Family Travel Unpacked: Make the Most of Travel With Kids

Road Trip with Kids: How to Plan, Pack & Actually Enjoy the Drive

• Melissa Conn • Season 1 • Episode 38

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With summer airfare through the roof, road trips are having a major moment — and honestly, they deserve it. In this episode, Melissa shares her best family road trip tips from two cross-country drives and multiple thousand-mile trips with her kids: how to plan your route, pack the car smart, keep everyone happy on long driving days, and use points, miles, and credit card perks to save big on hotels and gas.

Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro & why road trips make sense this summer
01:41 – Route planning: apps, mindset & building in buffer
06:04 – Packing the car: comfort, gear & staying organized
13:55 – Food & entertainment on the road
19:53 – Saving money: gas, tolls, hotels & park passes

Credit cards mentioned:

Gear mentioned in this episode:

Apps & tools:

Road trip guides on The Family Voyage:

Have a question or a topic you'd like covered? Reach out at melissa@thefamilyvoyage.com or find me on Facebook/Instagram at @thefamilyvoyage.

If this episode was helpful, share it with a family who's figuring out their summer plans — and don't forget to leave a five-star review wherever you listen. It helps other families find the show!

Don't miss this inspiring, practical travel with kids podcast hosted by family travel expert Melissa Conn, founder of The Family Voyage, certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and mom of two who proves family travel is achievable for everyone.

