097 Family Road Trip Tips

Summer is almost here, which means it is almost road trip season!! Tune in this week as Caroline from Y Travel Blog gives her top family road trip tips after their experience spending a couple of years on the road. Plus, Tamara fills us in on a great road trip option in Saguenay Lac St Jean in Quebec. ON THE PODCAST 00:30 - Talking with Tamara about her trip to Saguenay Lac St Jean in Quebec 05:35 - Nordic Spa experience 07:50 - Helicopter ride 09:25 - Ferry service 12:05 - French speaking 13:11 - Cheese making 14:03 - Waterfalls 15:22 - Talking with Caroline 18:48 - Favorite road trips 20:02 - How Caroline chooses destinations 22:20 - Planning stops 24:20 - Hours of driving each day 28:45 - Kids helping to plan 31:05 - Trip length 33:04 - Road trip packing tips 36:57 - What to bring into each night stop 39:21 - Checking your kids pack or not 41:16 - Entertaining your kids in the car 43:16 - Apps to use for your road trip 46:54 - Money saving tips 55:10 - Before and after road trip tips 59:14 - Favorite travel gear 1:01:29 - Review Shoutouts!! ABOUT CAROLINE MAKEPEACE Caroline Makepeace is co-founder of y Travel Blogwith her husband and two daughter. They create inspirational and epic content that provides useful tools, strategies, and resources to help readers unplug from the chaos life, to reconnect to what matters and to travel more and create better memories. Follow Caroline on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. FAMILY ROAD TRIP TIPS Consider where you would like to go to figure out how much planning you will need to do ahead of time rather that just going with the flow. For instance if you will need to book accommodations ahead of time you will need to leave yourself time to get the there in case of traffic. Keep in mind the amount of hours you will need to drive to each location you would like to go. Make sure to not overextend yourself driving. You will enjoy the trip as well as the destinations if you give yourself more leisurely drive times. If you are a family with kids it is nice to get them interested in the planning phase of your road trip. Maybe having them pick some stops to make or even the places you eat. Having your kids help will get them more eager and excited for the long journey you are taking. Depending on how long your road trip is going to be you may want to think about seperating your items into different containers. This can help you avoid the time consuming task of having to dig through everything you have packed just to find, say the notebook you packed for your kids. The more organized you can be from the get go the better you are. If you have not gone on a road trip with your kids before make sure to pack small games, books, snacks, etc. This will help keep your kids entertained during the hours you will be driving. Google maps is great to plan out your stops. But Google Sheets is also great to create a detailed spreadsheet of everything and then you can share this with others on your road trip so that they can see what is planned for each day. You can save a decent amount of money on hotel rooms if you opt for camping sites or even renting through Airbnb. You should also keep an eye on parking because some hotels you will not have free parking. Toll roads can also up your costs quite significantly if you are not keeping track of the amounts. If you do plan on going through tolls, make sure you do keep cash in your car otherwise you will get fined if you can not pay the toll. FAVORITE TRAVEL GEAR Caroline loves to bring her KeensHiking sandals with her on road trips, and when it is a little bit colder she will bring her Merrellhiking shoes. She also loves to pack her PrAnaclothes, that are comfortable active clothes. MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST Plan a Family Experience Everyone Will Love Williamsburg TripIt One Note Trip Advisor Roadtrippers Under Canvas Honey Wiki Buy Ebates FOLLOW US AND SPREAD THE WORD! If you liked this show, please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, orGoogle Playand leave us a review! Have a question or comment? Send us an email or leave us a voicemail at +1.641.715.3900, ext. 926035# You can also follow our travels on Stuffed Suitcaseand We3Travel, or follow the Vacation Mavens on Instagram, Facebookor Twitter. Thanks for listening!