A Creative Life

By Designing Mom Lori

How to make long car trips more peaceful.

My husband and I lived in Minneapolis before moving back to small town Wisconsin to raise our family. we try to get back at least once a year to see old friends. With two small kids, a 5-6 hour drive can be painful. One of the things we’ve found that our 4 year old loves is having a map of his own so he knows where we are and how much longer it will take to get there. No more “are we there yet?” from him! Works like a charm. here’s what we do:


We print out a map (try google maps) showing both our starting and ending points. then, we label points along the way and mark them 1-5 (feel free to add more if your trip is longer). Then, we label the route home with letters a-e. He also gets a set of small circle stickers which we staple to the corner of the map so there’s no possibility of losing them. Whenever we reach a major marker on the map, he gets to take a sticker off and place it over the corresponding point on the map.

This could be done in a variety of ways. instead of labeling with letters and numbers you could mark with physical landmarks that the kids can try to find on the way. On our latest map to Minneapolis, my husband drew a picture of our house at the starting point and then drew a lego in Minneapolis (our 4 year old had been looking forward to visiting lego land for months).

Get creative. have fun. enjoy your trip!