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Hey there, and welcome back to Family Travel Unpacked. I'm your host, Melissa, and in case you're new here, you can always find tons of detailed destination guides, travel tips, hacks, and more on my website, thefamilyvoyage.com. And if you've been enjoying the show, be sure to hit follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode, and drop a five-star review. It really helps other families find the show. So summer is basically here, and if you've been watching airfare lately, you already know what I'm gonna say. Flights are, mm, expensive, like$700 for a one-hour flight to the East Coast kind of expensive, and I'm hearing it from so many families who are reconsidering their plans and wondering if there's another way. People who haven't already booked their summer trips are really scrambling. But the good news is that there is another option. It's the good old-fashioned American road trip, and honestly, it might be one of the best types of family travel out there. Our family has done two cross-country drives with the kids, plus a bunch of road trips that pass the thousand-mile mark, or even two or three thousand. We've driven from LA to Austin and back, all up and down California, from our new home in Columbus to Quebec City and back, a huge loop through the entire state of Michigan, then down to St. Louis, and a few others. I've gotten pretty good at this, and my kids still love a good road trip, even if we haven't been doing them as often lately. Today, I wanna share what I've learned along the way, the stuff that makes the difference between a trip you look back on fondly and one where everyone's counting down the miles to home and constantly asking,"Are we there yet?" We're gonna talk about planning your route, packing the car, keeping everybody sane in the back, and how to keep costs down so you don't torpedo this whole money-saving vacation effort. First up, planning your route. Let's talk about that before we get into anything else because it's where a lot of families either set themselves up for a great trip or accidentally sign themselves up for a National Lampoon's movie. The biggest mistake I see is treating a road trip like a flight. With a flight, you're just trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, but a road trip is the complete opposite. The driving is part of the trip. So first up, use a road trip planning app. Before you even start figuring out what your driving days look like, I wanna talk about two apps that make road trip planning a whole lot easier, Roadtrippers and Wanderlog. Roadtrippers is built specifically for this. You put in your start and end points, and it shows you interesting stops along the way. State parks, quirky roadside attractions, restaurants, overlooks, things you might not think to look for on your own, but you'll be glad you stumbled into. It's great for discovering what's actually between point A and point B, which is the whole spirit of a road trip. Wanderlog is more of a full trip planning and collaboration tool. It's great for organizing your whole itinerary, sharing it with anybody else who's going on the trip, and keeping all your reservations and research in one place. If you've used TripIt before, Wanderlog is kinda similar, but it's better for planning different stops along the route. You can even dump in a bunch of different activities and let Wanderlog optimize the order for you. It integrates with Google Maps, which is really handy; that's always been one of my complaints about TripIt. And if you're the kind of person who likes having everything in one organized document rather than scattered across 17 different browser tabs, Wanderlog's a great choice. I'd honestly use both though. Roadtrippers is better for discovery, and Wanderlog is better for organization. My next tip is to build in a buffer. There's a number I've landed on after years of road tripping with kids. For me, a maximum of six hours of actual drive time is the most manageable kind of day, although I'd really prefer more like four or five. If you need to cover more ground than that, plan to start super early and build in a real stop in the middle. Not just a gas station bathroom break, but somewhere you can actually get out and do something for an hour or two. We learned this the hard way on a long driving day when we tried to push through almost seven hours with just a few 10-minute breaks. The kids were troopers, but they were completely crazed by the end. And once we got to the hotel, everyone was totally wiped out, and we needed some major recovery time, which is not what you want on vacation. But here's an example of a better way. On the last day of our huge Canada and New York State road trip, Ronnie had already flown home from Toronto a few days before, but the kids and I were wrapping up with a visit to Niagara Falls. The drive home was gonna be five and a half hours. Instead of just treating it like a full day of driving, I treated it like another day of vacation. We did one last activity in the morning, the Niagara Falls Power Station, which I definitely recommend- And then we hit the road. But instead of gunning it straight home, we only drove about halfway, and as soon as we crossed into Ohio, we got off the road, changed into our swimsuits, and hit the beach for an hour or two. We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset, and we ate pizza in the car while we drove the last three hours home. It was a much better way to end our vacation than just getting up in the morning and driving straight home all day long. Now for remote areas, be flexible if you can. Obviously that doesn't work if you're in a really busy area around a national park or something like that that gets super packed. But if you'll be along a route that has plenty of hojos and comfort inns, you should be okay. Plan your general route, but be willing to cut a day short if everyone's just melting down or push a little further if the kids are in a groove and you're making great time. You might also decide at the last minute to add in a stop that needs an overnight. That happened to us when we were driving through northern Arizona and realized we'd be right near Petrified Forest National Park, but we'd get there just before closing. Since we were flexible, it made sense to grab a cheap hotel room, have dinner at a local diner, and enjoy the pool and hot tub so that we could see the park in the morning. One of the things that makes road trips so great is that you're not locked in the same way you would be if you had flights. I really want you to think about what's along the way, not