Yes, Screen-Free Road Trips With Kids Can Be Fun

My family just got back from a 10-day road trip. We drove 14 hours each way to visit family. It was utterly delightful, and along the way (bonus!) we stopped to see a friend and her family, meeting up at a historic site we've long wanted to see. Earlier this summer, we took another 10-day road trip, driving a little over 20 hours each way and visiting two other friends and their families during the drive. We also squeezed in multiple museum stops. As the cliché goes, we made memories—really good ones—and we did it without screens.

We’ve really enjoyed road trips with our three kids over the years (now down to two, as the oldest has graduated high school and is out of the house). Driving is much cheaper for family travel, plus it allows flexible opportunities (like seeing friends along the way) that flying simply doesn't offer. And yet, as anyone who has ever taken a trip with children knows, being cooped up in the car for hours or days on end with kids can be intense, to say the least. Indeed, the number one question we get asked whenever we mention travel is: What do your kids do in the car? Driving for long periods of time is not easy for adults, but time in the car can be exponentially harder for kids—which, in turn, can make the experience even more miserable for parents. No one wants to suffer through 10 hours of “Are we there yet?” repeated every five minutes, beginning the moment you pull out of the driveway.

As a result, for many parents, road trips are the time when survival mode kicks in, all restraint goes out of the window, and the kids are allowed to watch unlimited movies in the car or spend as much time as they want on tablets and other devices. But our family travels screen free, for reasons Clare Morell so wonderfully articulates in her new book, The Tech Exit. Screens are, Morell argues, extremely difficult to moderate for most kids. When it comes to screens’ effect on children’s brains, they act more like fentanyl (addictive to an extreme degree, and there’s no safe dosage) than sugar (possible to consume safely in small doses). Thankfully, we've never had to take the tech exit because we never made a tech entry. But this raises yet again that pesky question: What do the kids do in the car for multiple hours a day, if they're not on screens? 

It helps that we’re a bookish family to begin with, but for trips, planning is still essential. I check out several books from the library for each child. Sometimes in preparing for multi-day trips, I wrap some of the books in fancy gift paper and label them with a day, so the kids have a surprise to look forward to. The youngest (age 6) is not quite reading yet, so we check out a number of audiobooks for her. The wonders of screen-free technology include “Playaways,” tiny pods into which we insert a battery and plug in headphones, and the child has an individual audiobook. For kids who can read, these are great as well, both as a break from reading, but also as an activity for the dark-early evenings of winter, when we still have to drive a couple more hours. Friends of ours have used Yoto players similarly. Occasionally, we also listen to audiobooks together as a family, but most often, the kids listen to individual books. Audio books are also a great alternative for those who get car sick if they try to read in the car. 

In addition, my youngest has always enjoyed coloring books, while her brother enjoys keeping a trip journal. I often get a couple of new coloring books and craft kits for her to do in the car. Or they play boardgames. One of our best-ever cheap purchases was a small set of magnetic Bingo—it’s fun enough that older kids can play a few rounds, yet suitable also for younger kids who cannot read yet or follow game rules that are more sophisticated. On this latest trip, we also played many rounds of Battleship, although I expect that we’ll keep finding tiny white and red plastic pegs in the car for months to come. On my wish list for our next road trip this fall is magnetic chess and checkers—two games my kids love.

Every game room at home requires good snacks, and the same is true for the mobile game room. Prior to every road trip, I stock up on all the fun snacks—crackers, beef sticks, cereal, applesauce pouches, and individual packets of chips and nuts. We pack these into a large crate or basket secured in the middle of the back seat. The snacks container, as a result, is equally accessible to both kids. Furthermore, the strategic location of the basket in the middle also acts as a buffer between two people who are otherwise likely to poke each other—literally. 

Of course, sitting does get old, even if you do enjoy books and games and snacks. And so, we have started planning our route and trip schedule with playground stops in mind. After all, any city or town in America is likely to have at least a city park and possibly a nice playground. Thus, when we stop for lunch or dinner, we usually take food to a park, which allows the kids a chance to run around and play. Then, after an hour of running and playing outside, the kids are usually ready to get back in the car and resume the routine of quiet games and reading. We parents feel much better after such stops, too, with the chance to stretch our legs a bit. 

Yes, screen-free travel with kids does require a bit more planning and effort than simply handing them a device. But for those who are willing to put in the planning work, the healthy habits this process cultivates will pay dividends in the long haul. In a world where digital entertainment is everywhere, it is worth raising kids who love old-fashioned delights like board games, reading and listening to books, and most importantly fostering good habits of mind, including on road trips. 

Nadya Williams is a homeschooling mother, Books Editor for Mere Orthodoxy, and the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church, and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic.

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