We’ve made it through the winter and the miserable March weather, which means the Easter holidays are here and we can finally look forward to a few days away from school, studies and work.
Whether you’re planning a modest staycation, a big hurrah to an overseas destination or simply driving to spend a long-weekend with relatives, travelling with children can be a big undertaking, so we’re sharing some of our top tips for travelling with kids so you can get from A to B with minimal stress during the school holidays.
1.Devices are your friend.
Many people will be familiar with the palaver of taking hand luggage packed full of different activities on a flight. You can find yourself yoyo-ing up and down from your seat to fetch a different toy from overhead storage and then back up five minutes later because someone has emptied the entire contents of a Ribena onto their clothes!
As many airlines now charge extra for carry-on luggage, the less you can afford to take the better so, while we don’t usually advocate for extended screen time, devices can be a godsend for parents while travelling.
You can install a child-friendly series, music or educational games and apps so your little ones are kept busy on plane, train and long car journeys and you have extra room in your bag for the essentials. Here’s some of our favourite apps that will appeal to children of varying ages and enrich their learning:
Educational:
Duolingo (for older children or those with multilingual parents)
Strategy-based games and puzzles:
2. Create a DIY Activity Book
Encourage children to make an activity book for themselves before they leave home by printing out simple puzzles, games or outline drawings they can colour in on the journey. You can also leave some blank pages for them to write stories or draw their own pictures of things that inspire them on the way.
Once you’ve collected all the pages you’d like to include, either sew or staple to bind everything together. Children then have a bespoke activity book to get their creative juices flowing and keep them busy while you’re on the move.
3. Play Travel Games
Whether you’re staying on home turf or you’re bound for an overseas location, travel provides children and families with fantastic new experiences such as new foods, different landscapes and exposure to other cultures. But long journeys can be a challenge for younger passengers so having travel games up your sleeve can make the trip that bit more bearable for everyone. Here’s some of our favourites:
I-Spy - A family classic that can be played in cars, on trains and at the airport
Word Association Game - The first player says a word out loud then, moving in a clockwise order, the next player must come up with a word they associate with the previous one. The game continues until someone cannot come up with a word.
Rhyming Game - As with the word association game, the first player says a word out loud then, moving in a clockwise order, the next player must come up with a rhyming word. The game continues until someone cannot come up with a word.
The Alphabet Game - The first player chooses a category (like foods or animals) and kicks off the game by saying the name of something from the category beginning with A. Moving in a clockwise order, every participant then moves through the alphabet until someone gets stuck!
4. Listen to an Audiobook
Reading is an essential skill for children as it supports their language development and understanding of punctuation. If your child is a keen reader then taking a book (or selection of books) on a plane or train journey during the school holidays is something we encourage. If you’re travelling by car then reading can trigger motion sickness which is something no passenger wants to endure but that’s where audiobooks come in handy.
Audiobooks provide a nice auditory alternative to music in the car. It’s more than likely everyone has different music tastes and Baby Shark on loop can make even a 20-minute drive along the North Circular feel like you’ve travelled to Penzance and back.
Listening to an audiobook helps mitigate that risk and provide a calming environment to ensure children are settled while you’re on the move. But audiobooks also have a plethora of other benefits:
In the absence of pictures, your child must use their imagination to visualise the story and the characters.
Audiobooks engage children in a different way so may open them up to other genres you’ve not previously explored.
If driving, you could play the audiobook through the speakers so all passengers can bond and enjoy the story together.
It can enhance your child’s vocabulary and develop their listening skills.
Listening to an audiobook needn’t be limited to just your journey either. This may spark a new habit and is something you can easily take out and about with you so children can continue listening when they have down time or feel fidgety.
5. Be strategic with travel times
We know that when travelling overseas, flight times are often dictated by cost but regardless of the form of transport you’re taking we encourage you to try and travel overnight or at a period that coincides with scheduled nap times.
Children under 12 will need between nine and fourteen hours of sleep per day and disrupting this means you may end up with ratty children which can make journeys hellish and can spoil the trip for everyone!
6. Don’t go overboard with sugar
During school holidays, families are often more inclined to be lenient with bedtimes and sugary treats. With Easter coming up we expect chocolate and candy won’t be in short supply but be mindful of quantities and when in the day children are having sugar.
A combination of sweet treats and adrenaline before travelling can have children bouncing off the walls but when some of this excitement eventually wears off, children will likely have an energy crash and become irritable.
Reducing sugar intake before travel will minimise the likelihood of a sugar crash and make the journey more enjoyable for all passengers.