Five tips for entertaining children on a journey

by fiona in Your car on 18.10.07

With half term just around the corner, lots of you are probably planning car journeys with your kids. We expect a similar number will be dreading the cry of “are we there yet?” coming from the back seat.

So, we’ve been thinking about ways to minimise moaning, and have come up with five top tips for keeping children quiet on a long journey. Most of the ideas work whatever mode of transport you use, so don’t worry if you’re doing the green thing and travelling on public transport.

1. Journey games. The RAC has this list of games suitable for children of different ages, whilst the BBC talks of the “well known but often ignored” I spy and I can’t spy. It also describes the evil genius of the humming game, which is a new one to us. Be prepared – print off instructions for a variety of games before you go, so you have lots of options during the journey. If you get bored with these games, Amazon has a good selection of travel games like magnetic Scrabble.

2. Let your kids watch a film on a portable DVD player or on a laptop’s DVD drive.

3. Books on CD – you can play these on the car stereo, or let your child listen quietly on a portable CD player. Libraries have a wide selection of audio books, so check out what’s available before you shell out for new CDs.

4. Nintendo DS or other handheld games console – if you’ve got one, or can afford to buy one, these are a good option for keeping kids quiet. You can rent games after making the initial investment in the console. If you don’t want to spend all that money on the latest option, though, why not check out eBay for a retro classic like the Sega Game Gear. Make sure you can still get hold of games before you enter a bidding war!

5. Drawing or colouring-in are great activities for a car journey, but only if your children can do them without suffering from travel sickness. If you have more than one child to occupy they can play games like noughts and crosses together.

We hope our tips work a bit better than the quiet game to keep your journey peaceful – drop us an email or a comment if you’ve got a family favourite to share.

IMAGE - from Flickr user brightroyalty