How To Make Long Car Journeys With Children More Bearable

With half term fast approaching and Christmas not far behind, it is likely many families will be travelling away for a winter break or to visit family. As enjoyable as the break will be, there is one thing which many parents fear and that is the dreaded long distance car journey. Here at Cox Motor Parts, one of the UK’s leading dealers of genuine Honda parts, we appreciate how difficult that can be and that’s why we have put together this handy list of 5 tips to make the journey run as smooth as possible.

Snacks, snacks and more snacks

Travel sweets are a classic accompaniment to any long car journey, but often this won’t be enough to keep your children’s hunger at bay. To save yourself from hearing the consistent moan of “i’m hungry” or having to spend a small fortune in a service station why not pack a bucket load of snacks for everyone to get stuck into along the way?

Sugar effects come and go quickly, making kids especially transition from bouncing off the walls to an inconsolable grump in the space of half an hour. Try going for more filling, slow burning and healthy snacks like cereal bars, flapjacks and fruit.

Don’t rely on the radio

Whether you listen to radio 2 all day at work or not, chances are your kids aren’t gonna buy listening to Jeremy Vine for the entirety of your 4 hour drive. Thankfully there are plenty of entertaining audio based options available depending on your children’s age.

If your kids are particularly young there are a number of interactive audiobooks available which will keep them interested for hours. If they are older why not go for another age relevant audiobook such as a Harry Potter or a Hunger Games.

If they don’t like the idea of committing to a lengthy story, try downloading some podcasts which now span just as many genres and age ranges as any top audiobook without the long term commitment.

DVDs are amazing

Thanks to the brilliance of portable DVD players and tablets you can now at least extend the period of time between hearing the timeless phrase “are we there yet” echoed around the back seats. Bring along a bag full of your kids favourite DVD’s and pairs of headphones and leave them to it.

Get creative

If you and your companions enjoy a travel game but are sick of the usual I Spy or number plate games perhaps try getting a bit more creative. Take a camera or device which can take and store a number of photographs and get the kids to create a travel log or photo story, letting them capture the most interesting things about the journey.

Car sickness

Unfortunately lots of kids tend to suffer from travel sickness, especially over long distances. Chances are you can’t completely prevent it, but there are a number of measures you can take to hopefully reduce the amount of time you’ll spend in a lay-by wishing you had more plastic bags.

Motion sickness stems from you body realising a huge difference between the movement your eyes see and the fact that you are actually sat still. Try seating someone with travel sickness in the front, because looking out of the front window is steadier for your brain to compute compared to looking out of the side windows.

You can also try regular breaks, opening a window from time to time to get fresh air in the car, encouraging sleep, listening to music, eating anything with ginger (ginger is a classic remedy for nausea-prevention) or even travel sickness medication.

Hopefully these tips will help your next long distance journey run a bit smoother than the last.

Incase you have an issues with your wipers, ensure that you are covered with our related guide on how to change and replace wiper blades.