Our Travel Must-Haves For Kids

Written By Kimberly Griffiths
our favorite snacks, toys, and must-haves for traveling with kids, mom recommended travel items, travel must-haves

Nothing elicits that mom anxiety like prepping for a long car ride or plane trip with kids. Since we simply can’t control how our kids are going to act, we always put a lot of time and throught into what we bring to make the experience go as smoothly as possible! And hey, maybe even avoid tears from every one involved! These are our travel must-haves for when we travel with kids.

Snacks Snacks Snacks!

Let’s call it how it is—an eating kid, is a happy kid! We cannot recommend packing favorite snacks and some special treats for those hectic moments during travel. It’s always good to strike a balance between straight sugar junk and some healthy options to keep kids full.

When it comes to those SOS moments that only sugar can fix we love: mini m&ms containers to limit mess, push pops for sugar that will last awhile, Smart Sweets gummy worns and lollipops for lower sugar options (#smallwins).

For some healthier options to keep kiddos full and sugar levels regulated we love to bring:

We will detail our favorite travel packing tips below, but I always like to organize foods by category when packing so it’s easy to find what I need in a moment of need. For example, I will put all the “junk” in one small bag, the fresh foods in one small bag, and the packaged foods in one small bag. This makes it easy to find the food you need and pass between parents, if needed. I personally don’t use the travel snack containers because 1) they are so expensive and 2) my kids crush through the snack portions way too fast to make it worth taking up the extra space.

Easy To Pack Toys

When it comes to traveling with kids, narrowing down the activities you will bring is always the trickest part. Kids interests can change so quickly and space is limited. I’ve traveled quite a few times with my boys, 2 and 5, and these are the activities we’ve found they really love.

Graham is 5 and Tucker is 2 and they both love everything that goes! We always pack:

And, of course, the trusty iPad! We personally use the iPad instead of the Kindle Fire because the touch screen is so much easier for little fingers. One trick a friend taught me that’s genius is to use an old iPhone without cellular service as your kid’s screen. You can still download games and shows to play later as long as you’re on wifi! We always download a handful of shows before leaving so that they’re ready to play offline and make sure we have a few games that don’t need wifi to play. Some of Graham’s favorite games are:

  • Sago MiniWorld

  • PBS Kids

  • Pok Pok

  • Shapes!

  • Kiddopia

Wellness Essentials

This is the part of packing for a family trip that you hope you don’t need, but are always happy that you have it! Since we’re heading to Disney this weekend, I just did some research on what it’s good to have on hand for a family vacation. This is more than we’ve brought before, but last vacation we were running out to Walgreens for hydrocortisone cream and benadryl so I’m glad to have it on hand this time!

Organized Packing

I think the trick to finding items during travel is the pack everything by category into easy to access bags. I love these drawstring bags for medicine, toys, and snacks. These are so easy to toss items in and take items out without having to worry about messing up your packing. If you want to be super organized you can attach these hanging labels to each bag with what is included in the bag.

In addition to the mesh bags, I like to have an easy to access diaper change bag for Tucker. We are both huge fans of packing cubes for our suticases, but we also love the smaller sizes for packing in our carry-ons. I like to put several diapers, wipes, diaper trash bag, changing mat, and an extra outfit in a packing cube for my carry-on for easy diaper changes during travel. I also keep an extra set of wipes in an exterior pocket for easy access—there’s not worse than not being able to find wipes or a diaper!

To stay organized during the packing process, we always use our printable packing list to keep track of everything we need to buy and pack!

Things We Forget

There’s always a few things that we indefinitely forget once we get into the car or arrive to our destination. To help prevent even just one meltdown during your travels, here is a list of things we have forgetton in the past! Teamwork is the dreamwork, ya know?

  • Stuffies-put a post-it note on the door to your garage so you don’t forget these in the AM

  • White noise machine - use the post-it trick

  • Pacifiers

  • Sleep Sacks

  • Baby Monitor

  • Extra outfit in diaper bag for all kids

  • Goggles - anyone else’s kid obsessed?!

  • Chargers

  • `Chapstick

  • Cash

  • Identificatin (right?!!?!)

When in doubt, keep calm and know it’s all temporary!!

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Kimberly Griffiths
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