Packing up your team in a car pool brigade and hitting the road for a tournament might seem like a disaster waiting to happen, especially if you have a long road trip ahead of you. But it doesn’t have to be. You already have the tough responsibility of researching and finding the best hotel group rates. Planning a long car ride shouldn’t have to add more stress. If you have a solid game plan, preparing for your team’s trip will be a breeze. Hotels4Teams is here to make your life easy and provide you with some valuable tips that can make your next road trip and every subsequent excursion as simple and enjoyable as possible.
Enlist the team
Something that constantly goes over looked when planning a road trip with kids, whether it be traveling with a sports team or your own kids, is including them in the planning process. Getting their input on what to do and see and where to eat can give the team a sense of ownership of the trip and increase their excitability. The kids might also suggest some great ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of. Something else that you shouldn’t overlook, by seeking out the team to be a part of the planning, you have less work to do!
Obviously, if you’re traveling with a younger group, it might not be doable to get them as involved in organizing the trip, but any tween or teen aged teams should have no problem pulling a little more weight in the planning process. Every road trip is going to have highs and lows, but if your team has things to look forward to while they travel to the tournament, it can make the journey seem a lot shorter and way more fun. This is why preplanning your route and stops are awesome ideas. But remember, keeping the journey spontaneous is just as important to any great road trip. The more time you give yourself for exploring and taking the road less traveled, the more memorable your road trip will be.
Good food & items to bring
Empty stomachs and uncomfortable children are a recipe for disaster on a road trip with kids. You need to take precautionary steps to make sure these instances don’t occur. The majority of the food you’ll want to pack should be on the healthy side. Dried fruits, granola bars, string cheese, nuts, yogurt, vegetables, and rice cakes make for some nutritious, healthy snacks. Of course, you can’t gyp the team from indulging in some junk food. It is a road trip after all. Make sure to bring some cookies, chips, and any other treats your team likes. Taking a cooler along with you would be a smart idea to keep drinks and any perishable food cold. Don’t put the cooler in the trunk though! The last thing you want to do is have to pull over every time a kid wants something from it.
There’s no need to worry about any aspect of the food situation if you’re traveling with a group of teens or tweens, other than the fact that you might run out of food since as everyone knows, they don’t stop eating. Chauffeuring a younger team poses a few more challenges though. They can still have control over the bulk of the healthy food, but you can use the treats as motivation for good behavior. A cookie or two can go a long way to keep your pack of rugrats on their best behavior.
Food may be important, but it’s not the only thing you’ll need to pack for to have an outstanding road trip. Being cooped up in a car can lead to some uncomfortable situations, there’s no way around that. Minimizing the amount of discomfort is important to keeping your team happy. Encourage them to bring a pillow and blanket to help them relax. Toiletries are never bad items to pack either. Dry shampoo, hydrating face mist, moist toilettes, a pack of little toothbrushes/toothpaste, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and tissues are just some of the many appreciated items to have on a lengthy excursion.
Remember to pack a couple car chargers for the phones. No child wants their phone to die in the middle of a road trip. A travel kit with some useful objects like scissors, a pen and paper, and plenty of singles for tolls if you don’t have an EZ Pass, are a couple must have items. Informing your team to pack their own car bag full of things they would want to have with them on the long drive can aid in your gathering of road trip friendly items as well.
Check your vehicle before your trip
The last thing you want happening while you’re on the road is for your car to breakdown. Not only will car troubles put a kibosh on some of your plans, but you will have to reach into your pocket and spend even more money on what may already be an expensive road trip. You can lessen the chances of this happening by performing some quick maintenance checks before you depart. Top off the air in your tires, and make sure all of the fluid levels are good. If you’ve had the same car battery for close to or over five years, consider purchasing a new one. Gather the necessary tools for a roadside assistance kit. Objects like flares, safety cones, and a car jack should be included. Similarly, don’t leave without having a first aid kit in your car. Kids tend to rough house and mess around without thinking of the repercussions. It pays to be prepared in case someone ends up getting hurt.
Beneficial smartphone apps
Thanks to the age of smartphones, road trips have gotten a little bit easier. There are a few essential apps that you can download on your phone that can really help you out on the road trip. All phones come installed with a GPS app like Google or Apple Maps. You can count on reliable route information and even get traffic updates. There is however, another navigational app called Waze that you may want to download. Like Google and Apple Maps, Waze guides you and provides you with the best route available. The major difference with Waze is that it has a social component to it. Users can report accidents, excessive traffic, accidents, and even speed traps where the police are sitting and waiting.
