This past weekend, my family got the opportunity to head up north with lots of extended family for a little lake time. It was such a great time but had me remembering that back when we had our first child, the thought of traveling anywhere in a car for more than 20 minutes, freaked me out!

 If this is you too, Mama?

So often, we have these expectations about how a vacation (aka trip because really you are just in another location doing the same thing… not a break/vacation!) will go and then it does a 180. If you don't have your mindset in a good place, it will completely wreck the experience for you.

I remember this one trip in particular. My husband and I were driving back with 2 littles (one was an infant and the other a toddler) from North Dakota to Minnesota. The drive was probably about 7 hours and about 1 hour in, our baby had a massive blowout in the carseat, our toddler was feeling sick and I had gotten food poisoning or something and was vomiting. My poor husband was driving us all back as we were a wreck.

I'll be honest, my mindset in that moment wasn't great. Looking back it's a comical story, but I didn't let something like that stop us from traveling. We love traveling and our kids do too. 

We've had many more stories and adventures of things not going as expected, but I've learned a couple things that I hope will help you start to travel with your kids too!

Remember this when contemplating travel with kids:

1. Most of your trip will not go as planned, so expect that.

2. Everything will take longer than you think. Plan for extra time.

3. Spending time together whether in a car or plane, is part of the travel. It's not just about getting to the destination and doing the activities, it's the whole process.

Your trip doesn't have to be cross-country. Go somewhere that's only an hour and ease into longer and longer trips as you feel comfortable. Just start traveling with you kids!

Here are some of our favorite road trip or plane travel gear we've used over the years and love:

I'm not one to worry much about screen time in the car. Although we do pack other activities that I'll share about, a kids fire kindle or ipad has been so great for us and special for the kids too. These are the headphones we use too because they can connect to each other! 

Other non-screen related activities we've loved are: Water Books, Sticker books, Richard Scarry books, LCD writing tablets are loved by all my kids, and food is a must and for little hands these containers are amazing!

My advice is live life with your kids! Life is too short. Don’t just travel before you have kids and certainly don’t wait until you are an empty-nester.

Now is the time.

By experiencing travel with your kids, you will have some of the best (perhaps not great in the moment) memories that will last you a lifetime!