A few months ago I shared about a massive road trip I took with my kids across the country and into Canada. While that blog post shared photos, trip highlights, and the financial break down – I wanted to do a part two that broke down specific things that helped me pack my vehicle, where we stayed and other tips and tricks. I scoured the internet SO much while I was preparing for my road trip and sometimes I wished there was just a little bit more information about all the logistical aspects to a road trip. So, this is the blog post I wish I had about road trips with kids. It’s fairly long, but I hope it’s helpful to others as they plan their own trips, especially with children!

I went on a 31 day trip (8,387 miles total!) with my two kids (ages 9 and 4 at the time) in a 2015 Honda CR-V. And it was fantastic. My goal was to keep my car packed in such a way that I could still easily see out all of the windows (SO many blog posts showed cars packed to the absolute brim and I was like, I’m not going to do that – challenge accepted) and that we could all still easily have our legs still extended fully. That was more so for the kids since I was driving, haha. So I figured I’d break this down into a few sections: how I packed the car + what we did on the car rides; links to where we stayed; and links to other things I used on the trip that were essential/my favorites!

I tried to be prepared for literally any scenario/emergency on this trip that I could possibly take care of on my own. I’m so grateful that despite my car starting to make a funky noise around Albuquerque, and getting a chip in my windshield from a stray rock, we were totally fine and safe! It’s fun looking back now on all the spreadsheets and the massive packing list I made for this whole trip. I’m such a nerd!

For the road trip, we started in Maine, made our way over to upstate New York, then down to New Mexico, across to the Grand Canyon, and then essentially a straight shot up all the way into Banff, and then back down across the northern United States.

How I packed the car

Here are a few iphone photos of how I packed the car. I know, I know, I’m a professional photographer and didn’t actually get detailed photos of the car set-up, but I think you can get the gist of it from these photos.

In the trunk:

• A cooler – we purchased new fresh food every few days
• A suitcase for our everyday clothes we were wearing on the trip
• A suitcase for our bathing suits, warm outfits, and rain gear (both of these fit standing up behind the cooler)
• 1 tote for non-perishable food (all four totes in the trunk were the same size as the one on top of the cooler)
• 2 totes of cooking/eating supplies (stove, plates, utensils, baggies, spices, pots/pans, etc)
• 1 tote of camping supplies (hammock, flashlights, head lamps, etc)
• Our second pair of shoes

In the cargo area of the trunk (like where the spare tire is):

• shovel
• fix a flat
• battery pack jumper cables
• roadside emergency kit
• portable tire air compressor

In the passenger seat area:

• This organizer that held the two snack boxes for the kids; tissues; wipes; our itinerary and all those details; my Bible, journal, and my chapter book I brought for the rare moments I’d have time to read; charging cords; this is where we ended up keeping all of our magnets that we purchased.
• A trash container
• Travel potty (which we barely used, much to my surprise)
• Big jug for water – I would fill this up at campgrounds and then on the road I would buy jugs of cold water and pour it in. We used this for filling up our water bottles and for cooking. As we got stickers from our different locations, we added them to our water jug, and that’s pretty fun.

In the kids’ row:

• another tote of non-perishable food
• large battery pack – used this to charge whatever needed charging when we weren’t driving, also used this to blow up the air mattress when setting up camp
• A shoebox size tote of camera gear/supplies that I tucked under the front seat
• A tote of travel size games/activities
• A tote of workbooks. Note – we didn’t have any screen time at all on this road trip, and the kids were just fine. On long travel days (more than 6 hours of driving) I allowed them each to listen to an audiobook or podcast episode for one hour each on the bluetooth headphones.
• A bin in between their seats for books for reading
• Sandals – made it easy for us to get in and out of the car to use restrooms when we stopped for gas without them having to put on their sneakers.