just the destination. This is where Roadtrippers really earns its keep and where road trips shine compared to flying. Some of our most memorable stops were places we never would have visited otherwise: an amazing fossil deposit in the middle of Kansas, Colorado National Monument, or the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. When you're driving, the route is the trip. Plan your overnights strategically. A night somewhere in the middle of a long stretch isn't a consolation prize, but it is a chance to break things up, let the kids go in the hotel pool, and wake up fresh for the next day. Trust me, you'll need it if you're on a really long trip. Now on to the logistics, let's talk about packing the car. Here's my number one rule, and I'm speaking from experience. Do not pack the car up to the roof. We did that on our first major cross-country drive, and our CRV looked like we were fleeing a disaster zone. Now, in fairness, we had put most of our stuff in a pod for long-term storage, and we were bringing everything else with us that we'd need for an entire year. But still, If packing the car feels like a game of Tetris at the start of a trip, I promise it only gets worse from there. You'll have nowhere to put souvenirs, the wet swimsuits, or the bag of snacks that keeps migrating around the back seat. Pack less than you think you need. In terms of packing strategy, there are a few ways people like to do it. Some families use laundry baskets or those clear Sterilite totes. Personally, I like to use duffel bags rather than suitcases for a road trip. I feel like it's easier to shift things around in the back when you need to. We're also big fans of packing cubes in general, and for a road trip, I think they can make even more sense. For one of our vacations, when I knew we'd have laundry about a week in, I packed each kid's stuff into two packing cubes. But instead of dividing it by the type of clothing like I usually do, I just split it all down the middle. So each kid had four or five days' worth of socks, underwear, PJs, shorts, shirts, and swimsuits in one packing cube. I put their first set of stuff into one duffel bag together, and the second set of stuff went into a different duffel bag together. So the first few nights, we just brought in one bag, and then once it was all dirty, we left that entire bag in the car and just brought in the second bag. It was a lot less stuff to bring in, it was less to sift through looking for clean clothes, and there was less to clutter up our hotel rooms. Once we got to our third stop where there was laundry, we brought everything in, cleaned it, and repacked it exactly the same way. Next up, you want to make sure everyone's actually comfortable. Before a big road trip, it's a great time to do a quick check of everyone's car seats to make sure they're adjusted correctly and set up the way you want them. Since I'm a certified child passenger safety technician, down in the show notes, I have a free checklist that you can actually use every quarter to take a look at how everybody's riding. Depending on your kiddo's size and what car seat they ride in, you might get to make some choices to help them be more comfortable on your family road trip. Like if their car seat allows it for their weight, they might prefer to be a little more reclined so they can nap more comfortably or maybe a little more upright to see out the window. Or if you have a kid who just switched to forward-facing, they might want to switch back to rear-facing so they can prop up a tablet by their feet. If you have a kid who recently transitioned to a booster seat and you think they might sleep on a long drive, it's totally okay to put them back in the harness if they're still within the size limits for that seat. My daughter requested that for our Michigan road trip, and sure enough, she slept a ton on some of those longer drives. By the same token, kids who use a backless booster seat around town might really appreciate the wings of a high-back booster to lean on when they're relaxed and sleepy. That head and shoulder support makes a huge difference on a long drive. And for forward-facing kids or booster riders, something soft but supportive under their feet, like maybe a sleeping bag, a rolled blanket, or even a case of paper towels, that could make their legs and back a lot more comfortable over hours in the car. There are also inflatable footrests you can buy for exactly that, and I'll link to those down in the show notes in case you wanna go that route. The goal is just that everyone can actually settle in, relax, and maybe even catch a nap. Trust me, it's worth it to take an extra 10 minutes before you leave to get this stuff right. Beyond car seats, I'd suggest keeping flip-flops, Crocs, or some other easy-on shoes for quick stops. You don't wanna be wrestling with laces at every rest area. And those giant muslin swaddle blankets that the kids used when they were babies, those are perfect for summer road trips, just in case one person wants the AC blasting, but somebody else gets chilly. Now, I can't overstate the value of a good cooler on a road trip. We bring one along with some heavy-duty ice packs on our long drives now. Cold water and snacks without gas station prices, picnic lunches instead of stopping for an expensive meal every single day, and backup when restaurants are scarce, which happens a lot in those beautiful remote places. Personally, I like to have a cooler with wheels because they do get heavy. We have two five-pound ice packs plus all those drinks. When we were driving across the country after a year of international travel, we didn't own a heavy-duty cooler, so we got one of those styrofoam ones to tide us over, and it sort of worked for a while, until my son put his foot right through the lid while he was climbing out of the car. So I wouldn't necessarily go that route again, and it also doesn't keep stuff quite as cold as a real cooler. If there's space inside, you can keep everything consolidated and throw in a few plastic knives, or you can even get a little paring knife with a cover. That's what we have, and ours actually came with a small cutting board, which is super handy. It's perfect for slicing apples, cheese, or cutting a sandwich or grapes for younger kids. All right, now this one sounds obvious to bring, but it never fails to cause us problems. Bring every charging cable your family needs, and then bring backups, and then maybe consider backups for the backups. I'm only slightly joking because there's nothing worse than being six hours into a drive with a dead tablet and a kid who swears the charger was