31 Days: Road Trip (Planning Edition)

Hi friends!

So! Tonight I'll share with you my best planning tips when it comes to road tripping, especially to Disney World! So let's just dive in... 

So, when I plan, I include as much info as I can in our itinerary- it just helps make me feel prepared. Below is a peek at our last trip's itinerary for our driving days- the rows are as follow....

day of the week

hotel for the evening

date

event for the day/final destination

breakfast (where & what we're eating)

morning plans

lunch

afternoon plans

dinner

evening plans (hotel reservation #s)

And we've already discussed a few topics earlier in the series, like- 

TOYS: how I organize and plan for the road

FOOD: my favorites for the car and storage ideas 

So here's a few other tips and tricks to consider when planning out how you'll be road tripping...

PLAN:

My first piece of advice? Make sure you do plan ahead of time! Road tripping with kids is a big undertaking, no matter the age, so make sure you set aside time to plan out the details!

Get an early or late start:

Some of the best times to travel with kids are early in the morning and late at night. In the morning, the kiddos will be fresh as daisies (hopefully!) and less irritable. Maybe they'll even go back to sleep for a while if you get out early enough! Bring a portable breakfast for the road, like dry cereal, granola bars, or drinkable yogurt. 

If you're night owls, drive at night when the kiddos will be sleeping mostly. This way, they'll have spent most of the morning/afternoon NOT being cooped up in the car, and thus hopefully again not irritable yet! Bring a portable dinner to eat on the road, or plan to stop for dinner 1-2 hours into the trip. Also bring night-friendly activities for any kiddos that'll stay up after the sun goes down- book lamp for reading, iPad games/movies, or glow sticks!

One day, two days, three days, more:

We've done our 12 hour trek to Disney in one day and two days. When we knew we wouldn't be guaranteed an early start, we decided to break up the drive into two days. On the way home, when we hoped that the little one would be tuckered out from a whirlwind vacation, we did the whole thing in one day. Ironically, the straight shot drive was better than the two-days (due to a variety of unavoidable factors)! So just don't be too daunted to try and do it all in one day- it CAN work, if it's your only/best option! Just know that it'll be a long day, there will be delays, so just be prepared to go with the flow :)

Rest stops:

You'll be making them, so try and plan some fun ones! We planned stops at battlefields along the way (we're history buffs!), zoos, and "Diner, Drive-ins, and Dives" restaurants! Does your family have a hobby- baseball, hiking, etc? See if there's any stadiums along your trip, or awesome state parks! Parks & battlefields are also great places to have picnic lunches and let the kids run off some steam, kick a ball around, or just stretch out on a blanket and nap or read. 

Hotels:

There's kind of two schools of thoughts here- (1) make reservations in advance or (2) when you've decided you're done for the day, find a place with vacancies in the nearest town. The OCD planner in me always goes with option #1! While it's often not necessary, I always like to call the hotel and let them know if we'll be rolling in late at night- it's not unheard of for reservations to be given away. If option #2 is more your thing, just be prepared to drive around a bit. You never know if there's a big local event going on and thus no vacancies in town, so you'd have to keep driving. So just be flexible!

31 Days: Road Trip (Eating Edition)

Hi friends!

Today I'll be sharing some of our favorite snacks for the road! Along with a few tips to help snack time go a little smoother. Please feel free to learn from our family's mistakes on past trips! hehe

First up, our set up...

I keep a small cooler filled with any refrigerator-loving snacks in the backseat. I'll use this same cooler to bring snacks/meals into the parks during the trip, so it serves double duty!  

I have a caddy or basket that I place all of our snacks in for easy reaching. I'll put this on top of the small cooler, so our oldest can easily pick out a snack, and I leave a space here for her water bottle to fit!

I also bring an empty cup, to pour larger containers of snacks into- cereal, trail mix, etc. I got the Frozen cup from the Dollar Spot at Target! Other snacks I'll pre-portion into small tupperware before we leave- veggies, fruit, etc. I got the Mickey tupperware at the Dollar Tree- they're cheap quality but fun! They'll either get added to the kids' play kitchen or tossed after the trip. You could also use 

I also keep a baggie of small paper towels moistened with vinegar in the front seat with me. That's what I use instead of wet wipes (cheaper and no chemicals!). I also keep some dry paper towels and small bath/pool towels on the floor in the backseat for larger messes that may need to be cleaned up. Somewhere either with me or in the backseat (where I can reach from the front) I keep a small bag or garbage bin to collect, well, garbage! 

TIP: Empty that garbage bin every time you stop! Funky smells from foods build up quickly on a long trip, not to mention it'll just get full quickly! 

Now, on to some of our favorite snacks that are car-friendly!! (aff. links)

31 Days :: day 23, 24, 25- Vacation Lists

Day 23, 24, 25:: Vacation Lists

These are two lists that I used while planning and while on our recent vacation to Disney. I plan on sharing a lot more of my "Disney lists" either later in this Lists & More series or after!! We are true Disney fans and have been blessed with being able to visit there every year for our honeymoon & subsequent anniversaries. Anyhoo, onward with the lists! All printables are in generic teal colors {not Disney colors ;) }

List One:: Vacation Budget {blank printable here}

So when we go on vacation, I like to have our savings account stocked with how much we're planning on spending. I use our credit card so we earn frequent flyer miles, but then pay off the bill as soon as we get home from vacation- since we already have the money in savings! This is what works for us, but it's also important to stay roughly within our budget. So here's how this budget works...

• Title- the categories of spending {transportation, lodging, tickets, food, and extras}, the food area I break down into each day's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack spending
• Paymt- "payment," aka. how we pay for the expense, this way if we break up any spending onto different credit cards, I can make sure all cards get paid off upon our return home from vacation
• Estimate- this is how I make sure we have enough is savings to cover our trip, I usually round up a bit so leave some padding in the budget... I'll go into the in-depth planning behind Disney {and how you can tailor it to your vacation anywhere!} in future posts
• Actual- important note:: I bring this budget with me on vacation. At the end of each day, or every other day, I gather up receipts and see how much we actually spent on the various categories.
• Ovr/Unr- "Over/Under," aka. I take the difference between the Estimate cost and the Actual cost and put that in this column {again during vacation ~each day}. At the end of each day, I have a total of how much our total vacation is over or under budget, and I record this at the bottom {where it says D1, D2- aka. Day 1, Day 2...}. This helps us be aware if we need to cut back on say souvenir spending in order to keep in line with our budget ;)
• Notes- well, for any notes :) on mine I take note of where we're going each day of our trip, any discounts/coupons available for lodging or activities, etc.

List Two:: Vacation to-do list {blank printable here}

So as you can see, this example is currently tailored to Disney, and I've broken it down into the different parks and areas around Disney World. The blank printable has the title "Things to Do and See on Vacation" with blank categories so you can fill them in! This would be a great place to jot down what you want to do each day, or things to see at different stops along your trip, etc.

List Three:: Vacation Meal Planner {blank printable here}

Well just because you're on vacation doesn't mean you can't plan your meals! This is especially useful if you'll be eating out a lot and need to keep track of reservations. Also if you want to make sure you're balancing eating out and eating in, this would be useful to keep track which days are which! Or if you're going camping, you can set up your meal plans using this!

You can see the printable version below as well as how I implemented it on our most recent trip to Disney. A few things I included....

• where we went each day of the trip
• restaurant names
• reservation numbers
• reservation times
• evening shows & times at various parks {aka. where we were going after dinner!}