Road trip to Yellowstone (the prep)

This summer, we kicked off our vacation by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive [SUV] to embrace the majesty of the wide open landscape. (Those who know me well will appreciate this reference to my favorite movie – National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.) We took a twelve-day road trip from Chicago to Yellowstone and back… with kids. And, it was awesome!

I’m a planner – no, really, I’m obsessed with planning. I hope you can use some of these prep tips for an epic, memorable adventure with kids.

Organization. Given we’d be in the car together for two weeks, it was important to keep the vehicle super organized so we would feel less cramped. Surprisingly, we didn’t already own seat-back organizers. I bought two of these as well as another organizer for between Mabel and Poppy’s car seats. Amazon, easy. The harder part was acquiring enough cleaning/sanitizing products to last us through the trip – mid-pandemic when the store shelves had been bare for months. It took several weeks and multiple stores, but I eventually was able to fill a large tote bag with plenty of hand sanitizer, hand wipes, face wipes, surface wipes, tissues, paper towels and trash bags. I stocked the between-seat organizer with small portions of each of these – with a pump hand sanitizer positioned so that it was in reach for the whole family.

Entertainment. A 3,000-mile road trip with a seven- and five-year-old has the potential to have a googolplex-worth of “are we there yets.” So, I bought seat-back screens with a DVD player. With a movie on and headphones in, the girls barely noticed the hours click by as we drove through the flat South Dakota terrain. I stocked up on a couple books and audio books. And, Andrew and I prepped our phones with our favorite podcasts.

Snacks. Single serve is key for a road trip. I filled a large cooler (which we “Tetris’ed” in the trunk with the luggage) with plenty of snacks and drinks. Because of the pandemic, I didn’t want to rely on refilling the cooler during the trip, so it was full! We tried taking a couple cool items, but it was too difficult to remember to re-freeze the cold pack each night, so we ditched those things a couple days into the trip. The snacks helped ward-away afternoon crabbiness and actually worked well for light lunches several days at Yellowstone.

Surprise bags. I picked-up a number of kid-friendly surprises (think stocking-stuffers) as I found them on Amazon or at Target – Silly Putty, Wikki Stix, Crayola Twistables Crayons, coloring books, star gazing kit, knot tying kit, window clings, travel games, “What I Saw in Yellowstone” book, ”Curious George Goes Camping” book and ”Campfire Stories for Kids” book. I hid the items in brown paper sacks, stapled the sacks so the girls couldn’t peek, numbered them and tucked them all in reusable shopping bags. I had left plenty of room in the seat-back organizers for the girls to unpack the items as they opened the bags. We didn’t keep a particular schedule to open the bags, instead we pulled them out as the kids got restless or when they had been well-behaved for a long stretch.

Luggage. I packed toiletries in a separate tote bag so we could load luggage in the mornings even if one of us was still getting ready. And, the rest of our gear went in traditional luggage.

We loaded the luggage, bags and the cooler in the trunk, and off we went.

Read more in Road trip to Yellowstone (the itinerary).