What to pack for kids on the plane (and a road trip!) –ages 5 and up

Okay, Minnesota, enough of all this snow. My family is so excited we get to bust out of here soon and head for warmer weather! Time to pack those bags. 

My kids are old enough to pack their own carry-on bags, but I try to help them with the less is more mentality. The last thing I want to do is listen to them whining that their backpack is too heavy! I like to encourage them with themes of what to bring and they pick from there. 

Below are the guidelines of what I encourage them to pack. What did I miss? What’s your favorite thing to pack when traveling with kids? 

Drawing and/or Coloring Materials 

If your child likes physical paper, we love these notebooks! Pack some fun colored pencils or pens to go with it. If you want something that is even more compact, a Boogie Board is the perfect travel companion–we love playing hangman, tic tac toe or simply drawing on this. 

I also love grabbing some type of activity book for the kids. We love the Usborne activity books like this or this, compact in size and lots of fun activities for your kids to do by themselves or with you! These are our favorite sticker books

Fidget Toys

My 9 year old LOVES fidgets, and honestly, I don’t mind because they keep him entertained! I usually try to grab one *new* fidget that will keep him busy and let him pick out a few to pack. Fidgets are everywhere now, you can find them at the Dollar Store, Target or we love supporting our local toy store, Legacy Toys, where they have an entire section dedicated to fidgets. 

Something to Read

We always try to have at least one book to read too. My 12 year old is an avid reader, so he has a kindle that he usually loads up books from the library or we will make sure to activate the Amazon Kids+ subscription where he can choose from hundreds of books to download. (Note: if you purchase a kids kindle, the first year of Amazon Kids+ is free, which is about a $50 value!)  

If you don’t have or want to purchase a kindle, we always try to bring a book that takes longer to read or something that my kids don’t mind reading over and over again. Here are a few fun examples of books we’ve brought in the past: 

The Encyclopedia of Unbelievable Facts

Where’s Waldo 

Pokemon Essential Handbook

The Curious Book of Lists

Technology 

Kuddos to you if you want to fly tech-free, but we use travel as  a fun time to loosen up the tech rules. My kids get excited to travel simply because of this! In the past we always brought an ipad. Downloading movies and audiobooks. Make sure to check out the Hoopla app from the library where you can download movies and audiobooks for free. You can usually download movies from your streaming platforms like Netflix too. Now that my boys are older, they opt to bring the Nintendo Switch to play video games when we fly. 

Water bottle and SNACKS

The last thing I always make sure we pack are our water bottles to fill at the airport and allllll the snacks. Pro tip: Fill up your water bottles with ice before you leave your house, just NOT water. For snacks, I make sure to pack something filling, especially if we are going to be traveling over a meal. My kids are picky, plus I hate spending a ton of money on food at the airport. I love using this freezable snack bag to bring snacks in, no ice pack needed if you stick it in the freezer the night before. I usually cut up carrots and apples or toss in a cheese stick or yogurt pouch.  Of course we also pack a fun treat like gum, suckers or some kind of candy to chew when the plane takes off. 

I hope this helps when you are packing for your next trip! What are your ‘must haves’ when traveling? 

One of the key things about traveling with kids is budgeting for a few fun new things to entertain them when you travel. I always try to pack a few things that they haven’t seen or played with before. I typically loved packing and planning for these things,  but lately, life has been crazy. I haven’t had capacity for this which is why I was so excited to learn that Legacy Toys created a Family Vacation Surprise Box. Each box has a fun mix of all the things I love to pack–treats, fidgets and travel games! Prices starting at $22 per box, I think they are really reasonable and could even be split between two kids. 


Ann is an entrepreneur working in the Twin Cities parenting world for over a decade. She is a St. Paul girl at heart, born & raised. Together with her husband Brian they raise their energetic boys, Ethan & Declan while also wrangling their sweet dog Greta. You can connect with Ann on Instagram @simplyme_ann

 

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