A road trip with kids?? And a dog?? The thought of young kids and/or a dog on the road for multiple hours and days may have you making this face:
But for all you adventure-seeking parents, I have good news… it’s POSSIBLE!
We just got back from a NINE-DAY road trip from Phoenix, Arizona to Rapid City, South Dakota and back! That’s SEVEN states, a DOZEN or more national forests/parks/monuments, and over 2500 MILES…
And it was a great success!
You might be asking… How the heck did we pull that off?
It’s easier than you think. Here are 5 tips on traveling with a kid and a dog.
#5. Pup’s Sweet Spot
This is our pit bull, Pumpkin. At the time of this photo, she was a year and a half old and we were on our way to Waco. Somewhere in Texas, we stopped at a Buc-ee’s (obviously) and when I came out, she was perched in our six-year-old’s booster seat (look close and you’ll see the hind legs over the seat).
This was how she was the entire trip. We’d given her the floorboard (it’s a full-size truck) behind the passenger seat but while we drove, she would climb over bags in the middle seat, sit on our stuff, etc. She would knock things over as she tried to move around in circles or climb to our daughter’s lap, restless the whole time on each day of the trip.
What we hadn’t done was understand and give her what she wanted, which was (a) familiarity, and (b) a comfortable place from which she could see everyone.
So when we went on the aforementioned trip to South Dakota and back, we did things differently. I folded the middle/passenger seat up – in my Titan, I then have the option to pull out what’s basically a shelf that becomes like a platform.
I put an old towel down in the middle section next to our daughter – we don’t travel with a dog bed because she’s a chewer, so we use old towels. We always use the same towels for trip, camping, etc so it provides the familiarity of a “bed.” And, placing it in the middle meant Pumpkin was right next to our daughter, was in front of the A/C vents, and had a perfect view of mom and dad and what was outside. She didn’t move the whole trip!
#4 Any town, Any time
When you’re traveling with kids, or even if you just want to be lazy and less “regimented” (it’s a vacation, after all), this means you may want to get up later than planned. You may find a delicious-looking breakfast restaurant that you just have to try, even though you planned on heading out first thing and eating while you drove. Your kid may need to stop to go pee three different times.
If any of When most of these things happen, it could throw off your whole schedule for the day. Ain’t nobody got time for a kid crying about being hungry at 3:00 PM because your schedule went down the toilet and you haven’t stopped for lunch yet, right?
But even worse is having to settle for a fast-food chain lunch when you know there has to be a better option on your route, but you don’t want to waste time looking. And worse yet is that feeling you get when you know you’re at a quarter of a tank of gas, but have no idea where the next gas station is (especially if you are particular with fuel brands like I am).
A pretty easy solve for that is to plot stops every hour or two along your route – rest stops, gas, food, whatever else you care about, and mark them on your map app.
What this does (and has done for us, several times) is it frees you of that worry. You can now load up and start your day at 6AM or 8AM or 10AM without worrying about where you’ll stop for lunch or breakfast, because you’ve marked a breakfast place a couple hours away and a lunch place, and another lunch place an hour up the road.
#3 Manageable miles
The worst thing you can do on an action-packed road trip is to plan out driving distance that is too short or too long. If you drive a distance that’s too short, you could wind up wasting an afternoon doing nothing if you already paid for an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere and get there at 12PM.
But if you plan a distance that’s too long, everyone will be tired, bored, and at each other’s throats. You’ll be rushing to get to that next stop you already paid for, and no one will be having fun. This violates the very spirit of a road trip, right?
This all begs the question, what is the right amount of driving? This is mostly a personal preference, and you also have to consider your destination and what there is to do on the way. Additionally, you may need to consider your child(ren)’s age(s), your own tolerance for their behavior in the car, and any health concerns anyone may have.
For example, we drove from Phoenix to Waco and back last year. On the way, we stopped for the day around the four hour mark each time because were exploring a lot – northern Arizona, Monument Valley, Amarillo, childhood homes in North Texas. On the way home, we took I-10 and there is nothing to do or see, so we pulled off a ten-hour drive from Waco to El Paso.