In the roof bag:

• Roof bag link
• This pop-up tent. I can’t tell you how much time I spent researching and debating on what type of tent to get. But I’m so glad I landed on this one. It was the smaller of the two versions of this tent because that’s what would fit in my roof bag. My kids are super helpful with setting up camp, but they’re just not very tall yet, so having to set up a traditional tent at least 12 times over the course of 4 weeks (essentially on my own) felt like a huge burden. This one literally pops up, and I was able to have the entire tent set up or broken down in less than 5 minutes, and that’s an overestimate. It held up great in wind and rain! Our queen size air mattress that all three of us shared pretty much took up the entire footprint of the tent, which is okay. We only needed it for sleeping.
• Camp chairs
• Rain boots
• Rumpl blankets
• Air mattress with a built in pump
• Tarp for under the tent

What we packed for clothing for each of us

I did end up buying some new clothes for me and the kids, focusing on clothes that were lightweight, would dry really easily, and would pack really small. Overall, I made sure we had enough on hand for five summer outfits before we would need to do laundry.

• 4 pairs of shorts
• 2 pairs of leggings/pants
• 5 pairs of underwear
• 4 pairs of socks
• 3 tank tops
• 2 t-shirts
• 1 long sleeve
• 1 sweater
• 1 pair of pjs
• Sun hat 
• Baseball hat
• Rain boots
• Rain suit
• Rain mittens
• Keens/Tevas
• Sneakers
• Flip flops (for showers and hanging out at the campsite)

Where we stayed

Our Favorite KOAs – any camping that was not done in a national park was at a KOA and it was actually great. There are SO many of them across the country that it was pretty easy to find one whenever I needed to plan an overnight stop to get us from point A to point B.

• Niagara Falls / Grand Island – 100% the kids favorite of them all. There were limited tent sites, and we had some weird issue with wasps or hornets, but other than that it was great.
• El Reno West – we ended up staying in one of the cabins last minute because a massive thunder + lightning rainstorm rolled through as we got there. And because of all the rain and such, I was exhausted, so we ate a restaurant right next to it that gave discounts to KOA guests. That felt like a win!
• Toledo East/ Stony Ridge
• St. Louis West
• Westfield Lake Erie

National Park Campgrounds:

• Mather Campground @ Grand Canyon National Park
• Watchman Campground @ Zion National Park
• Devils Garden Campground @ Arches National Park (we ended up bailing on our reservation because of the heat and stayed in a hotel)
• Colter Bay Campground @ Grand Teton National Park
• Grant Village @ Yellowstone National Park
• Canyon Campground @ Yellowstone National Park (Now that I realize just how easy it was to get around Yellowstone etc, and that it wasn’t too much of a drive, I’d just do all 3 nights at Grant Village instead of breaking it up.)
• Fish Creek Campground @ Glacier National Park

Hotels that I would stay at again:

• Candlewood Suites Billings West in Montana | This was my favorite hotel of them all, hands down. Not only was a recent brand new build, but there was FREE laundry facilities. FREE! And there was a kitchen in our room, which was a huge help.
• Holiday Inn Sioux Falls – City Centre
• Avid Hotels Madison in Wisconsin
• Elkhorn at Falcon Crest Lodge in Canmore, Canada – This was our longest hotel stay of 3 nights (I booked it via Air BNB), and it was a cute little lodge. We had an amazing view, a little kitchen in our room, and it was very comfortable. Parking was reasonably stressful though, because of the roof bag we didn’t make the clearance in the underground parking garage, so it was either snagging a spot in the very small parking lot or hoping to find street parking, which was also very crowded.

The rest of the hotels were all totally fine and average, but these four stood out the most to me in our experience! I stayed in primarily IHG Hotels because I was using points from my IHG credit card, which covered all of our hotel stays in full except the two last minute ones we booked to get out of the heat.

Of the 31 days, 13 nights were in hotels/staying with friends. The rest we camped!

