Travelling With Kids; a Parent’s Guide to Having a Local Holiday

The pandemic has put a stop to travelling with kids overseas, but not around our beautiful country! To help you make the most out of your next New Zealand based family holiday, we’ve put together a collection of tips and ideas designed to maximise the fun and decrease the stress!

Tips On Travelling with Kids Around NZ

NZ is a beautiful place and being able to explore what literally is our own backyard is truly magical. While it can be challenging to take the kids away on holiday, there are plenty of things you can do to make the experience pleasant for everyone.

• Stock up on snacks – having a little lunchbox filled with finger food and snacks helps to ward off those under pains between meals in the car.
• Create road trip bags (or plane trip bags) – fill a small bag with busy type activities to give to the kids when they start getting restless. We find that magnetic games and activities are great and reduce the number of pieces spilt. Our magnetic puzzles and magnetic travel tins are an absolute sanity saver for this!
• Prepare an album of songs and stories to listen to – if your child is older, you may even add these to a device and give them their own headphones for it.
• Digital devices – great for playing on apps and watching downloaded movies or shows.
• Plan around nap times – cars are fabulous places to have a nap, so be sure that just before naptime, you all stop for a break to eat, drink, exercise and go to the bathroom. Then you can let that rocking motion send them straight off into the land of nod – and have some quiet driving time yourself.
• Know in advance where there are good playgrounds, clean toilets and places to eat before you leave home. This saves yourself the panic of finding these in a hurry.
• Share an itinerary – great for older kids, show them on a map the places you will be visiting and discuss the things they will see on the way. Our Scratch Maps are a lovely way memento to hang on their bedroom wall, scratching off the names of places they have been.
• Travel games – I Spy is a traditional travel game that can be altered depending upon who is playing it, using colours instead of letters or sounds. Also fun to use are the Getting Lost Game cards and the New Zealand Road Trip Bingo Game which can provide hours of entertainment.

We have plenty of additional activities and toys perfect for travelling with kids, so come take a look. As always, if you need any personal assistance in choosing the right ones, get in touch as we’d love to help.