We’ve taken quite a few road trips. In huge National Parks like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Denali, the best way to explore was to rent a car and move from one hotel to the next. Sometimes, our destination isn’t quite far enough to justify flying, or we want to bring so much stuff that it just makes sense to drive in our own car.
Either way, the drive is a lot more pleasant if we make it part of our vacation, not an endurance test. For our family, 3 hours of planned driving—with the expectation that traffic will add a little extra time somewhere—is a good, sustainable pace that leaves plenty of time for fun during the journey.
We plan our road trips around our daughter, G, who has autism. She’s used to a long daily ride to school in a van, so an hour or two at a time in the car, followed by an interesting activity—or even better, a swim in a hotel pool—doesn’t put her too far out of her comfort zone.
It turns out that planning this way works for almost any family with young kids. If yours start asking “Are we there yet?” before you’ve left the driveway, read on.
Part 1: Plan the Drive
This yellow line on this Google map shows the last 2 days of our drive from Yellowstone National Park to Rapid City, South Dakota. The blue icons are attractions that we considered for mid-day adventures, including interactive museums, dinosaur digs, and a wild horse reserve. The blue line is the road not taken - but it could have been if we changed our minds about our plans on either day.
Let the Map Help You Plan
Get your drive time. Enter your start and end points in Google Maps and note the estimated total hours of driving time.
Divide by 3. Divide your total estimated hours by 3, then round up. Our Yellowstone to Mount Rushmore trip was about 9 hours, so we planned three driving days with two overnights. In practice, our days ran a little over three hours. If your trip has several legs, work out each leg separately, and don’t count days you plan to spend staying in one place.
Choose your overnight towns strategically. If your overnight stop is near a big city, get to the far side of it in the late afternoon—don’t leave navigating city traffic for the next morning. If you do get stuck in traffic, your kids will quickly forget about it once they’re in the pool, and you won’t throw off your timeline the next day.
Search the route for kid-friendly stops. With your route on screen, search along it for things your child loves: zoos, interactive museums, or dinosaurs. These are your daytime targets, and we aim for one high-interest stop per day. If there’s a major point of interest in the town where you spent the night, hit it right when it opens, spend a couple of hours, and get an hour of driving under your belt before you stop for lunch.
Prioritize interests over fame. In Wyoming, we had to choose between seeing wild horses or dinosaurs. G loves dinosaurs, so we took the dinosaur route, and it made the whole day smoother. Plan your stops around your child’s passions, not necessarily the most famous attraction.
Flush with laughter! A giant Adirondack chair with a hole in the seat gave Daddy a chance to provide some bathroom humor!
Use quirky roadside attractions for restroom breaks. Oddball stops are the ideal place to stretch your legs and use the bathroom—it’s much easier to get kids to go if they’re already out of the car. We’re also happy to make quick, spontaneous stops whenever we see something interesting along our route. The idea is to have fun between Point A and Point B.
Our favorite websites for finding oddball roadside stops are RoadsideAmerica.com and AtlasObscura.com. For me, this is a night-before lookup, not a major advance plan.
Put more stops than you think you need on your list. It’s much easier to just drive past an extra stop if everyone is happy than it is to scramble on your phone at the last minute in the car when plans change.
Tech Tip: Your phone is great for real-time driving directions, looking up nearby restrooms and quick meals, and making on-the-fly adjustments. However, large-scale planning and booking are much easier on a laptop at home well before your trip—navigating multiple open tabs with a keyboard and mouse keeps details organized and stress-free!
Part 2: Choosing Hotels
A road trip hotel has one primary job: give you a safe, comfortable place to eat, sleep, and move on in the morning. If you’re only staying one night, choose somewhere comfortable that you’ll also be happy to check out of early!
Here’s what we look for:
A pool: For our family, staying at a hotel with a pool is the key to success on any road trip. From a kid’s point of view, swimming is confirmation that you’re officially on vacation. From a parent’s point of view, swimming regulates G, keeps her calm, and helps her sleep much better at night.