right there. Same goes for headphones, by the way. If you've got different people who want to listen to different things at the same time, make sure you've got enough pairs to go around and that they're fully charged before you leave if they're wireless. Then make sure you have easy access to the cable to charge the headphones in case they die. We're lucky that we upgraded to a new van a few years ago that has a million charging ports, but if you're still driving an older car, and all respect because most of our longest drives were in my 2007 Honda CR-V, you can get a USB power strip on a long cord that plugs right into your cigarette lighter. I'll link to a great one down in the show notes that I wish I had when we were doing so many of those big trips. Now, my personal security blanket on road trips is a portable jump starter that doubles as a giant battery pack. It has a flashlight built in and it can charge phones, tablets, laptops. Plus, if you ever need to jump your own car, it can do that too. It sounds crazy, but the newest version that I linked to down in the show notes is so high-powered that it even has an air compressor to pump up your tires in a pinch. I haven't actually needed mine yet, but I really like knowing that it's in the trunk 100% of the time and fully charged. It's the kind of thing that costs you almost nothing until the one time you need it, and then you're really glad it's there. Speaking of safety and security, I just want to mention a few other things that I always add in. I pretty much always have at least one gallon jug of water in the trunk on a road trip, but if it's summer, I might up that to two or three just in case. I try to keep some shelf-stable granola bars or cereal in the back as well, especially since we need to have gluten-free emergency supplies for our daughter because of her celiac disease. And in the winter, I usually throw a sleeping bag or two in the trunk for a really dire emergency. Back in college, I was going on a weekend trip with friends in the mountains and a snow storm came through much heavier than expected, so everything slowed to a crawl for hours on end. On longer trips, especially into remote or rural areas, be sure you download maps offline in Google Maps or Apple Maps before you leave while you still have Wi-Fi. Cell service disappears in a lot of beautiful places, and a paper map as backup isn't a bad call. It's old school, but it works. And if you're a AAA member, you can always pop in and ask for paper maps just in case. They're totally free and a great backup. Obviously, you want to take all the basic safety precautions like checking your tires and oil before you go, but be sure to throw a couple of those just-in-case items in the trunk while you're packing. Here's one that I wish I'd gotten on board with earlier: try to keep the car clean. Even the neatest snacks end up everywhere, so these days I like to hang a small car trash can off the back of the seat and I empty it every single day when we're on a road trip. I have a tiny vacuum cleaner that charges off my car's USB port, which I keep in the glove box. And I'm going to say that vacuuming up the cracker crumbs from the backseat and the floor every other day, it's a real morale boost on a long trip. Next up, let's talk about keeping everyone happy in the car, aka food and entertainment. Food on the road is one of those things where a little planning goes a long way, but no prep leads to lots of expensive, mediocre drive-thru meals that make you feel bad by the end of the week. Because I'm all about honesty here, I'll say that we don't like to cook on vacation, but there's a lot of space between cooking elaborate meals and eating fast food twice a day. And that middle ground is perfect for road trips. Now, I do try to book hotels with breakfast because it's just one less thing for me to think about in the morning. But you can get by without it if it's not in your budget. We've done a box of cereal and little shelf-stable milk cartons for the kids and yogurt cups for us. These days, there's a brand of gluten-free muffins my daughter loves, and those come individually packaged. So even though they're way more expensive than some of the other grocery store stuff, it's a lot cheaper to bring those than to eat out, right? So breakfast is probably your easiest meal of the day to cover when you're road tripping. Now, snacks, they're everything. Stock up before you leave. Something salty, something sweet, something with actual protein, and things that aren't going to explode everywhere when your kid opens them at highway speeds. My son is a teen now, and he tends to go for salty snacks with protein so I bring stuff like turkey pepperoni, peanuts or those mini beef sticks they sell at Costco. You could even grab one of those squeezable peanut butter pouches if you feel like your kid can handle putting it on crackers without getting it everywhere. I also like to throw a few reusable snack bags or containers in so that I can distribute those snacks to everyone and no one's fighting over the giant box of goldfish. We're not fancy here. Those take-and-toss bowls with lids that you can get in the baby section at Target and Walmart, those are just a few dollars for a six-pack and they're perfect for this stuff. You can use them for snacks in the car, and if you wind up needing to do cereal or yogurt for breakfast during the road trip, they'll work for that too. Plus, if you don't have a place to wash them right away, you can just put the lid on and deal with it later. Now, picnic lunches are where the cooler really earns its keep. You can throw in sandwich fixings, fruit, cheese, some cold veggies, whatever works for your family, and find somewhere outside to stop and eat. We always like to stop at playgrounds or even a pull-off by the water in some places. Eating lunch outside in a new location is a really fun part of the trip for kids. It breaks up the driving, gets everyone moving, and it costs a fraction of what you'd spend at a restaurant. I like to bring a small plastic container with some utensils, a can opener, a little sponge, a mini bottle of dish soap, my rattiest old dish towel, and that paring knife with the cutting board that I mentioned before. I just throw some paper plates or even those plastic kid plates into the grocery bag that we use for our snacks and bread. But also, if we're trying to make up time or the weather sucks, we'll sometimes just do a car lunch as long as we've got two adults in the front, one to drive and one to distribute the food. Obviously, that only works if you have the food accessible in the front of the car and it's