Adventures with the Many children, Part 3. What works, what doesn't.

There are some things we have learned over our long road trips that make things easier with the masses. I have divided them up into lists here. 

Take it

-Two coolers. We save gobs of money by buying food from Costco and local grocery stores. I get as much already prepared food as possible (soups or bagged salads or bars or sushi rolls!). Have gallon size ziplocks for when the ice melts and you find your butter floating.....

-Audiobooks that we download on Overdrive from our local library FOR FREE and headphone splitters for both rows. We used phones, old phones and iPads for listening devices. Headphones themselves are ridiculously expensive, especially for the littles. We found some comfy $5 ones in the Target dollar section. And when June and Marcus ripped off the jack, I didn't have a heart attack because it was not expensive!

-Brightly colored organizing folder with all confirmation pages printed out and in clear sleeves. This came in handy because there was hardly any phone/internet coverage the entire time, even when it appeared we had a wifi signal. We would have been lost without my trusty itinerary notebook, especially when we drove into Badlands at 8pm, and there was no one to check us in or tell us our site number. 

- I love love love ebags for packing. We use their packing cubes and their TLS Motherlode Weekender and the Junior version of that bag. I can send you a discount code if you are interested. The packing cubes and only having to take 3 suitcase-type bags saved our sanity on this trip. 

- Do laundry along the way and bring your own small container of detergent. We felt we packed light but we still could have packed less because we did laundry a couple times. 

- In the clothing department, I felt like a total genius this time by not giving each kid their own packing cube to rifle through. Instead I put all the long pants in one cube, all the underwear in another, etc. So, this meant that we only had to open a couple packing cubes instead of 5 to get dressed depending on the weather. Loved this. Also, we don't worry about PJs when camping, we just put our kids to bed in what they will wear in the morning. 

-Go shopping for perishables closer to your destination. While I love saving money by bringing coolers full of food, if we have a long day or two of driving to start the trip (like always!) then we do eat fast food along the way so we don't have to deal with coolers at hotels on the road. We wait to do our big grocery shopping until our biggest city near our destination. This time it was Billings and Costco carried local favorites like Huckleberry Jam and Wheat Montana Bakery bread, so that was fun.

- Melatonin. Chewable strawberry so the kids sleep in new locations without a big fight. 

Leave it

- activity books/sticker books and the like. We have found these to be a waste of money and super irritating in how the back seat is COVERED in stickers and half used crumpled books. We did take some pads of paper, markers, etch-a-sketch and a few picture books for the littles. Otherwise, we did audiobooks and occasional movies on the iPad. 

-Heavy Coats/gloves. We bring layers and stick hands in pockets. We brought winter hats and really we should have just made sure each kid had a hoodie for warmth and a cap for sun exposure to eliminate extra stuff. 

-French Press. We brought this and felt dumb because I saw Starbucks Via at Costco on the road and grabbed that instead. Less hassle!

- Fancy "camping food" aluminum foil packets that require lots of chopping. I gave these up a long time ago. I find it waaaaay less work to buy more prepared foods (hello, chicken sausages from Costco) than I normally would so that camping is fun for me and not just meal prep. 

- Leave behind the clothes you don't like for you and your kids. Sounds weird, but vacations are prime time for photos. I know I have some photos from previous vacations where I regret having the one child dressed in ill-fitting stuff or stained, etc, because we love to display these photos. 

Wish we'd had it

- National Park Passport book. We bought these for all the kids this time and I was totally sad we didn't have stamps with dates from all our previous National Park adventures for a keepsake. 

-Binoculars for the kids

-More hydration packs- We liked OGIO better than the kids' camelbak for additional storage and for ease of filling. 

-Hot cocoa in bulk (instead of the expensive 10 packs from the gas station)

- Maps. Not having a 3G or 4G signal meant we were lacking in the map department!

So, there you go. If you have questions, let me know. Big trips with kids CAN be done and are great fun to boot.