Tech-Free Road Trippin' with Kids

Yes, ladies and gentlemen... you read the title correctly! This past October the 5 of us drove from Northwest Indiana (near Chicago) ALL. THE. WAY. to Disney World sans technology. NO video games, NO DVD players, NO ipads. You get the picture, right?! You must think we are crazy.  My husband certainly did and he questioned me leading up to the trip everyday.  Do we really need to take this and that?  He kept complaining about space issues. But by the end of the trip he was singing my praises to every person who cared to listen. Yes, I am tooting my own horn {toot, toot}! We need to do that for ourselves a little more often.  So, you are probably wondering how we did it?  BOOZE! Lots and lots of BOOZE! Just kidding. That's illegal of course.  I would not recommend road trippin' illegally. LOL!

Let me introduce you to Hourly Road Trip Bags.  They are truly the secret to success. I scoured Pinterest leading up to the trip and this was a compilation of many ideas. 


Our road trip from start to finish was approximately 18 hours. Of course, we didn't have 18 hours of activities.  I accounted for sleeping and eating breaks.  We left at 2 am, so the kids slept until about 6 am.  I planned for the Hourly Road Trip Bags to begin around 8 am and then they would get another bag on the hour.  Not a minute before.  The suspense was priceless. Think YouTube blind bag unboxing kind of feel.  They were all about it.

The bags didn't typically last them the entire hour, but the activities were enough to keep their minds active and off of the long road ahead.  So what was inside?  Check out the list below.  Many of things came from Amazon, but some items were from Target and The Dollar Tree. We were traveling during Halloween time, but I am going to try and link similar items to be used across seasons.  {affiliate links earn me a small commission from every purchase}.

8AM  Plastic Snake and 2 Disney Princess Blind Boxes
           My son loves all things prank worthy, so when I saw the snake I knew he would get a kick out of pranking his two sisters.  The girls love any tiny dolls, so I thought the Disney Princess blind boxes would be perfect for a little creative play.

9AM Target Bullseyes Playground Activity Packs
          I was able to find the activity packs in LOL, JoJo Siwa, and Avengers themes.  They included a mini coloring book, crayons, and stickers.  They even did some trading after they were tired of their own.

10AM STEM and Snack Time
          You have to have snacks on a road trip, so I mixed a STEM activity into snack time. I gave my kids a cookie sheet, fruit snack packs, and toothpicks.  There goal was to make as many shapes as they could.  My son has Cerebral Palsy, and has a lot of fine motor difficulties.  So he adapted the activity for himself.  He put a toothpick in each fruit snack and ate them like hor d'oeuvres. He loved it!

11AM Art time
          The girls got a Halloween canvas bag and markers.  My son got a magnetic tic-tac-toe game.  The girls loved the tiny bag could hold their princess, coloring book, and markers.  The magnetic tic-tac-toe game was played by all of us.

12PM Lunch time

1PM Legos
         This was the most expensive of all of the bags, but kept them busy for a long time.  I also got a bag of plastic horses and Lego figure blind boxes to go with their creations.  I included Lego mats with magnets attached to keep them on their cookie sheets.

2PM Art time (again)
         My girls LOVE art, so I brought out mini canvases and Disney themed markers.  I had also assembled a booklet of directed drawings and a horse themed directed draw book to get their creative juices flowing.

3PM Snack Bag
        Nutella cups and Cheez-its

4PM Road Trip Scavenger Hunt
        This was fun for all of us and got us all looking out the window and our beautiful country.

5PM Dollar Store Foam Pop-Guns
         My goal was to tape shapes on the ceiling and have them aim at the shapes, but I forgot the tape  They enjoyed shooting Dad and getting an epic reaction. LOL!

6PM Audible Book
         We listened to Who Was Walt Disney while they played with Silly Putty

7PM Name That Disney Movie
        We listened to Disney movie songs and tried to be the quickest to name the movie.  It was a riot!

8PM We have ARRIVED! Let the magic begin!

We are planning our next Disney trip, so I am already making an Amazon Wish List of new ideas.  Feel free to leave some ideas in the comments! I cannot wait to put out a second edition. 

P.S. Don't do what I did and forget to plan for the trip back.  The ipads did eventually make their appearance, but at least we made it there without them.  (The kids thought we left the ipads at home and did not even have them during the trip).

1. Snake 2. Disney Princess Blind Boxes 3. Activity Packs 4.Fruit Snacks, Cookie Sheets, toothpicks 5. Canvas Bags, Markers 6. Legos, Lego Baseplate, Lego Blind Bags 7. Mini Canvas
8. Scavenger Hunt Game 9. Poppers 10. Book 11. Disney CD

Enjoy and Best of Luck on your next road trip!
Stacey