Road trips are not my forte.
I mean, even short trips in the car with my kids often have disastrous results. But since we do our best not to rock the boat, we've opted not venture very far with our family while the kiddos are so young.
I know. LAME.
But now that the kids are getting better with schedules, car rides and the like, we're hoping to get a little more brave. We'd like to experience life, and I often find myself jealous of my friends who are travel savvy and take their kids anywhere and everywhere for fun vacations.
I'd like to be travel savvy.
So I've started to contemplate the idea of longer car trips. Now, a lot can go wrong on long car rides, especially with a 2 year old and a 4 year old. But I believe with planning, forethought and preparedness, a road trip can be successful.
One of the topics I think is of utmost importance when talking about road trips is FOOD.
Isn't food important all the time anyway?
In high school and college, I'd like to think I was semi-adventerous. I'd take daringly long road trips with friends or by myself to visit people. My sister went to college over 4 hours away, and I made the trip several times by myself. I had friends who attended school almost 6 hours away, and I visited them a handful of times as well. Sometimes I'd even go a bit crazy and do a dual road trip: 4 hours to see my sister for a day or two followed by a quick 3 hour trip to the college I went to for a year before transferring home.
Since these road trips were on the longer side, I always prepped myself with snacks. My favorite road trip snack was really random: Pizzaria Combos and purple Gatorade.
Weird, right?
If I was driving at night, I almost always opted for my favorite convenience store beverage concoction: 1/2 cappuccino, 1/2 hot cocoa.
Fab.
And weird.
And so not healthy.
Now that I have kids, road trip snacks are of utmost importance.
Along with our disastrous road trips, we've had some disastrous snack experiences as well. We're that family who opted to allow one of our kids to have a sippy cup full of milk on a summer road trip. And then never confirmed it left the car. And then wondered over the course of a week why our car smelled like a fish died in a rotten meat factory. Until we couldn't take it anymore and conducted a search and rescue mission. And found a diaper bag with a milk-laden sippy cup that had sat through a heatwave in our car.
Let's just say both diaper bag and sippy cup (whose contents had turned into an unfortunate and completely unmarketable form of rank cheese) had to be thrown away.
We are now more conscientious of the snacks we allow in the car, as well as the health-factor of said snacks. We aim for clear beverages and food that is easily cleaned up with a vacuum (and not smooshed into the upholstery).
Here are my Top 10 Family-Friendly Road Trip Snacks:
1. Goldfish Crackers
2. Trail Mix
3. Carrot and Celery Sticks
4. Apple Slices
5. Mini Pretzel Twists
6. Crunchy Granola Bars
7. Popcorn
8. Turkey Pepperoni (best for kids over age 4 because of "Smoosh into Upholstry Factor")
9. String Cheese (best for kids over age 4 because of "Smoosh into Upholstry Factor")
10. Water (if you want some flavor, cut the water with a splash of Apple Juice)
Say it with me: NO MILK IN SIPPY CUPS. NO MILK IN SIPPY CUPS.
I like to buy the zip-top snack bags and pack several items from the list above so we have a variety of snacks to choose from. We also have a few of those kid-friendly snack containers too.
I'd love to hear from YOU:
What are YOUR favorite road trip snacks?
For your kids?
For your kids?
Leave a comment! And if you have a funny road trip story, share that too :)
Content and/or other value provided by our partner, Kia Motors
