The Griswolds Never Had It This Good, Part Deux
March is here, so if you haven't finalized your plans for this year's Spring Break family road trip to the Grand Strand ... what are you waiting for?
Guys, if you want to redeem yourselves for your lack of preparation, here's your chance to look like Mr. IKnowWhatTheHeckI'mDoingDear to the misses. I tried to stay away from the more generic road trip planning tools you'll find on the Web and came up with these three, thanks to our friends at Gadling:
FamilyFun.com "Car Trip Essentials" Checklist - this also includes a link to a separate checklist for a weekend getaway. Things I'd have never thought of on my own (which isn't saying much, since my wife does most of the road trip planning; come to think of it, she wouldn't have thought of these either - so there):
- Plastic bags for wet items
- Pocketknife
- Individually wrapped small toys (new ones or old favorites) or activity bags to hand out at intervals during the trip
- Downloading free kids' audio stories for the iPod, via Storynory
- Using an inexpensive metal cookie sheet as your child's lap table
- The "license plate/quarters" game (#9)
- MileByMile.com - for downloading free, printable highway travel guides
- Sesame Street Car Games - includes "The Count's Number Game" and "Oscar's Grouchy Game"
- Storynory.com - see above
If you've got some other ideas, share them here!
Like the cookie sheet idea. If the kids don’t use it, one spouse can shield themselves from the other with it while they’re catching heat for getting lost!
For anyone who hasn’t seen Gadling, their team posts several items a day and is always a good bet to find something useful.
The only problem with Story Nory? Getting your IPod back from the kids!