But generally speaking, we’ve come to find that four hours works best for our family. Four hours of driving helps us get where we’re going, but also leaves us plenty of time to explore, rest, and enjoy ourselves along the way.
#2 Embrace the stops
A road trip with kids and a dog is going to require patience. Despite your best efforts, you are going to stop – scheduled stops for food, gas, and restroom – and unscheduled. Get over the annoying unscheduled stops right now, in the planning stage, and plan for them instead of complaining about them on the road (or instead of ignoring requests and making others miserable).
#4 above will help you with this somewhat, but you’ll find yourself stopping more than planned anyway, especially if there is anmyone with you who is particular about types of food, restroom cleanliness, or anything else.
Allow extra time for these extra stops, plot some along the way you can, and consider the extra stops as a bonus opportunity to review your route, re-calculate your gas, stretch your legs, and/or plot your next meal.
#1 Options, not agendas
The single best thing you can do to make road trips enjoyable, and this is a lesson we have learned over time, is to provide options – not an agenda or schedule to keep.
When we first started traveling, I both the super laid-back and the Type-A extreme planner ends of the spectrum. The former involved a mindset of “there’s plenty to do here, no need to plan” and resulted in wasting time figuring out what to do. The latter involved rushing through everything to get to the next thing. Neither involved rest and enjoyment.
The middle ground: Options. Options for things to do. Options for meals. Options for dessert, or coffee, or whatever else. A successful road trip with kids and a dog requires planning, but also flexibility.
Here’s what I mean.
Example: Oregon Coast
In 2023, we flew to Portland and rented a car. We were based on the central Oregon coast, and road-tripped along the coast from there. Our northernmost day took us to Tillamook.
Along the route, I listed options for things to do, places to eat, places to shop, and places for coffee. Anything that required specific hours, I listed opening and closing hours.
We toured and ate at Tillamook Creamery (and made it there before close), and we also checked out Cape Meares, Netarts Bay Lookout, and a couple other spots.
We did not make it to The Three Graces, Cape Lookout, Tillamook Air Museum, Five Rivers Coffee, or Old Oregon Smokehouse and we were okay with that because we prioritized when we got there, based on the hours left in the day and what we felt like doing. There was no rush, no schedule to keep, it was just perfect.
Example: Rapid City, South Dakota
On our most recent trip from Phoenix to Mount Rushmore, we stayed somewhere different every night until we got to Rapid City, where we stayed for two nights.
And in and around Rapid City, and on the way there from Cheyenne – we had a lot of places to cover.
We wanted to see Mount Rushmore – our daughter had just learned about it in school. We wanted to go to the Black Hills and the Badlands. We wanted to see Custer State Park. Crazy Horse might have been worth checking out. The 1880 Train from Keystone to Hill City looked fun. We also had Cathedral Spires, Wind Cave, Big Thunder, Dinosaur Park, The Journey Museum, Skyline Wilderness Park, and The Outdoor Campus on the list.
That’s a ton of places! So what we did was, we prioritized which ones we wanted to see the most. We made sure none of the parks required timed entry. We checked opening and closing times. We stayed at each place for as long as we wanted, again with no real schedule to maintain. This time I penciled in a rough itinerary, but with the thought of pushing to the next day what we didn’t get done the first afternoon we were there.
We went to each as we went past, and skipped the ones lower on the priority list. And somehow wound up with a half day or so to explore other places and unexpectedly wound up at Bear Country USA, which was one of the funnest parts of our whole trip.
Bonus: Road-trip essentials
Road trips don’t require a whole lot of stuff – a vehicle, money for gas and food, and some clothes are really about it. But there are some items you can bring with you that will make it a lot easier. Here’s what we bring on every road trip.
Emergency items
- Tire inflator. I love this Ryobi one because it’s inexpensive and doesn’t take much space… it has served us well so far. Just be sure to charge it up before you go
- Battery starter. Again, be sure to charge!
- Socket wrench kit.
- Tire step if you’re in a full-size or lifted pickup, or other vehicle where you may not be able to see fully under the hood without a step up. The tire step comes in handy for loading and unloading a truck bed, too.
- Tire repair kit. We once wasted a few hours sitting outside Discount Tire with our dog and six-year-old waiting for the tire to be patched – little did I know at that time that you can buy kits to DIY and get back on the road.
