Road Trip with young kids

[lhafer]

People have already given you good suggestions. I just wanted to say as long as your kids travel well, it will be a great trip with great memories to be made! We frequently take trips with our kids, the longest trips being 12-13 hour stretches in the car (with refueling and eating/bathroom breaks as our stops). We've gone from Destin, FL to Houston in one stretch, a d Ruidiso, NM back home in one stretch. And my kids are 5 and 9. It's doable. Just find routes that are appealing and have some interesting things along the way. Make it Tina me memorable and they will want to do it again.

[mingna]

Thanks everyone for some great suggestions. Looking forward to our road trip adventure!

[fnh]

I took my kids to the Ozarks near Branson MO in the fall, it's not a bad drive (600 miles). We stayed at Big Cedar Lodge instead of camping but there are several state and national forests in the area with campsites. My kids had an absolute blast with so much outdoor recreation - we did a zip line tour, cruised Table Top lake, went horseback riding through the hills, took a wildlife tour, a cave tour, played archery tag, and more. The heat, though... I think it will still be on the warm side.

About the road trip with young kids, I have been doing it with my own kids since my oldest was 5, leaving Houston for most of the summer. We are on the road right now. This is the 7th year I have driven to the west coast and/or Canada and back with them, making hundreds of stops and "side trips" along the way. I wouldn't trade the memories for the world. I travel in a roomy minivan which I should probably retire but I've become far too attached to part with it, it represents so much of my children's childhood.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by fnh

I took my kids to the Ozarks near Branson MO in the fall, it's not a bad drive (600 miles). We stayed at Big Cedar Lodge instead of camping but there are several state and national forests in the area with campsites.

My in laws have a timeshare and I love that place.
The mountains are not big like the ones you see in a mountain range, but driving can get annoying because you are constantly going either up or down

[RAS909]

We love road trips---they have formed such wonderful memories for our family. Use Roadtrippers.com (there is a app as well) ---get the kids involved to choose what they want to see along the way. We recently drove to Colorado from Houston, stopped at Amarillo on the way. The kids chose Palo Duro (what a pleasant surprise to us NE transplants) and Capulin Volcano, a wolf preserve in Colorado, and a few other places. Even the flat panhandle drive was a novelty---who knew there would be wind mills scattered all around and it is the biggest producer of wind powered energy in the U.S.? And while not planned, my 'getting to be a bit entitled' kids got to see that there are a lot of small towns beyond the tony suburbs of Houston.
Carry audio books.

[Bike4Life]

We drive between 3,000 to 6,000 miles on road trips a year. Texas state parks can be a lot of fun for your children's age. Then I look at National Parks which is a lot further away.

We really like the Great Smokey Mountains in TN which is about 15 hours. Much cooler and very beautiful for hiking and camping. If you drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, plan to keep it reasonably short or have a plan at certain points if you decide to get back on the interstate highway. People get tired of the sharp blind curves and hilly roads which can make passengers nauseous if done too long.

[AlfredB1979]

I remember back in '86 when we hit up west Texas and southern New Mexico. White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Cloudcroft for some mountain top sight seeing...Ft. Bliss and if I had the chance to go back, I'd probably drop in a visit to the oasis that is Lake Balmorhea, to boot, not to mention the observatory at Ft Davis.

[mingna]

Thanks again for the tips everyone.

I'd like to do some hiking and camping with the kids, so was hoping for a destination closest to Houston with cooler weather. Hence the Ozarks. Sounds like it won't be that much cooler than Houston though, so maybe we'll have to drive a bit farther to either CO or TN?

@fbh: which route did you take from Houston to the Ozarks? Any particular sites or stops along the way you can recommend? Did you find the weather too hot?

@Bike4Life: I've always wanted to visit the Smokeys. Can you share your route and itinerary? Did it take you 3 days of driving? Any particular camp sites you liked? With small kids, we will be restricted to drive up camping. Possibly KOA or something similar.

@RAS909: Thanks for the app tip! It should be very helpful in helping us plan out our trip. Yes, planning on stocking up on lots of audio books. :-)

[Bike4Life]

I can't remember now, but we stopped for one night camping in north Alabama which was still kind of warm but slept through the night. We prefer to take the longest drive on the first day and shorter one on the second day. Skip KOA; make reservations at state or national parks. The first night was just a quick pit stop as we were on our way to New York and Canada.

Our children were good with new movies and video games on the road but they didn't like the audio books as it was boring. They'll rather listen to music. Once in a while, we'll stop at some point of interest. At lunch or dinner time, we go in for a nice, local sit-in restaurant (not fast food) to make the trip more memorable and enjoyable. We still carry food supplies to make sandwiches in case we are too far away from the next town or in national parks which doesn't have any commercial development.

If your SUV is too small, get a roof bag like Sherpak Go and throw your camping stuff up there. I have an 8-seat SUV and I still use that.

[geolvl]

We went to Petite Jean State Park in Arkansas (8 hr Drive?). While it wasn't exactly as cool as you'd think, we still had a hail storm in the summer. It is beatiful there. They had the coolest cabins (really really nice) with front porches and swings, then a Great Lodge for dining. There's also the coolest petting zoo (unrelated to state park) down the road. We really enjoyed it and I think we did a long weekend with a three year old. I really had fun. It's Also near the town where all the gangsters used to vacation in the 1930s. Reserve the cabin early. Good luck!