stuff that won't make a huge mess, but we've done it more times than I can count. Now, whether you're budgeting your time or your money, be selective about those sit-down meals. We'd rather have one really good dinner than two mediocre ones, so we try to save proper restaurant meals for evenings when there's time to enjoy them. But if there's nothing you're excited about and you'd rather have a cozy night in, there's nothing wrong with grabbing some simple stuff at the grocery store. One time when we knew we'd have a microwave, we brought canned refried beans, tortillas, and shredded cheese to make burritos, and I just threw w some baby carrots on the plate for a vegetable. Done. There's nothing wrong with picking up a pizza or rotisserie chicken and using the extra time to watch a movie or dip into the hotel pool. Okay, let's talk about keeping kids entertained without screens. Our approach to this has changed a lot as our kids have gotten older. When the kids were little, tablets were definitely the magic solution for long drives, and they still helped. Don't get me wrong, my kids get plenty of screen time on long road trips. But if you have younger kids, hold off on handing them the tablets right away and save them for when they really need them. Our rule was that at the beginning of every drive, whether that was right when we left in the morning or right after a gas station stop, the kids had to read or do some non-screen activity for at least half an hour. They knew that rule going in, so the expectations were set, and there was never any argument. Two options worth knowing about for the littlest travelers who can't read yet are the Tonies Box and the Yoto Mini. I'll drop links in the show notes for you in case you aren't familiar. They're both popular screen-free audio players for younger kids. They can control what they're listening to without a screen, and lots of families swear by them for road trips. You can get different stories or even record your own, and actually a lot of public libraries now have stories that you can borrow. Sometimes you could even check out the player itself. Those could also be a good option if you have an older kid who gets motion sick when they look at a screen. We also love audiobooks for the whole family, something you're all experiencing together rather than having everyone off in their own world. And there are tons of them available for free through the Libby app to borrow from your local library, and a lot of them are long enough to take up multiple driving days. And now that our kids are older, we've found something else that works even better than audiobooks for our family, and that's musical theater. Hamilton alone is two and a half hours. Add in Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, and maybe one more, and you've basically covered a full day of driving. It's like an audiobook, but more engaging because there's music, there's drama, and in our family, everyone in the car is totally invested in what's happening. Unlike a movie where everyone's staring at a screen, you're all listening together, and it can make for some great conversation. When we can, we try to stream the original stage recordings rather than the studio recordings because then we get to hear the dialogue too. And don't underestimate good old-fashioned road trip games. License plate bingo, 20 questions, making up stories. We used to play the snack guessing game all the time, which is basically like 20 questions, but it's only for snacks. That was definitely a family favorite. Like I said, these days my kids definitely get plenty of screen time when we're on road trips, but we do still try to mix in some of the other options just to keep it fresh. Okay, let's talk money. Gas, hotels, and food can all add up fast on top of the attractions that you actually wanna do. Here's how to keep those costs down. Let's talk gas first. GasBuddy is a free app that shows you gas prices along your route so you can plan for fill-ups. Prices definitely vary, especially near highways where stations know that you're a captive audience. If you wanna take it further, combine GasBuddy with the CardPointers+ app. I've talked about this on the show before, but CardPointers basically helps you add and track credit card offers, and a lot of cards run rotating offers at specific gas station chains. If you pay for CardPointers+ like I do, every time you log into your credit card account to check your balance or pay your bill, it'll automatically add whatever offers are available. Like right now, when I go into my app, it says that I've got 10% back on my next purchase at Turkey Hill and 3% at Marathon and ARCO. It also tells me that I've got a temporary bonus of five points per dollar on gas with my United Explorer card, so now I can really make a dent in that gas bill. When you know which stations are the cheapest and which ones will trigger your credit card's current offer, you can stack those savings. Over a multi-week trip, that really adds up. Of course, there are tons of other offers you can get through CardPointers+, and it's become a huge money-saving tool for me. Right now, if you go to cardpointers.com/thefamilyvoyage, you can get lifetime access to the app for just$129. I've had it since November, and I've definitely saved way more than that already, whether it's at gas stations, restaurants, Kroger, or even Rover. Also, some of the gas station apps have a discount available if you download them and sign up. You might need to save your credit card info into them and then pay through the app, but if it saves you 25 cents a gallon, that can be worth it for a two-week trip. For tolls, consider an E-ZPass before you go. Even if you don't have a lot of tolls where you live, it might be worth doing for any significant road trip if you'll have to deal with toll roads along the East Coast and parts of the Midwest. E-ZPass works in tons of places, so one device handles tolls almost everywhere you're likely to drive if you'll be in the eastern third of the country. And the great thing is that it's not just about convenience, you'll get cheaper toll rates if you use one. I actually got mine because we drive to Chicago a lot, and using E-ZPass cuts the toll rate in half. What a lot of people don't realize, though, is that you don't need to go online or to a special office to get one. I bought mine at a grocery store here in Columbus, and we're in an area that doesn't even have tolls. I've used it all over the country and even for bridge crossings into Ontario. If your state participates, check your local grocery or convenience store before you bother with anything else.