Camping gear that I absolutely loved:

• tiny camp stove + wind blocker
• hammock – my kids LOVED this!
• these tiny towels – I bought two sizes for each of us. One for showering with, and one for miscellaneous use. They were extra great in Zion when it was SO hot and we didn’t have much shade, I got them wet and laid them around our necks and it helped cool us off. The kids loved it.
• Wet bags – excellent for when you don’t have time to let stuff air dry before moving on to the next location. No link here because I still had some left from when I did cloth diapers!
• Two wash basins – used it for washing dishes and while cooking!
• Fan for the tent. We camped in some super hot weather – it was 107 in Zion – and so having the fan was helpful, even if it was just moving hot air around. I hung it up from the middle of the tent above us.
• Picnic table cover
• This set of plates + bowls + cups. It was my first time owning a camping set and it reminded me so much of my childhood! I love that I get to make these new memories with my kids now 🙂

Other helpful info

• If you’re hoping to camp in a national park, particularly the more popular ones, you will need to book them literally 6 months to the day before you plan to start camping. I was floored at how quickly the spots went, and I was booking as soon as they opened up at 10am 6 months prior.
• For our suitcase that had things we weren’t wearing often, I used vacuum sealed bags to store the clothing inside the suitcase, with a little portable vacuum that came with them.
• Keep a laundry bag for dirty clothes – it makes it SO much easier when it’s time to do laundry to have it all separated out. I just left this out in the back of the car for easy access.
• On each day that we drove for more than 3 hours, we started the morning before heading out cleaning up camp, and the kids would pack their snack boxes.
• Since I was traveling solo with the kids (and they’re under 18), they didn’t need anything besides their birth certificates to enter Canada, but I had a notarized and signed letter from Steven acknowledging our travel plans – basically proving I wasn’t stealing my children. One customs entry into Canada asked for it, the other didn’t. So I’m glad I had it!
• If you are planning on seeing more than one national park, be sure to get yourself the Annual Park Pass. It’ll save you approximately a million dollars.
• One thing I didn’t have but wish I did was some sort of easy pop up canopy to put over our picnic tables. There were some campgrounds we stayed at that had ZERO shade, and this would’ve been nice to have. I’ll be adding it to my camping arsenal for this year!
• Use smaller totes when packing. It makes it more efficient and easier to manage when pulling out what you need for the day!
• Each child had their own little 12L hiking pack that they used to store their little things; such as their cameras, sketch book, snacks, hat, sunglasses, etc. They were responsible for packing what they wanted in it for when we went out for the day! Lily and James did fantastic with this. And I had my own hiking pack that I used daily for the rest of the things we would need when out for the day.
• Some safety things: As a single woman with two small kids traveling all over the country, there were a few things I made sure to do. I never drove at night. There was one night we arrived somewhere after dark but it was at a hotel in a busy area. It wasn’t ideal, but best case scenario. Five people had my location at ALL times. Two of those people had my complete itinerary including addresses, phone numbers, etc. I only ever stopped at gas stations that were very public, ideally service plazas – I followed my gut on that one. Because of this, I made sure we never dropped below 1/3 tank of gas because some places out west, you could go a hundred miles without seeing civilization again. Usually at home, I will let my kids run in to use the bathroom somewhere on their own, but not on this trip. I didn’t let them out of my sight whenever we stopped anywhere.
• I had planned to get walkie talkies for the kids for when we were camping, but I just didn’t follow through on that and I wish I had. At some campgrounds I let them go play at the playground and such without me while I cooked dinner, and it would’ve been much easier to communicate with them if they had a walkie talkie.

Whew! This was a LONG blog post! If you made it this far – thanks for reading! I hope you walk away with some helpful tidbits as you plan your own road trip with kids!

Linda is a Portland-based photographer specializing in weddings and creating family legacies from Portland to Boston and across New England. You can see more of her work online at lindabarryphotography.com, on Instagram, or on Facebook. If you want to reach out directly: linda@lindabarryphotography.com.

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