5 on Friday – Roadtrip Faves

Tomorrow morning Carly Jo, my niece Morgan and I will head off on a roadtrip to Orlando! We have at least one pitt stop on the way there and haven’t quite decided the route for our return. Does that stress you out? Well how about I don’t even have hotel reservations for part of my stay? Being this close to a trip without definitely plans is not one of my roadtrip faves!

I’ve known we were heading to Orlando this week for probably like 9 months and always planned to drive. Two weeks ago I did get really anxious about it as it will be my first time going this far without having an extra driver. Today I’m feeling so excited and ready to hit the road!

We love roadtrips and at least I will be well rested on this one before returning home. I thought today I would round up a rew Roadtrip Faves which we find fairly essential.

Roadtrips Games

There of course are all the old originals like the license plate game, the alphabet game and eye spy. Note, I’d rather stab myself in the eye than play eye spy! Ha! With all the technology available and older kidos we don’t have to play as many games but here are two I’m excited about.

Roadtrip Snack Game: Collect the most regional snacks between the start and finish of your road trip. Riley and I did this on our Route 66 roadtrip back from California a few years ago. The rules are simple! At each gas station you stop at, you have to find a local snack. Each person is only allowed one food item per gas station and it has to have been created within the region the stop is located. We found some fun stuff and may have not stuck to the one item rule!

Holler When You See a Cow is a game I feel like my family can get on board with and I can especially see Keith making this uber competititve on our trip to Albuquerque in July. The Rules are simple for this one but you better be paying attention or someone will steal all your cows!

The Rules:

• When you see a cow on your side of the road, you have to yell, “Cows on my side!”

• Every time you call a cow, you get a point

• If you see cows on the other side you say, “Cows on your side!”

• If you call, “Cows on your side,” before the person sees them, you steal a point

• If anyone sees a cemetery they scream, “Ghost cow,” stealing all the other side’s points

Roadtrip Playlists

My bestie is the roadtripping queen which means she shared her amazing itunes playlist with me! Music makes me happy and I love belting out some favorites in the car when I first get started AND when I need that extra push.

Spotify is a really great resource as well as there are so many playlists already pulled together! If you are traveling with little ears just be sure you do the double check as some contain explicit music. Of course, there is no better time than a long car ride to teach your kids about life and share your values! Ha! Here are a few I’m saving that look promising.

Rock the Roadtrip is full of so many of my favorites and the Pop Roadtrip Playlist is going to be the perfect one for me to sing loudly and annoy the teens!

Roadtrip Planners

There are so many planners out there but Google Maps seems to be one of the simplest to use. While it does plan out your trip and give the directions you need, it has some other fun features as well. Tip, keep it running even when you don’t need the directions and if you lose service you will still have the directions available.

Ever had someone tell you a must see in the location you are going to visit or would like to visit one day? You can go ahead and mark it on your google map for future reference. Then, when you do finally visit you can mark the spot as visited! Of course, it may also freak you out to go to the google map and see the places you have visisted which mysteriously show up which you are positive you did not add like your trip to the grocery store 11 months ago!

Gas Buddy is another app which will help you find the cheapest place to stop for gas along your route. I have never used this one but have downloaded and will definitely test it out this trip.

Another app, Trello, I had never heard of before is more of an organizational app. If you are a list maker and also love the feel of a good Pinterest board this app might be just what you are looking for to plan your next trip. At first glance it seems a bit overwhelming but reading this article was helpful.

Roadtrip Snacks

Snacks are essential for various reasons but the biggest for me is it keeps us from making too many unecessary stops. It is also, obviously, much more economical to bring your own snacks verses stocking up at the gas station. We always pack a small cooler with drinks and things like string cheese and maybe some lunchmeat. Mostly our favorite snacks consist of our fave junk food!

I typically use a container with a lid that snaps on which you will more than likely find full of beef jerky, skinny pop, trail mix, goldfish, pringles singles and cheese its in our car! Don’t forget to pack some wipes to clean up cheesy hands!

Roadtrip Memories

I shared a little Travel Bug Gift Guide back in November as we prepared for Christmas and two fun items were on that list to help preserve our roadtrip memories. This little printer we can use to print pictures on the go and a fun little journal to keep all the memories in.

Since my niece is traveling along with us I feel like it’s the perfect time to use this little printer and allow her to keep up with her memories as we go. I also saw this one at a more reasonable.

A fancy journal is totally not necessary and just something cute and fun snagged at Target works! Pop on some cute letters to personalize and she will be ready to go! Having a journal with fun prompts about the vacation just really helps to get them rolling on what to write about.

So I’d love to know, are you a fan of a good roadtrip or are you a get me there as fast you can kind of traveler?