A breakfast buffet: We want to hit the road quickly—we don’t want to cook, and we don’t want to wait while someone else cooks for us. Most buffets also offer carry-out containers so you can grab a quick bite and go.
A familiar brand: Booking all your nights with the same hotel chain helps reduce anxiety because your child knows what to expect at every stop. (Note: This may not always be possible in extremely rural areas like parts of Wyoming or Alaska, but it’s a great baseline goal.)
On-site laundry: Many extended-stay and family-oriented hotels offer guest laundry. Put a load in the wash while the kids swim! Staying on top of laundry lets you pack lighter and ensures your child can wear their favorite comfortable t-shirt as often as they need.
If we’re going to be on the road for several nights in a row—or spending multiple days in one location—we prefer extended-stay properties that offer a separate bedroom and a kitchenette. The separate bedroom allows kids and adults to have different bedtimes and personal space. And if you don’t feel up to eating out, you can make a simple hot meal or order takeout and eat at a table with chairs. No matter what your dinner plans are, it’s nice to be able to whip up a quick box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese when your child needs a familiar safe food.
Sensory Tip: Reduce check-in wait times and front-desk anxiety by using the hotel’s app for mobile check-in and digital keys. If G starts getting restless on the last leg of the drive, I open the app and let her help pick our room number. Giving her that control is a fantastic distraction and eases the transition into the hotel.
Part 3: Packing for the Car
Kids’ Backpacks
Give each child a personal backpack for their own special things, such as a comfort item, a favorite toy, a tablet, headphones, and a few snacks. It stays within their reach in the car and goes with them into every hotel. If possible, make sure these items are all large enough that they won’t get lost between the seats in the car!
The Snack Kit
Set up a separate snack kit that you’ll be in charge of:
Pack: Cheese sticks, pretzels, crackers, granola bars, fruit pouches, baby carrots, dried fruit, familiar favorites, and water in spill-proof bottles. A frozen water bottle helps keep everything cool. Add wipes, napkins, and a trash bag within easy reach.
Skip: Chocolate and anything that melts, crumbly or sticky foods, strong smells, choking hazards for young kids (nuts, hard candy, whole grapes), and sugary juice.
Travel Light
If you have a lot of clothes and other things you won’t need until you reach a later destination, put them in separate suitcases so that you can leave those in the car, and travel light in and out of the nightly road trip hotels.
Organize Your Technology
Download shows and movies at home on Wi-Fi before you leave, and top up on hotel Wi-Fi each night. Check to see which apps work in airplane mode, since some limit offline use, or won’t work at all if you don’t have cell data available. Download more than you think you need, plus audiobooks and music. Bring car chargers, a battery pack, extra cables, and headphones.
Put Your Kids to Work
If your child is old enough to look things up, give them a job! On our Yellowstone trip, G looked up jokes about bighorn sheep and cows, and it kept us laughing for miles. Learn more at Getting from Yellowstone to Mount Rushmore
Part 4: Plan for a Gentle Landing Back at Home
Getting back to the normal school and work routine is hard on everyone, so set it up before you leave:
Take a buffer day: Schedule a full day at home before school and work start.
Order groceries ahead: Place a grocery order for pickup or delivery on your arrival day.
Stock a “no-shopping” meal and breakfast: Keep spaghetti and sauce in the pantry, meatballs in the freezer, and a quart of shelf-stable milk in the cupboard. It doesn’t taste great for drinking, but it works perfectly on cereal on the first morning back!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this hard to plan? Not really. Divide the drive time by 3, choose a hotel with a pool at the end of each day, and fill in the stops your child will enjoy.
Is it expensive? It depends on the activities you choose and the hotels that you book—it’s entirely up to you.
Would we do it again? Absolutely. We’re hoping our next road trip will be to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks!
Can you give me an example of how this works? Sure, two of our Yellowstone posts show how this works in practice. Learn more at Four Day Itinerary in Yellowstone Country or Getting from Yellowstone to Mount Rushmore.
Pass It Along
Know someone whose travel dreams would come true a little faster with some first-hand knowledge of not just where to go, but how to make it work?