- First Aid Kit.
- Extra water.
Sanitary items
- Hand sanitizer
- Wet wipes
- Paper towels
- Toilet paper just in case, especially if planning to stay at Airbnbs
Food items
- Snacks, obviously – stick to the kind that won’t melt and are non-perishable so you don’t have to transfer back and forth from a cooler
- Cooler – we bring a small, backpack-sized cooler to store quick meals when they are needed (see next point)
- Easy meals, if needed – we bring turkey sandwiches or PB&J when we know we won’t be close to any restaurants, or if we want to spend less on it
- Water – we usually bring a couple beat-up Rtic one-gallon containers and fill them with icewater so that we can have cold water on the road and a little for backup, too – then we buy a gallon or two at a time as needed.
Dog items
- Food and water bowls. I recommend collapsible ones that aren’t the absolute cheapest because those fall apart, but also there’s no need for the most expensive – they come on a carabiner which can clip to tie down point on the truck, or clip onto your cooler, or wherever else is convenient. We’ve used these by PetBonus with good success, other than leaving one at a Love’s in Texas or New Mexico.
- Food and treats
- Wipes
- Towels – we bring a few old towels that we use for our dog as (a) her “bed” when on the road, and (b) in case there’s a lot of rain or an unexpected mess so that she doesn’t make a mess on the floor of the room or Airbnb we stay in
- Bed
- Toys – we like these stuffies from Kong
- Extra leash
- Poop bags
- Sweater, blankets if needed
Kid items
- Kid binoculars (like from the dollar store). Trust me.
- Car games (tic-tac-toe, checkers, etc)
- Coloring books and no-mess crayons
- Kid trivia games and similar (Disney, license plate games) – print these out before you go
- Headphones
In the vehicle
- Small atlas – on our last trip, this turned from a “just in case we might need it one day” to a necessity on our last trip. We use the lowest-cost wireless provider we know of, Mint Mobile – so that means there are times in rural areas where we do not have service. I prefer using an old-school atlas over downloading offline maps of every single part of our route each day, and Rand McNally now makes a smaller spiral version that tucks nicely under the driver’s seat that we broke out on numerous occasions in rural parts of Colorado and Wyoming
- Charging cords
- Pillows and earphones for passengers
- Small trash bags (reuse some fast food or grocery bags as you go)
Truck cargo items
- Tie down straps
- Cargo net – we bought this one from TireTek years ago to use on the roof of another vehicle and now use it for the truck bed. It still holds up well, and the carabiners are all still intact – definitely a good buy, at least for occasional roadtrips.
- Carabiners
- Zip ties
- Moveable tiedown points
- Tarp – another necessity if your stuff is in the truck bed. It rained a lot on this trip. It’s best to tie the tarp down with a cargo net, though – if you try to just clip the rings on the tarp with carabiners or zip ties, the rings on the tarp will separate from the tarp when you are driving 70mph.
- Collapsible crates – we bought a three-pack by Greenmade from Costco, unsure if we’d use them. But then we bought another, and we may buy a third set. They may eventually come apart, but I won’t complain for the price. I do, however, find myself sometimes wishing they’d come with lids when it rains. Luckily, you can find them with lids on Amazon.
Summary
Going on a road trip with kids and a dog can seem daunting. But if you know your limits (and your spouse’s, and your kid’s, and your dog’s) and plan rest stops and stops for the day accordingly, you’ll be in good shape. Figure out your dog’s “spot” where they are most comfortable, and it will make a BIG difference.
Get over the fact that there will be unplanned stops while you plan the trip and use those extra stops to plan, to stretch, to exercise the dog so you won’t feel it’s wasted time.
Plot multiple stops for food, gas, restrooms, whatever – once every hour or two. Put them on your map app. This will save headaches later if you get a late start, have an unexpected stop, etc so that you aren’t scrambling to find somewhere for lunch when you passed your planned lunch stop at 10am, or you haven’t reached it yet at 2PM.
Make sure you have the road trip essentials. And most of all – have ideas for things to do and places to eat – have options – but avoid overscheduling and being on a time crunch.
Do these things and your road trip will be much more enjoyable time with your family!
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