Family road trips
Road trips are such a wonderful family adventure, often producing tales that become part of family folklore. If it’s a regular route you take, say for an annual summer adventure, there are the things you pass on the way and places you stop en route. For expeditions further afield or overseas it might be how Dad drove along a road that wasn’t meant for cars or how Mum was driving on the wrong side of the road for ages before she realised.
A long road trip doesn’t have to be 10 hours of boredom as you zoom down the Hume Highway to Melbourne. It can be invaluable, uninterrupted time for you and your family to talk. You’re a captive audience for each other, after all. Long journeys are also a perfect environment to impose your own music loves onto your children, so they know the words to every Johnny Cash song thanks to road trips with Daddy.
If you’ll be driving all day, think about packing the car the night before and leaving really early (even if it means hauling the kids out of bed and having them travel in their pyjamas) so you can get a couple of hours in before breakfast, when the kids might keep dozing.
If you have two drivers, swap around and allow the non-driver to rest. Plan one major stop for a meal and a run around, and limit the rest to brief toilet stops. If you’re driving on your own with children you’ll need to allow much more time so that you get to rest properly, too.
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