6 Travel Friendly Activities for Kids

Let’s face it, you will not comfortably get through the travel process with young kids if you aren’t providing them with some sort of entertainment. The activities you bring along should not only be entertaining, but also light in weight and small in size to make it easy to carry and store. I’ve provided 6 easy to carry travel activities for your little one below.

Coloring books/Activity Books

    Coloring books and activity books are one of my favorite things to bring on trips for Laila. She can pick different themes to suit her moods or to learn about the upcoming adventure we’re going on, and it’s something we can both easily enjoy together. I’ll typically bring one to two different coloring or activity books and a plastic school box with crayons, colored pencils, and markers. I’ve found this activity to be one of the most calming activities to help wind down any extra kid energy in her body from having to sit still for hours at a time.

Card games

      Card games are a super fun interactive activity that Laila loves to do. I have different versions of card games that I will bring on different trips. Sometimes I bring educational games that help Laila pass the time while learning something new, and other times I’ll bring card games that are just for fun. The good thing about card games is that they are a super compact and lightweight option, which makes it easy to bring multiple sets without weighing down your child’s backpack.

Tablets with kid friendly headphones

      With the generation our kids are currently growing up in, tablets seem to offer a lot of entertainment and education for them all in one place. I always bring Laila’s iPad and child safety headphones (the volume won’t go past a certain level to make sure she isn’t causing damage to her ears) with us, but I’ve noticed lately that it’s better if I limit her time on it while traveling so that her eyes have a chance to rest from continuous views of digital screens. I’ll allow her to watch two or three YouTube kids shows and then we’ll move onto the next activity I have available that isn’t digital.

Take it back in time with a magnetic doodle board

     On our trip to Sydney, Australia last year we flew a super kid friendly airline (Qantas Airlines) and they passed out activity packs for all of the kids on board. In Laila’s bag I noticed something I hadn’t seen in a long time, a travel magnetic doodle board! If you don’t remember these, you use a magnetic pen to create drawings on the board that can quickly be erased and used over and over again. I kept it and we’ll bring it with us from time to time on trips as a fun activity to pass the time. Just because something is “old school” doesn’t mean your child won’t enjoy playing with it just as much as you did growing up.

Puzzles

      One activity Laila loves in regular everyday life is putting together puzzles by herself. I’ve recently started purchasing small puzzles that we can use during travel. Although Laila finishes the travel puzzles pretty quickly because they are smaller in size, she still enjoys taking the time to put them together and it gives me some time to relax while she’s occupied.

Sticky notes

      It’s amazing to me how something so simple can be so much fun for kids. I usually take the sticky notes and pen from whatever hotel room we previously stayed in on our trips and let Laila draw small pictures or practice writing different words. Then comes the fun kid part where she can post them all over her tray table or the airplane window near her. She literally does this until all of the sticky notes are gone.  This is by far the cheapest and easiest form of entertainment possible for a kid, but it seems to do the job perfectly!

No matter what you decide to bring, just remember to bring some sort of activity to keep your child occupied that’s easy to manage and easy to carry. You’re already headed on vacation, get it started the right way- stress free!