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Over the years my family and I have travelled many, many times to other states to visit family and take vacations. One of our most common destinations involves a 16-hour road trip we have taken at least once a year for the last 20 years. We have spent what feels like billions of hours in the car and have logged countless hours on airplanes.
After all those trips, I am a firm believer in having quality entertainment for kids. If they are occupied, travel is sooooo much easier and more relaxed for all of us. We have experimented with many different games, toys and strategies. One of the most popular, useful, and actually entertaining ones is a homemade book of coloring pages, games and activities. I printed out all the fun stuff, bound it (or put it in an actual binder) and handed it to each of the kids along with something to color or write with. These books helped keep them happy and me happy because I didn't have to hear the dreaded “I’m bored. Are we there yet?”
My kids have all loved to draw and sketch so many of the printables I used are for projects that let them create and use their imagination. The best part of the printables is that they don’t require any help or input from me, so kids can work independently. And because I’m cheap and travelling is so expensive, all of the printables are FREE. If you don’t have a binder or way to bind the pages at home, you can spend a few dollars at a print store like Office Depot or Staples to spiral or comb bind it all together.
These particular printables are great for kids ages 5 plus since that’s the age I’m planning for these days. And if they didn't finish all the activities before we reached our destination, my kids used them in our downtime during the trip, at restaurants while we waited for food, and on the return journey home.
I have free printable front and back covers for you to hold it all together. Just click the link at the bottom.
Let's jump right in!
Design your own Lego Minifigure - If your child likes Legos at all, this will be a winner. You can print out the basic minifig bodies and they can design the most epic Legos characters ever.
Design your own Pokémon cards - Is Pokémon GO played in your household? If so, these blank cards will be loads of fun as they create their own Pokémon and add all the details.
Geometric Art Printable - These printables are perfect for letting kids' imaginations run wild. One page is circles, one is squares, one is triangles - you get the idea. Artists can use their creativity to doodle each geometric shape on the page. Circles turn into wheels, donuts, a sun, or a face.
Imagination Workout (finish the drawing) - Start with squiggles printed on a page and end with a design. It's so fun to see what everyone comes up with when presented with a random doodle.
Make your own comics - Kids can fill in the empty panels with drawings and write their own comic book stories. They could even use these pages as a travel journal with illustrations of the whole trip!
Mystery Picture Grid coloring pages - Follow the instructions to color in the grid squares with the correct colors and the mystery picture is revealed.
Draw your own postcards - A blank canvas for whatever they want to draw or write, and they can actually mail them to themselves or whomever they like!
Roll a drawing - A die is needed for this one. Each number rolled corresponds to an element of the drawing. If they use the roll-a-face printable, the first roll of the die determines the head shape of their face. The second roll tells them how to draw the eyes and so on.
Secret Agent Training - This collection of pages is so fun. It includes a fingerprint page, suspect page, secret code page and more.
Our favorite stop for FREE coloring pages - Coloring pages kept my kids occupied for hours. This website has thousands of free pages to print out and they are organized by topic/characters.
Squishmallow coloring pages here or here - Squishmallows are very popular in our household so we needed some of these pages for sure.
Rory’s Story Cube printable - You would need to buy the Rory's Story Cubes to do this one but the printable activity sheet is free. All kids have to do is roll the nine dice and use the pictures on the sides to write a story. The is no limit to the creativity for this one!
All About Me - These pages have prompts for kids to write/draw their favorite color, food, draw a self-portrait etc. It's fun questions to fill out with information all about them.
Travel games - Traditional style travel games to print out. They are classics for good reason!
Travel and vacation journal - I love these travel journal prompts because kids can decorate and draw while also recording the fun details of the trip.
Road Trip Specific Games
Restaurant I-spy - Spot the right restaurant signs and a kid can be the first to shout "bingo!"
Car bingo - Endless hours on the road can be broken up by searching for vehicle brand logos. Sometimes other cars are all there is to look at on the road, right? Get enough in the same row and you can win at bingo.
Don't forget to include some blank paper in the book too. These can be used for drawings, endless games of tic tac toe or hangman, or whatever else they dream up.
For some extra durability I laminate the front and back covers of the book, but this is completely optional. You can do this easily at home with a laminator or take it to a print shop to have it done.
Once I have all the pages printed, and the covers laminated, I like to spiral bind them. I love having a spiral binding machine at home and find so many uses for it. This is the one I have and I love it. You could also use a comb binding machine which was my go-to for years until I got the spiral binder.
If you are traveling by car, a clipboard can also come in handy so they have a sturdy surface to draw on. You can personalize and decorate a clipboard very easily and I have a tutorial here.
Want the free front and back covers? Click the link below.
Happy crafting!
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