To find the best gas prices around you, give Gasbuddy a try. This app triangulates your location and displays nearby gas station prices, so you always know where the cheapest gas is. Just because you’re using Gasbuddy doesn’t mean that you’ll be happy with the prices you’re paying however. If you find yourself in or near a major city, you can bet that the price per gallon is going to be steep. Even the cheapest around might not be an ideal price. Overall though, you will save some money by using Gasbuddy.
Keeping track of who owes whom money can get exhausting and pretty quickly, your head might be spinning with all the money being thrown around. Splitwise is a lesser known app that can be a godsend in keeping track of all the money being spent for gas, snacks, souvenirs, or other purchasable items on the road trip. This nifty app allows you to input any purchase made by your group and keeps a running tab of who owes what. You can select any person that’s in the group and enter how much each person has to pay. Splitwise is an easy to use, extremely helpful app that can organize the finances of your trip all in one place.
Either working in tandem with Splitwise or by itself, Venmo is another payment app you’ll want to download on your phone. You can either put money onto the app or connect it with your bank account and send others money straight from your phone. No need to struggle trying to find a bank so you can get money to pay people pack. Splitwise also utilizes Venmo and allows users to pay through the Splitwise app by pulling the banking information or money balance the user has on Venmo.
Tips for a smooth road trip
Everyone has their own tricks to make group travel easier. Transporting a horde of kids in a caravan is no simple task. There may very well be disputes and annoying moments due to their discomfort or just because they’re kids. Consider trying these tips to make your next team road trip run as smoothly as possible. Bring an empty cereal container and line it with a trash bag. This can act as a mini trash can where your team can throw their garbage out without stowing it in between your seats and on your car floor. Shower caddies make for amazing organizers for not just toiletries, but also food, or really any items you have to find space for. Another tidy car tool you might want to include is a shoe organizer. These can act as a placeholder for a host of items that otherwise would be strewn about your car. Just strap it to the front seat and the passengers in the back have a convenient place to store some of their belongings.
Cramming your car full of kids is a recipe for a smelly vehicle. Opening a box of dryer sheets and letting them sit in the cabin can do wonders for the odor situation. It may not fully eliminate the combination of sweat and food, but it’s better than nothing. Whether you are the forgetful type or not, if you happen find yourself having to park your car on a street in a busy city, put a pin on its location in your phone’s GPS app so you don’t forget where you parked. The ordeal of frantically searching the crowded streets for your car is not a fun feeling.
Car Games
Smartphones are great, but sometimes screen-free is the way to go. Suggest your kids give their eyes a break from looking at their phones and play some fun road trip games. The classics are classics for a reason. They’re timeless. 20 Questions and I Spy always make for some enjoyable, bonding time. The License Plate Game is another fan favorite. Equipped with a pen and paper, you have to find a license plate from as many states as possible. Remember to write down which ones you spot, so you don’t forget. Add-on Storytelling is a fun game that can get the team’s creativity flowing. One person starts out by telling a sentence or two of a story. Then, the next person continues where they left off, and so on. This makes for some rather interesting and amusing tales. Get resourceful with your games, the more the better. Your team will be shocked at how quickly the car ride seemed while they’re having fun.
More handy advice
While it is beneficial to plan out your route and stops ahead of time, you shouldn’t pass up stopping at attractions and sights that pique your interest. Are you driving by the world’s largest thimble? Go check it out. Is there a giant gas station or truck stop that might be stocked with interesting souvenirs and trinkets? Go hunting for some cool knick-knacks. Taking some time to stop at every little thing is unfeasible, but don’t take away part of what makes a road trip magical, the spontaneity.
Regardless of age, sitting in a car for an extended period of time is tough. Even the most relaxed of people can begin to get fidgety. It is advised that you pull over roughly every two hours or 100 miles just so you and your passengers can stretch your legs and maybe stop by the bathroom. What you lose in time by periodically stopping, you gain in sanity for you and the rest of the travelers.
One last thing that goes overlooked by most road trippers is acquiring a road or atlas map. This enhances the road trip experience in a couple of ways. One, it’s a backup navigational tool in case your phone dies, you lose a data connection, or something else happens to it. Having a physical copy of a map will really come in clutch if you can’t get the GPS off of your phone. Two, exploring and using an atlas map is just plain fun. It widens the lens that you’re looking at while you travel. Maybe there’s a neat town along your route that you wouldn’t know about without the road map. Examining the physical map means you may discover some great sights. You can also track your journey on an atlas map and mark it up however you see fit.
No longer will the thought of taking a road trip with your team leave you with anxiety and dread. Armed with these tips and suggestions, your next road trip with kids and every subsequent one after is going to be memorable for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. So, what are you waiting for? Get the team together, buckle up, and hit the road.