New to Family Adventures

[m007gunit]

Hello everyone!
I am new to all of this I have been on this forum for a while and finally am planning a adventure for my family. I am married and have 3 Kids oldest is 4 and youngest is 7 months old. I am going to take 2 weeks and drive from upstate NY out west to the utah Idaho area. I am wanting to do some camping and biking during this trip my vehicle is a 2007 Chevy Tahoe. I am new to this and at times thinking to travel 2000 plus miles oneway with 3 small kids is kind of crazy but my family growing up was never into this kind of thing and I enjoy doing as much as I can with my family and I found that you have to do things such as this because where I live in suburbia everyone likes to just hang around their houses and not parent their kids. We enjoy hiking biking and we have recently gotten into climbing. I am asking for any advise that anyone wants to give and or any idea of camping/ adventure advise for us would be very helpful. Thankyou very much.

 

[Capt Eddie]

Get a TV for the truck.

 

[john101477]

The Utah Idaho area as you put it is pretty big. Do you have a destination? thinking with 2 weeks you could do quite a bit of family activities. With kids as young as 7 months, I would seriously consider a kid carrier backpack such as the Deuter II
http://www.rei.com/product/749078
We use it and it is pretty comfortable.

Your going to probably be stopping every 2-3 hours for a break to stretch legs and let the older kids get some of the energy out so be prepared.
Plan ahead for over night stops. national parks and monuments are usually great places to stay for a night because you can get to experience exciting things along the way.
Places like yellowstone are worth as much time as you can give them.
yeah you can bring a TV/dvd player but at least for the 4 year old this will be a great experience. I was 4yrs old when I first went to Disneyland via Hwy 1 along the coast and I still remember the cool parts of the drive as well as disneyland
Oh and take plenty of snacks, kids complain less when their mouths are full of food.

 

[SilverBullet]

Your family is the same age as mine. We just did a 2 day drive to Missouri and had a great time. Here are my thoughts, take them at face value.

The DVD for the truck is a good idea, but don't allow more than a set number of movies per day. The whole point is to enjoy what is out there, not an in flight movie.

Have plenty of snacks and meals (lunchables work great) for everyone in the vehicle.

Also, I recommend driving early in the morning. As early as you can get up and be alert for the first part. That would allow a few hours and a few hundred miles before the cloick really starts ticking and it gets the scenery you are used to behind you.

Finally, plan stops. Not just bathrooms (although we did exit at EVERY station in New Mexico coming home), but things to see too. Find places of intrest. We stopped at teh cross in Groom, the Black Clydesdales in OK, and a few other things. Keep it intresting.

Good luck, sounds like fun to me!

 

[nwoods]

I wrote a short article on this not long ago:
http://blog.woodsfamily.cc/2010/05/25/camping-with-kids/

 

[kenallwine]

I wrote a short article on this not long ago:
http://blog.woodsfamily.cc/2010/05/25/camping-with-kids/

Great Article! We just took our 4-yr old camping last weekend and she loved it! We are all really looking forward to our 3-week camping/road trip!!

I also agree with everyone who has posted so far; provide plenty of distraction and go at your kids' cadence. That way, everyone will have fun!

 

[Pskhaat]

In-progress of completing an almost 6000 mile trip with my 3 wee ones. As others have said, lots of stops, some DVDs for the cornfield I90s and I80s of the country. We find a portable kids toilet to be of great value to limit off-route stops.

We try and leave before 4am to get a couple hours in before the whining starts.

Have fun.

 

[john101477]

I wrote a short article on this not long ago:
http://blog.woodsfamily.cc/2010/05/25/camping-with-kids/

An excellent read Nwoods. You and I are in opposite ends with the camping gambit as before me my wife had never camped. She is getting better though and we have had 4 family outtings this year already. other times I have to go it alone or with groups but I am used to that anyways.
Our daughter is 19 months now and is already taking after her daddy. hiking seems to come natural to her and although my gut has slowed me down over the years it has really helped to keep my pace down to allow her to rest and refresh. 2 weeks after she started walking she walked the short trail up hill at Burney Falls. We tried to pick her up and she got mad at us and wanted to walk. it will not be that long and she will be out walking me. time to loose the gut again

 

