Summertime is the perfect time to take a road trip with your family. While your kids are out of school and you’ve got long days of sunlight and summer sun, there’s nothing better than getting a few hundred miles of road behind you and experiencing something new with the ones you love.
But while road trips can be fun and exciting, they can also be stressful and potentially hazardous with the threats of inclement weather or car accidents. However, despite all these things, road trips are still one of the best ways to create lasting memories with your family that you’ll all cherish for a lifetime.
So to help ensure that your family has an amazing time on your travel adventures this summer, here are three tips for taking a summer road trip with your family.
Find Ways To Cool Off Along Your Trip
Even when driving down the road in a vehicle with great air conditioning, you can still get hot and sticky and sweaty spending too much time packed in a car for too long. To avoid this—and to keep everyone’s spirits up—you might want to consider finding places to cool off along your trip.
According to Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, a contributor to Trip Savvy, rather than just taking a pit stop wherever you need gas, try to plan your pit stops around places where you and your family can get out of the car and refresh with some water play. Be it a splash pad in a random city or a water park you find along your route, taking some time to get out of the car and cool off could be just what your family needs.
Don’t Be Too Concerned With Making Good Time
Road trips can often be much more stressful when you’re trying to work within a tight timeframe. So to avoid this stress and help everyone in the car feel much more relaxed, Christa Terry, a contributor to Smarter Travel, suggests that you try not to be too concerned with making good time.
While you might have some places that you need to get to in order to take advantage of reservations, try to give yourself a good buffer of time so you don’t wind up getting snippy with your loved ones along the way.
Pack The Right Snacks—And Lots Of Them
For the times when you are in the car for hours, one of the best ways to keep everyone happy is to have plenty of snacks for all to enjoy.
When packing food for your road trip, Erin Gifford, a contributor to the Travel Channel, recommends that you try to bring more healthy snacks than junk food snacks. While it’s always good to have some cookies or candy on-hand, healthy, wholesome snacks will ensure that no one has a sugar crash or gets a tummy ache.
If you’re taking a road trip with your family this summer, consider using the tips mentioned above to help make the most of this precious time you have together.
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