Turning family road trips into cherished memories can be an art form, so we’ve gathered nine unique tips to elevate your travel experience. From creating a collaborative travel journal to collecting unique souvenirs, discover the activities that can transform your journey into an unforgettable adventure.
- Create a Collaborative Travel Journal
- Embrace Spontaneous Detours
- Schedule Device-Free Time
- Set a Thematic Road Trip
- Craft Themed Scavenger Hunts
- Compile a Personalized Travel Playlist
- Plan Engaging Rest Stops
- Enforce a No-Phone Rule
- Collect Unique Souvenirs
Create a Collaborative Travel Journal
Creating a personalized travel journal has made our family road trips memorable. Each family member contributes by writing entries, drawing pictures, or adding photos and mementos from our stops. It’s a collaborative keepsake that we can look back on, reliving the adventures and funny moments. This shared activity not only keeps everyone engaged during the trip but also preserves our memories in a unique, personal way.
Tornike Asatiani
CEO, Edumentors
Embrace Spontaneous Detours
Incorporating spontaneous detours to explore local attractions has made our family road trips truly memorable. Instead of sticking strictly to the planned route, we embrace the adventure by stopping at unique roadside diners, quirky museums, and scenic overlooks. These unexpected stops create unforgettable moments and stories, making each trip a unique journey filled with laughter and discovery.
Cyrus Partow
CEO, ShipTheDeal
Schedule Device-Free Time
One tip that has made our family road trips memorable is choosing specific times to put away our devices. It’s easy to get lost in phones and tablets, but taking breaks from screens helps us connect more with each other and enjoy the journey.
During these unplugged times, we play classic car games like “I Spy” or “Would You Rather?” These games are fun and simple. They make the miles go by faster and create shared memories. Plus, it’s a great way to engage everyone in the car, from the youngest to the oldest. This small change has made our road trips more enjoyable and memorable for the whole family.
Shane McEvoy
MD, Flycast Media
Set a Thematic Road Trip
Set a theme for your road-trip adventure. One of the most memorable road trips my family and I took was when we focused on touring historical landmarks. We researched key places along our route and scheduled our visits accordingly. Each day, we visited locations such as museums, historic forts, or even renowned battlefields, integrating our travel experience with the pursuit of knowledge and exploration.
One memorable experience was visiting a preserved pioneer town, where we dressed up in period costumes and lived as early settlers. This theme approach made our road trip instructive and really enjoyable. It deepened our connection to the locations we visited, making the journey more meaningful for everyone.
Timothy Allen
Director, Oberheiden P.C.
Craft Themed Scavenger Hunts
One specific tip that has made our family road trips truly memorable is creating themed scavenger hunts along the way. Before our recent trip from Oakland to San Diego, I prepared a list of unique items and landmarks for my son, Holden, to spot during our drive. These included things like a purple VW bus, a restaurant with a giant food item on its roof, or a mural featuring local wildlife. This not only kept Holden engaged and excited throughout the journey, but also encouraged us to take spontaneous detours to explore quirky roadside attractions we might have otherwise missed.
The activity that really made our trip special was our “Video Postcard” project. At each major stop, Holden and I would film short, fun videos showcasing the location and our experiences there. We’d include interesting facts about the place, our personal thoughts, and often a silly challenge or dance. These video postcards became a creative way to document our journey and share it with family and friends on YouTube. This activity made each stop more engaging and memorable for us, and it also gave us a wonderful keepsake of our father-son adventure that we can look back on for years to come.
Shawn Boehme
Director of Sales, PanTerra Networks
Compile a Personalized Travel Playlist
One specific tip that has significantly enhanced our family road trips is creating a custom travel playlist. Before each trip, we take the time as a family to compile a playlist that includes everyone’s favorite songs. This caters to various musical tastes and sparks conversations about why those songs are meaningful to each person.
During the road trip, playing this personalized playlist becomes a fun and interactive activity. Each family member gets to play DJ when their favorite songs come on, and they share stories or memories associated with those tracks. This keeps the atmosphere lively and engaging while helping to pass the time, especially during longer stretches of driving.
This simple activity has turned into a cherished tradition for our road trips, creating a soundtrack for our journey that we often look back on with fond memories. It’s a great way to bring the family together and add a personal touch to our travel experiences.
Owen Burgher
Co-Founder, Nutri Peak
Plan Engaging Rest Stops
As a father of two girls, it was important to me to come up with some ideas to make our family road trips interesting and memorable. After trying different methods, the best solution I found was making occasional stops. I know it sounds simple, but it has an amazing effect. Of course, children do not have enough patience to just sit for the whole trip. However, the stops we make are not just to get out of the car to stretch for a few minutes and come back.
No, I take trips like these with a more serious approach. A few days before them, I open Google Maps and research all the interesting places that might come our way. Maybe it requires a few additional turns, but in the end, it’s definitely worth the effort. It doesn’t have to be anything serious—it could just be some lake or an animal park. One time, we were driving through Feltham, a small town in Greater London, and came across an urban farm where you can interact with and feed animals. I think the girls enjoyed it even more than the whole trip and the destination.
My wife and I always make sure to document everything on the camera—to be able to come back to those exact moments. Later, we like to print everything and put the photos in our family album. The girls enjoy occasionally scrolling through it too.
Milosz Krasinski
International SEO Consultant, Owner, Chilli Fruit Web Consulting
Enforce a No-Phone Rule
The activity can be anything that connects your family members sitting next to you. However, the problem is that most of us have smartphones today, and people plug in their headphones as soon as they close the vehicle door. Whether you take your own car or hire one big vehicle for family road trips, engaging everyone together is quite challenging.
What I personally do is make a strict rule that everyone must keep their phones in their bags, not in their pockets, when we hit the road. We begin our journey with country-rock music (most of my folks love it, thankfully!). After a couple hours of driving, when we need to stretch our legs, we have a short coffee break. After that, when we start again, we pick one person through a lottery who will tell everyone about where we are going, its famous places, local food we must try, or what mementos we can get there.
When we get tired, we listen to the radio or play an exciting story or podcast from Spotify (we can’t totally ignore smartphones, can we?).
Loretta Kilday
Debtcc Spokesperson, Debt Consolidation Care
Collect Unique Souvenirs
One specific tip that has significantly enhanced our family road trips is incorporating a tradition of collecting unique items from each destination we visit. Whether it’s a small rock, a postcard, or a locally-made craft, these items serve as tangible memories of our journey. We involve everyone in choosing the collectible, turning it into a fun and engaging activity that everyone looks forward to.
This simple practice adds excitement to each stop and creates a physical timeline of our travels that we can reminisce about together. It encourages us to explore and appreciate the uniqueness of each place, deepening our connection as a family while fostering a greater appreciation for the diverse cultures and environments we encounter. This tradition has turned our road trips into a collection of stories, each marked by a special souvenir that holds its own story.
Shehar Yar
CEO, Software House
