Tips For Road Trips With A Toddler

we aren't big road trip people. i love a plane, if i'm being honest. the farthest we've driven with august was four hours, and that was from SFO to yosemite. if i could have flown directly into the park, i would have. 

that being said, due to COVID and many other logistical pieces, we knew pretty early on that we'd be driving to portland from salt lake city. we came up with a game plan of caleb driving our moving truck (i'm not a big fan of those pods where it takes weeks for your stuff to show up) and i'd drive our car. i had the idea to see if my sister was up for flying out to ride with me in the car with august to help out. she agreed! 

we threw around the idea of staying in boise, idaho (the halfway mark) but ultimately decided to just grind it out and do it all in one go. after all, it was only 12 hours and we were going to do almost half of that in the night. below are some tips I have for driving far distances with a toddler.

drive as much as possible in the middle of the night.

if we could have driven the entire way through the night, we would have. we couldn't though because we had movers meeting us upon arrival to unload our truck and we didn't want to be running on zero hours of sleep on day one of arrival. we were able to drive five hours though, which made a world of difference. caleb rigged up this crazy contraption of bungee cords and blankets and essentially created a blackout curtain situation in the backseat around the carseat. i was desperate for august to be able to fall asleep immediately since we were leaving in the middle of the night. i also wanted him to stay asleep and not wake up with the sun. this contraption that we made worked incredibly well. august even stayed asleep through a stop at a gas station at 3:30am. amazing!!! 

plan out your activities.

i am a planner to my core. and with this road trip, i was no different. i went overboard and scheduled out what the game plan was for each hour. my sister got onboard with it, and it was surprising helpful. I knew where we were supposed to be when, which places we were stopping at for food/gas, and i knew what the plan was for august -- whether that was eating, sleeping, or playing. we ordered a fantastic travel kit off of etsy and it was so helpful. 

stop and get out for mealtime. 

this concept was not only great for august, but also really helpful for my sister and me. getting out to stretch your legs and walk around and take a break from the car was super helpful mentally. i had originally planned on doing this to wear august out as much as possible so that'd he actually get back into the car and take a nap. i was surprised how great this was for myself and my sister, though. and august napped great! :) 

you'll get there! 

there will be good moments where your child contently plays with the new toys you bought or takes a glorious three hour car nap. and then there will be bad moments where your kiddo has a blow out or vomits or spills an entire container of food. my best advice, always, is that when traveling with babies or toddlers it is temporary! you'll get there eventually!! 

when we pulled up to our new backyard, it was alllll worth it! happy travels, everyone!