Did I mention we were traveling for 32 days?
It was exhausting and emotional and fun and exciting and satisfying and expensive and long and short.
This was our third cross-country trip (7,000+ miles) and sixth major family road trip (we’ve gone north twice, once to Maine and once to Canada, and south once, to the Gulf Coast of Alabama). (I’m not including our many trips to Outer Banks, Boston, etc., because you can do those in a day.)
So I just wanted to share a couple of tidbits that I have picked up or figured out along the way.
Bring one duffel bag for each night you’ll be in a hotel. This tip either came from my friend Lynda or my friend Mary, I can’t remember which, but they’re both grandma age and have done many family trips so it was probably one of them. Everyone’s PJs and clothes for that night and the following day goes in that bag, so you’re only bringing one bag into the hotel. (First few trips I did this with giant Ziploc bags, also super handy but the zippers eventually break, and these duffel bags are inexpensive on Amazon and the zippers will last longer.) This method works well for us because we are generally only driving for 5 days at a time, and can easily do laundry somewhere once every 5 days-ish throughout the trip, so 4 duffel bags is the magic number.
Everyone gets one giant open bag (we use the boat tote style from LL Bean or Lands End)(shout out to my sister Bonny for introducing these bags into my life) for everything they will want in the car. It sits at their feet. They pack their own. I don’t want to know what goes in it, and don’t ask me where anything is that was once in it.
At the end of the driving day when we’re getting into the hotel, anything that has made its way out of the bag must be put back in (or thrown away) and the bag placed on its owner’s seat. The car floor needs to be totally clear and clean before we go into the hotel. This helps the kids manage their stuff and also helps me mentally because if the car is cleaned up once a day, I feel like that’s the best I can do and I’m not totally losing my mind. Once we started this nightly practice, the kids (almost) completely stopped losing stuff on the road.
In *general* they don’t bust out devices until evening. The rule used to be they get them out when it gets dark, but that works better in the winter than in the summer. Either way, usually after dinner is when they get them out. The bulk of the day they can spend looking out the window or reading or playing a game or fighting.
I don’t have a picture to illustrate this last tip, but here it is, from my brother Harry: pay the kids $1 each for every 100 miles that they are good. Our first trip we were pretty faithful to this. If the kids were fighting or being annoying they didn’t get the money. If they were quiet and kind, they did. As the trips and years racked up, we still did this, but not really every 100 miles—more like every 300-500. I mean $70 per kid is a lot 😆 and now that they’re older they don’t need the motivation as much.
Favorite quote from the trip might be:
Me: “Theo are you being obnoxious?”
Theo: “yes but everyone is being obnoxious.”
Me: “… touché.”
We are all hung over in a sense (time change, laundry, too much junk food all month, missing our family, school about to start). But it’s still good to be home.
