that toys that involve a lot of movement on their part and brain stimulation give us the longest stretches of fuss-free time. We do the same thing with these and try to bring out something “new” each day to keep things fresh.

Our Favorite Interactive Toys: Lite Brite Touch, Drawing pads, Magnetic Drawing Board, these tubes, popping toys, magnetic busy boards, these threading toys, and this alphabet popup toy.

For the Love of Wanderlust Tip: Someone told us that they did this at every bathroom break of a long drive day. Stop and pee? You get a toy. Well, their quick little toddlers learned that real quick and suddenly they were making all kinds of bathroom stops. So don’t do road trip treats or rewards around bathroom breaks.

Let Them Stretch Their Legs at Every Break

Look, it’s a lot of work to get the kids in and out of their car seats, I totally get it. But, it’s so worth it to let them stretch their legs, even if it’s only been an hour since the last stop. It’s a total reset for them. We also try to plan some sort of a “fun” break. We go to a rest area and let them run free, not just hold hands in a parking lot. We also bring bubbles for these stops to add a little something special to these stops.

Our Exceptions to This: If it’s been such a short amount of time and it’s below freezing I don’t get them out and bundled if they don’t need to go inside. Also, if they’re napping. We like to keep a nap going as long as possible.

Get Their Creativity Flowing

There are several mess-free options for letting your kid get crafty and creative on the road. Our kiddos especially love the water paint sets. I also love them because they are reusable, which is amazing when you have limited packing space. I always fill the little water brushes up and pop them in the plastic brush holder full of water so it’s easy for them and literally requires no work from me on the road until it’s time to refill the water. There are also the mess-free marker kits. These are a little harder to use on the road, but my kids have used them. Charleigh has also gotten to the point that she’s doing dry-erase learning activities on the road. Draw pads are also good for this, obviously.

Plan Fun Stops When You Can

Obviously, some days are just about getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible. But, when you can, try to find something fun along the way. En route to Zion, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch to break up the drive and do something fun. En route to Vail, we stopped in Breckenridge to see the Thomas Dambo Troll. Little things like this add a sense of adventure and wonder to a really long day, and can also make a really nice reset while also having the opportunity to create beautiful memories.

Pack Their Favorite Snacks

Definitely have a bag of their favorite snacks within reach. I mean, who doesn’t love road trip snacks?! I know that I do! The one thing I try seriously hard to avoid in this realm is excessive amounts of added sugar. I don’t like to get them all amped up on trips so they’re wired and stuck in carseats. But, we love fruits, dehydrated fruit strips, graham crackers, peanut better crackers, veggie straws and goldfish crackers.

Turn to Interactive Games in the Car

We have several silly interactive things we do in the car. These are some examples of what we do, but you can make up your own or use some of these. We play “I Spy” – this came later in toddlerhood when they can actually understand the rules of the game. Hide and seek is a big one for us. They hide under their blankets and we pretend we can’t find them. We look under our cups, out the window, under our feet, in bags and then finally pull the blankets off of them and it’s a huge hit. A holdover from my childhood is “holding up” the bridges and overpasses we drive under. We all put our hands as high as we can (touching the roof of the car) to hold up the bridges and we make sure to thank the kids for their help. Charleigh is really into giving presents to each other. She wraps a random toy in her blanket and hands it to me to open. I then wrap a different toy and hand it back for her to open. It’s a silly game but she loves it. Let your imagination (and their’s) run wild at all the different things you can play while you’re stuck in the car.
Obviously when I say we it’s the passenger doing most of these things because the other parent is responsibly driving, but we do trade off on who drives.

Let Them Be Bored

This is one we’re personally working on more and more. It’s easy to want to cater to your kids’ every whim, especially when they’re stuck in a car because of a destination you’ve picked out. But I have found that some of the most fun they end up having comes from letting them be bored. They play imaginatively with the other toys that they have in bucket between them. They look out the window and talk about the landscapes with us. Or they start to take in, listen to and enjoy our music that we listen to. We have the two biggest Twenty-One Pilot Fans in carseats, I think. Just like at home, it’s good to let them be bored and figure it all out for themselves.

These are the things that have worked for us in our travels. I’m not exaggerating when I say our kids have spent about 1/3 of their lives on the road, so we do have a lot of experience with entertaining our kiddos on road trips: both long and short. I hope that these tips help you entertain your kids and hopefully you can do it screen-free too! What are things that you do to entertain your toddlers on long road trips? We’d love to add to our bag of tricks!

A little love from one mama to another parent type of disclaimer: Going screen-free is a personal choice for us based upon research recommending as little screen time as possible, especially at really young ages. But, to be clear, our kids do watch screens at home. This isn’t meant to sound preachy or judgmental. We’re just trying to share what has worked for us while still holding firm on this boundary on the road. Every child is different and parenting choices are deeply personal. So however you do screens or road trips, you’re doing great!

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