Melissa

It costs you almost nothing in a normal week, but it saves big money and a lot of aggravation on a road trip. There's no fumbling for cash, no getting stuck in the slow lane while everybody else sails through. Now for hotels, this is where points and credit cards can really shine. You need multiple nights, you're flexible on where you stay, and the redemption rate for those low and mid-tier hotels can be outstanding- if you know where to look. Here are the programs I'd look at first. Hyatt's the obvious choice. You guys know we love our fancy Hyatt stays, but if there's one along your route that's something like a Hyatt Place or a Hyatt House, it can be the absolute best deal around. Rooms start at just 3,000 points per night for the lowest category properties. Transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt are instant. The quality is generally higher than some of the other budget point hotel options, and there are locations in smaller markets that might surprise you. Next up is Wyndham. Rooms start at 7,500 points per night, and you can transfer those points from Citi, Capital One, or Chase. Wyndham hotels are everywhere. Hojo, Super 8, La Quinta, Travelodge, and Baymont, those are all Wyndham brands. They're not luxury at all, but for the one night on the road when you need clean beds and a pool, they totally work. Choice Hotels is another great option. Rooms start at just 6,000 points per night. You can transfer from Wells Fargo or Citi at great ratios, or Capital One or Amex at less favorable ratios. Comfort Inn and Comfort Suites are choice properties, but you'll also find brands like Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, Clarion, and a few others. So what if you don't want to think about those hotel loyalty programs at all? Because they can get kind of confusing. There are some easy credit card wins that really require minimal extra effort. The Chase Sapphire Preferred has a$50 hotel credit once per year. Book your stay through the Chase Travel Portal and it applies automatically. Plus, if the hotel's gonna be a little bit more than fifty dollars, you could pay the balance in points if you wanted to minimize your out-of-pocket cost. The United Explorer card has a fifty dollar credit twice a year, so that's a hundred dollars total, and that's for hotels booked through United Hotels. The best part is that this card's annual fee is waived for the first year, but you still get those credits. So if you've been thinking about test driving the United Explorer card, this could be a great time to pick it up before your summer trip. There's also an elevated welcome offer on that card right now, so you could use those points to get flights to visit family over the winter holidays, and you won't even have to pay to check that suitcase full of gifts. Now, for legs where you're staying two or more nights in one place, a vacation rental can make sense. There's more space, usually you get a kitchen for breakfast and snacks, and my favorite, laundry. That matters a lot on a longer trip. If you have the Capital One Venture X card in your wallet, definitely look into booking through Capital One Travel. You'll get a three hundred dollar credit each year off your booking right away, and you'll earn five points per dollar on anything beyond that. But then you can turn around and immediately use those points to offset the rest of the balance none of those credit card options requires juggling a loyalty program. Just book through the portal, credit applies, done. By the way, that United card comes with a three-month trial of Instacart Plus once you activate it, and it gets a ten dollar monthly credit for Instacart. So you could schedule to have whatever road trip groceries you need delivered to your first hotel, or you could use it to restock along the way without having to make an extra stop. Now, if your route takes you through state or national parks, and you should try to make that happen because those are some of the best parts of America, figure out whether a pass makes sense before you go. State park pass pricing varies of course, and it depends on whether or not you're a resident. But if you're visiting four or more parks in the same state, an annual pass could easily pay for itself. The America the Beautiful pass for national parks is eighty dollars, and it covers all federal recreational lands for a full year. Plenty of national parks are now thirty-five dollars a car, and if you wanted to do something like the Mighty Five in Utah, you'd be looking at a hundred and fifty dollars just for those park admission fees, so it's definitely worth it. If you're hitting three national parks over the course of a year, even if it's not in the same trip, you're likely gonna be better than break even on that. All right, time to wrap it up. I know that was a ton of info, but hopefully getting a glimpse of how we've done tens s of thousands of miles on the road will give you some ideas. Road trips with kids aren't always perfect. We've had a car AC die on us mid-trip. We've had one of those seven-hour driving days that left everybody glazed over by the end. And we've had some drives through insane weather when we just wanted to get off the road. But some of our best family memories have come from those long drives. The games we made up, the musicals we listened together, and the random stops we took on a whim. When flights are expensive, don't view a family road trip as a backup. For a lot of families this summer, it might be exactly the right call. And it might just be the best trip you've ever taken. Thanks so much for listening to Family Travel Unpacked. If this episode was helpful, share it with another family who's still figuring out their summer plans. Be sure to follow wherever you're listening and drop a five-star review. You can also check the show notes down below for links to all the resources I mentioned, and you can always find more practical travel tips at thefamilyvoyage.com. Until next time, safe travels.