Getting Ready For A Long Car Trip? Tips To Make It Go Smoother
Posted on: 16 March 2017
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Long car trips with kids can be exhausting. If you do not keep the kids occupied, you may have to make stops every couple of hours just to keep from going crazy. Of course, there are some other things you could do to occupy the kids that would help keep things nice and quiet in the car too. Here are a few tips from the audio/video/tech pros that can help.
Charge up Tablets Before You Leave
If you have kid tablets or regular tablets for the kids to play on, make sure they are fully charged before you leave. This will give you at least three hours' peace before the tablets are out of power and need to be recharged. If you bring charging cords, they never need to power down. Additionally, if all of your kids have headphones, they can plug their headphones into the jacks in their tablets and you do not have to hear a single thing the whole way — not a cartoon, not a short video clip, not a song on repeat, nada. Ah, the sweet sound of silence.
Portable Video Game Players
Portable video game players also help. When kids get bored with movies and tablets, they can play on portable or handheld video game players. Most of the game cartridges and consoles can be carried in special carrying cases, which allows you to dole out the consoles and games to each kid by specific console and game sets. Since consoles can also connect via Wi-Fi, the kids could play some cooperative and interactive games too, if they actually feel like playing games with their siblings. Just make sure the consoles are fully charged when you leave the house and don't forget charging cords for the car and for the hotel rooms if you are staying overnight and away from home somewhere.
Custom Video Installation
You could also take that whole video-watching thing a step further. Visit a store or auto shop that does custom video installation in cars. Then you can install at least two, possibly three or four video screens (if you have a mini-van) in your vehicle that fold down from the ceiling and all play an entirely different movie for each kid to watch. Bring a giant stack of DVDs with you, and the headphones to plug into the drop-down screens, and you will have quiet almost the entire road trip.