20+ Road Trip Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
If you’re headed on a family road trip this summer, you are probably looking for some activities to keep your toddler entertained during your time in the car. Young kids get bored easily, and bored kids stuck in the car does not equal a nice, quiet, peaceful drive for anyone.
Since we started traveling with our kids 3 years ago, we’ve taken 50+ road trips and have learned a thing or two about entertaining kids in the car. The best road trip activities for young kids are ones that are simple, mess-free and can be done independently.
Related: 5 road trip tips for traveling with toddlers
Make sure before you leave on your trip, you have all the necessities to make the drive go smoothly. Lots of snacks, new movies to watch, and a way for kids to easily access and organize their activities are all essential for a smooth trip. Keep reading to learn about our favorite road trip activities for our toddler and preschoolers.
Invest in a travel tray or table
Having a lap desk or travel tray allows kids to be able to do so many more activities. Having a solid, flat surface to hold and work on their activities is a game changer, and we will never travel without our lap desks! I have both this one and this one, and use them interchangeably depending on the length of our trip. The tray with tall sides is great to keep small pieces and markers from rolling onto the floor, and the built-in storage on the sides are great for holding extra art supplies. We tend to use it for longer road trips, but it is bulkier and takes up more room in the car, so take that into consideration.
Organize their activities
We love this organizer for the backseat of our van; it fits perfectly between my two bigger kid’s carseats. There are dividers to separate the activities by kid, and plenty of room for snacks as well. I load it up with different activities and snacks before we leave home, and it keeps my bigger kids pretty self sufficient for a good amount of time.
I would highly recommend having some kind of caddy for activities in the car. I’m sure if you have taken many road trips with your kids, you know how your nice clean car turns into a dumpster the second you pull out of your driveway. So anyway to keep things more organized and easier to find is a must-have in my book.
Our favorite toddler and preschool road trip activities
There’s something about the magically appearing marker that all my kids love! Plus I don’t have to worry about markers all over my kid/carseat/car.
- Play doh kits
- I have never met a kid who isn’t obsessed with play doh. It will seriously entertain my kids for HOURS. So on our last long road trip, I wanted to find a way to create portable Playdoh without buying the expensive premade kits from Etsy.
- I used a Bentgo container that I found at the Dollar Tree, and bought a jumbo pack of travel sized play doh, like this set. Each kit had a theme, and I got all the accessories from the Dollar Tree. Here were the themes I picked, but you could easily tailor these kits to whatever your kiddo is interested in:
- Cupcake: Cupcake liners, birthday candles, beads and a rolling pin
- Safari: plastic animals and trees, glass marbles
- Construction: plastic construction trucks, road signs, glass marble
- This option is endless and you could get so creative with, depending on the interests and ages of your kids!
- Sticker and activity books
- Dollar tree is my go to for all the sticker books! My kids love the sticker by numbers, paint with water, and sticker activity books. I load up on these and they entertain my kids for hours.
- Drawing tablets
- Doodle tablets are a great way to entertain kids, plus the pen comes attached so they can’t drop it on the ground. Plus, it erases with just the click of a button!
- New games on their tablet
- I know some parents try to road trip without the use of screens. I am not one of those parents. For our family, screen time is a tool, and long car trips are one of the best ways for us to utilize that tool. I love the Amazon Fire Tablet because of the parameters I can set, and I know they are only playing age appropriate games. Also, it is much more affordable than an iPad!
- A roll of stickers and a blank paper
- My 2-year-old was seriously entertained by this for over an hour on our road trip through Wisconsin this summer. I grabbed several packages of stickers from the dollar tree, and a blank notebook, and he just peeled sticker after sticker off and created his own masterpiece.
- TIP: if your toddler has a hard time getting the stickers off the sheet, try peeling the sticker background off before you give it to him. That will make it easier to get his fingers under the edge of the sticker.
- Road trip printables
- My kids love playing car games! Here are a few that I created that are favorites on our trips:
- Guess Who game
- So Hasbro finally got smart and created this game without the cards. It now folds nice and neatly into a stack with no extra pieces, and is the perfect road trip game for preschool aged kids! My 4 and 7 year-old will each take a side and independently play this game for so long in the car!
- Guess in 10 game
- If you don’t already have this game at home, you definitely need it before the next road trip. We have the Junior version, which requires no reading. Kids have to guess which animal their opponent has by asking for clues. We store ours in a plastic pouch so it takes up less room.
- Mini puzzles
- Another great Dollar Tree find, these mini puzzles come in metal tins that close up nicely when they are done. They fit perfectly on the travel trays.
- Window clings
- This is a great way to keep toddlers busy in the car. I usually find these in the dollar spot at Target, and my 2 year old loves to create pictures with them on the window.
- Wiki sticks
- We just used these for the first time this summer, and all 3 of my kids loved them! They are bendable, sticky sticks that can be used to create all kinds of ideas. My kids got very creative and made all kinds of things with them, and they are perfect for all ages.
- Audio books
- We can rent audiobooks for free from our local library, and I usually download a couple different ones before a long trip. When everyone needs a break from screen time, I put one on the car speakers for everyone to listen to together. I also bring headphones so if one kid needs some time away from the chaos of the car, they can listen that way.
- Pop-its
- Any fidget toy works, really. Pop-its are just a huge favorite at my house, and keep my toddler entertained for quite awhile.
- Magnetic games
- We love these little magnetic games that are perfect for the car! Tic tac toe and checkers are favorites for my bigger kids, and magnetic playsets for my toddler to pretend with, like this Paw Patrol one.
- Magnatiles
- My 2-year-old is Magnatiles obsessed. I stick a cookie sheet in the back of the driver’s seat and hand it to him to build his Magnatiles on when he’s ready for a change of activity.
- Search and find books
- We have lots of these easy reader iSpy books, and they are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. No need to be able to read as each page has pictures of the items you’re searching for. We usually bring a stack of these to go through. If you don’t already have some, don’t forget to check at your local library!
- Sticky notes
- Another favorite of our two year-old, I buy a package of sticky notes from Dollar Tree and let him color or put stickers on them and then stick them wherever he wants!
- Dry erase books
- There are some really great dry erase books out there, and most of them are pretty educational! I can get my preschooler to practice writing his number or letters, and my 7 year old loves to do word searches, mazes or hidden pictures. We love this one and this one.
- Dollar store toy
- I usually try and find a new toy or two from the dollar spot or Dollar Tree that I think will be a hit with each of my kids. Monster trucks or hotwheels, figurines, or polly pockets are all favorites of my kids.
- Quiet books
- This is something that has entertained all of my kids when they were toddlers, and is great for on the go because it folds up nice and neat. We love this quiet book because it has zippers, velcro, buckles, snaps and more.
What other things keep your kids busy in the car? Let me know in the comments!
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