One of the things we love to do as a family is travel. Whether it is a weekend trip or a day trip, it is something that we enjoy doing. My boys, currently 2 years old and 10 months old, are at an age where road-tripping as a family is getting easier to do. Sebastian is such a boy and it definitely shows in his energy level. He is always on the go and seems to never get tired. I wish I knew his secret! Alexander, on the other hand, is very mellow and will fall asleep any chance he gets. Give him 5 minutes in the car and he can be out for hours!

We just recently did a San Diego Road Trip and I had to get creative to find things to keep my energetic two year old toddler busy and happy on the 6-7 hour drive from Tucson. We’ve done this drive before and we definitely struggled in keeping our toddler happy. From that, we have learned that we definitely need to get a little bit more creative and personalize his activities to things he’s into.

I decided to make a few things to make him comfortable for the drive. One being a coloring activity from an idea I got from a facebook video here and simply personalized it to my toddler’s favorite books and characters. I found free “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See” printables while browsing on pinterest here and Paw Patrol printables here. I decided to use colored pencils instead of crayons because I did not want crayon wax all over our van and my 10 month old likes to eat crayons…sigh.

Simple supples needed

Sebastian’s current favorite books

Paw Patrol coloring pages and stickers

Shaded in the color per word

Drawing pictures per the book

Final product

The second activity is a play mat for his cars, since he loves loves loves playing with cars. I found this idea on Pinterest here. I simply printed two pages of this free printable and used a glue stick to adhere it to a piece of cardboard. We were gifted a travel tray by a friend a while ago that fits perfectly over the car seat. It was just perfect for this activity since it has edges that prevent the cars from sliding off. You can find a similar one on Amazon here.

Simple supplies needed

Final product

I am happy to say that, along with plenty of snacks and movies, these activities kept my toddler pretty happy and busy! Alex, currently at 10 months old, was easy peasy! He pretty much slept most of the time. I occasionally gave him a snack to munch on but he was pretty content most of the drive. I plan to keep these activities in our van so that we can use them anytime and if needed we can even take them with us when we dine in at restaurants. I would love to see any ideas that you all may have for traveling with kids! I am sure these activities will keep changing as my boys get older, which is excellent for me since that means more crafting!!