Entertaining Your Toddler on a Road Trip: The Book Edition

Toddler Car Activities

In this post, I want to talk about my favorite toddler car activities that saved my sanity during long car trips. I remember being so scared as a new mom to drive long distances with my newborn. In retrospect, I would take newborn over toddler any day! Toddlers are more active and need more attention. They want to stop for snacks and bathroom breaks and juice and they want it all and they want it right now and it’s exhausting. It gets to the point where I’ll eagerly take a turn driving just to take a break from my role as Toddler Activities Director.

Luckily our toddler will still nap a little in the afternoon. But there are only so many hours someone can sleep. What else can you do to pass the time? Cycling through a variety of different activities will keep your toddler from getting bored or fussy.

Here are some of my favorite toddler car activities that will entertain the young’uns without exhausting you.

Sing Along Songs

Find your favorite Disney songs or classic kid’s songs. Our family’s favorite kids musician is Raffi.

TV Time

Set up that iPad with Disney+ or your child’s favorite show. I always feel slightly guilty about this, but honestly your sanity is worth it. I’ve found that too much TV can make my little one cranky though, so it’s good to mix up entertainment and not binge watch for five hours straight.

Treat Box

Growing up my family took long car trips for our annual beach vacation. Mom would pack a treat box with fun snacks and little toys. Every hour on the hour my sister and I got to choose one treat. It gave us something to look forward to (did I want a fruit roll-up or a sticker?!) plus, the actual eating or playing with the treat kept us occupied for at least ten minutes.

Road Trip Games

A toddler might be a little young for road trip games like Punch Buggy or Zip Ten Cow. Try a simpler version, for example, Ava loves just looking out the window for cows. Whoever sees the cow first says, “Moooo!” Another fun game she enjoys is ‘I Spy’. This is especially fun if they’re just learning their colors.

Self-Entertainment

Don’t fall in the rut of constantly entertaining your child. Learning how to self-entertain is important. Let her distract herself! There is no need to spoon feed activities all the time. Let them drink their juice or just look out the window. Ava likes to sing to herself or chatter quietly to her toys.

Read a Book!

As this is a book blog, this activity is obviously my favorite! Here are some of my favorite books to bring with you that will keep your toddler entertained on a long road trip.

An All-Time Favorite Book

Bring your toddler’s favorite book along. If all else fails, you’ll know you have a winner with this book. One of our household’s tried and true favorites is Cars Galore by Peter Stein.

A Book About Your Destination

Most road trips involve us going to the beach or visiting M’ma and Grandpa John in the mountains. Lucky Pennies and Hot Chocolate by Carol Diggory Sheilds is a cute book about going to visit the grandparents told from Grandpa’s point of view.

The picture book Beach by award-winning author Elisha Cooper is a wonderful way to get excited for all the beach activities. You can also check out this article on Fun Beach Books for Toddlers for more of my favorite beach books.

An Interactive Book

Interactive books are great for young kids to “read” on their own. Our current favorite touch and feel book is Oscar the Octopus: A Book About the Months of the Year by Matthew van Fleet.

We are also huge fans of Quack! Ribbit! Roar! A Slide & Sound Animal First Words Book.

quack ribbit roar - toddler car activities

A Bedtime Book

This is more for once you reach your destination, or if you’re spending the night in a hotel. It’s comforting to have a familiar bedtime routine in a new place and a bedtime book is a big part of our routine. Ava’s current favorite goodnight book is Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann.

A Fun Book About Traveling

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry is a traveling classic. Your toddler will love looking at the very detailed pictures of cars and trucks (…and things that go) in this fun book.

A New Book

Bring some new, never been read books along. Go to the library before your trip and have your toddler pick out several books. Don’t read them before the big trip, they should be something brand new to add to the road trip anticipation!

Ava being entertained with toddler car activities

And a Couple more Tips…

Don’t offer your child all the books at once. The choice of too many books can be overwhelming and they might get bored quicker. Offering them a book or two at a time keeps things new and fresh.

Stay organized. Find some sort of book box or bag to keep your books/activities organized. We actually have something like this backseat organizer in our car so Ava can grab a toy or book from her car seat. I like that it has a tablet holder so the iPad can stay safe from sticky hands and crumbs.

And most important, have fun! You’re on vacation!

I hope these toddler car activities gave you some ideas for your next road trip adventure. Thanks for reading, see you soon 🙂