[wanderer-rrorc]

in late march we took our 4month old twins and our 6yr old on a 1300 mile trip to outer banks and back..and drove all over the banks while we were there...hours and hours in the carseats..

we did take a DVD player...I think she watched one movie the entire 6 days we were gone...

every 3hrs we stopped for potty breaks and to fuel up/munchies...
we took jerky and baked chips/fruit snacks for the 6yr old...

she sat in the back with the twins and made sure they had bottles when hungry and generally attended to them when they were awake...she had her Ipod (cheap knock-off)..and talked with me and the wife the whole way..

we did discover that anything MORE than 10hrs is WAY too much for kids...10hrs was the magic number for them to travel in a single day..8hrs would have been better but 10 was the max you could push it without the twins getting sore butts from sitin carseats...

we have plans on many trips over this year...but we have decided that anything over a 8hr drive must be done in 2 days to keep the piece (even if its 8hrs and 6hrs sleeping/playing then 4hrs more)

 

[ryanh_650]

A DVD player is great as a backup when there is nothing else to look at. My kids have always had a lapdesk to color on, play legos, etc., also a good surface to hold their snacks. Bonus wtih the lapdesk is my kids always draw me pictures of things they see on our trips, they mean more to me than the pictures we take, I keep them all in a scrapbook after each year's trips. My son, 9, has now taken to keeping an illustrated travel journal for each trip.

 

[nwoods]

Man you are so right about that. At some point into the second day on the Mojave trail my daughter (sitting in the front passenger seat) sketched out a landscape drawing that really captured my heart. We had just crested a rise and you can see Cima Dome and a long line of other volcanoe cones and lava flows in the distance, which she captured remarkably well and simply.

She uses those Crayola inkless pens that draw colors on black paper, without a mess.

 

[john101477]

A DVD player is great as a backup when there is nothing else to look at. My kids have always had a lapdesk to color on, play legos, etc., also a good surface to hold their snacks. Bonus wtih the lapdesk is my kids always draw me pictures of things they see on our trips, they mean more to me than the pictures we take, I keep them all in a scrapbook after each year's trips. My son, 9, has now taken to keeping an illustrated travel journal for each trip.

The lap desk is a great idea. lots of uses and it inspires creativity. thanks for posting that, when my daughter is of age I will be keeping that in mind. Once Sierra figures out that cameras do not go in the mouth I plan to get her a small cheap P&S camera. She knows how buttons work now and she gets a kick out of watching the screen on my camera.

 

[m007gunit]

Thanks everyone I have taken many trips with the kids and this seems very similar situation. We only use the dvd on long trips and after 4 hrs of driving and bring lots of books (kids don't read enough these days) I have takes my daughter to the OBX but never camping and such I really want to go out west but cannot get the time off from work so I live very close to the adirondacks so I think a few 4 day trips somplace closer and next year plan a 2 week expidition.

 

[azxplorer]

Ditto on Wanderer-rrorc: eight hours drive is good, ten hours is MAX. My 2 1/2 year old and I took a 2000 mile road trip to get Dad's new off road trailer. What would've normally taken me 2-2 1/2 days max, took us a full 5 days. That was based on his daily limit and a bunch of potty stops and time for him to burn off energy. We had fun, took a lot of pics and bonded big time. Bottom line: In the least, plan at least for half again as long as you'd otherwise expect for travel time. Enjoy the process as much as the destination.

 

[timh]

It has definitely been interesting learning how to travel with the little one. I think the best thing we did was start her out right away. She had been a couple of day trips after about 3 months old but we took her camping at 6 months old. She is now 21 months old has been camping 6-7 times and loves it. The offroad travel keeps her entertained and the bumpy roads really knock her out of she's tired.

Right now the trick seems to be a wide variety of in car entertainment. I am absolutely against a DVD player in the car but books, kid laptop, toys and every other random thing that might be interesting for a while. We just took a trip out to San Diego last weekend and I think Kiley must have spent a good hour or 2 both directions playing with one of those floppy fabric measuring tapes that my wife had in her purse. Kid songs are huge for her right now. She sits in the back with a goofy look on her face as mom and dad try singing kids songs that we don't really know the words to.

As everyone says though, get out and do it and you will learn each time how to make it better.

Good luck