Help! We're going on a long car journey

A holiday in north Yorkshire with extended family seemed a really good idea when we started looking through travel brochures. However there was one thing I didn’t consider when we made our booking: the journey.

The trip involves a four-hour car journey, which could be a lot worse, but for us it’s long enough. So I’m looking for ideas to help us survive the journey without boredom making my daughter unbearable.

My parents had to cope with four of us in the car when I was little. We would all ask if we were nearly there within one minute after leaving home. Only now can I understand why it caused them more than a little stress.

Coping with car sickness

Car sickness used to be a major problem for us. We would have to stop the car every half an hour at least, which made journeys incredibly long and even more difficult to cope with.

Thankfully my daughter seems to have grown out of it although she does occasionally shows signs.

As Wendy mentions in her post about travel sickness, it can make travelling with children particularly difficult, especially when they start suffering with headaches and stomach aches and start feeling miserable.

@LaFlafster points out the driving styles can make a real difference. The advice is to drive slower, take corners smoothly, with two hands on wheel. The impact is magnified in the back so sitting nearer the front of the car helps too.

@froufrou72 stresses the importance of parents offering reassurance, which can have huge psychological benefits, and recommends travel sickness bands which can be worn around the wrists to reduce symptoms.

@Over_A_Cuppa advises us not looking out of the side windows but out of the front of the car instead as scenery whizzing past actually causes a lot of the motion sickness.

Wendy’s post offers some additional advice. The NHS Travelling with Kids website is also worth a visit.

In-car entertainment

RFTEllen has written about the boredom many children struggle with on a long car journey, especially when there are long motorway hold-ups involved. She suggests DVDs and games on the DSi, reading books and playing iSpy or word association games.

Not everyone gets on with reading in the car so I’m going to add colouring books and word searches to that list since they are things my daughter really enjoys.

Guy Clapperton also recommends a range of engaging gadgets for long car journeys including ipad and iphones which can have numerous games downloaded onto them to entertain en route.

I’m opting for an ipod although having read RFTAlison’s post about parental advisory warnings on music; I am definitely going to check the content of my iTunes collection before downloading it on to my daughter’s ipod. Hearing her shouting obscenities travelling in a car with her mother and grandparents is likely to add an extra level of stress to our journey and is really best avoided.

A time to simply relax

Rather than passing the time with music and electronic games, I’m actually a huge fan of children looking out of the window and taking in the incredible scenery. It helps them gain an appreciation of our planet and why we need to look after it.

Our journey will take us across the Derbyshire Dales through the whole of Yorkshire and there will be a great deal to see. I’m hoping we will all switch off, log off and relax at that point and simply enjoy the journey.

Will you be making any long journeys this summer? Do share your travel tips with us.

Photo posed by models.