By Renee Martinez, Founder of Raising Boys World
Travel with active boys by car has been known to cause premature gray hair and high anxiety. Before you risk losing your mind, prepare ahead and organize how you’ll manage the time in tight quarters.
Given the current economic situation, people are tightening their pocketbooks. Travel is one luxury that many people are cutting back on. If expensive airline tickets prevent you from getting away, you might consider a vacation by car. As a child, we drove everywhere so I can tell you from first-hand experience that it can be fun and it’s definitely memorable. One added advantage of car travel is the wonderful family bonding opportunity. Sure, by the end you might not agree, but when you look back in a week, a month or a year, you’ll remember it and so will your children.
The food situation can be a little daunting with boys, so what I do is pack special bags for each child (including the oldest child; the husband). I throw a few bonus goodies in there that I might not ordinarily allow them to eat. I do not include sugary things whatsoever, as why make active boys crazier? I do bring sugary things, only I keep them with me as bribery tools. I also try to limit beverages so we won’t have to stop as frequently. I pack carrots, crackers, granola bars, cheesy thingi’s, apples, teddy grahams… there is no shortage of food. I also usually make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so we have something substantial on hand. You never know when someone might scream, “I’m starving!!!”
What to do? Each child also brings a backpack with activities such as books, crayons, paper, an mp3 player if they have one and a new item such as a little car or a package of hockey cards (depending on their age of course). When all these goodies become boring and the echo of boredom starts to get on my nerves, I resort to a video. I might bring a new one or something I know they either really like or haven’t seen in a long time. Once the video is over, I will plan and play fun games with them. We like this game where we pretend they are on a television game show. I am the host and they are the contestants. I welcome them in my host voice and we laugh a lot. Then I ask them questions from categories they pick such as math, drawing, science or spelling. I keep score of how many correct answers. Nobody wins, but we have a good time.
When planning our drive, I always consider a route that enables us to make stops along the way. We’ve stopped at a haunted mansion, a factory for a free tour and a local park for some exercise. It helps to break things up.
For great road trip games and ideas visit: http://www.momsminivan.com/
Good route ideas: http://travelwithkids.about.com/cs/cartrips/a/cartripsgreat.htm
Whatever you do, have fun. Family travel is the opportunity to create memories that will last a lifetime.
About the Author: Renee Martinez consults and speaks professionally on social media marketing, integrated marketing communications, public relations and branding. She is the president of Ruby Marketing Communications (www.rubymarcom.com), a boutique marketing communications company that specializes in providing branding, social media strategy and integration, and creative services. Her blog (www.lisac95.sg-host.com), provides resources on everything marketing and social media for her active audience.
Renee has contributed as a featured monthly columnist in the monthly jewelry industry publication, JCK, on matters related to internet marketing as well as in InStore Magazine as a featured blogger where she writes about developing effective marketing strategies for the jewelry industry using social media. She is the founder of: Social Media Biz Summit (www.socialmediabizsummit.com), the first large-scale SM conference to come to Buffalo, NY; #jewelrychat, a weekly twitter chat for the jewelry industry and www.RaisingBoysWorld.com. Renee teaches social marketing courses at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY for the business school as well as offers small group social media marketing training and educational seminars for businesses in Western New York and beyond.
Renee has dabbled in the internet marketing arena since the early 90′s and is not ashamed to call herself a “marketing geek”. From chatting in AOL, “sharing” music on Napster, and teaching HTML classes before it was considered “cool” to developing comprehensive social media strategies, effective public relations campaigns and managing online communities (most recently Chevy Girls Buffalo).
She enjoys being able to help people find their voice online and to create buzz about their product or service that will give them the results they desire.
Renee can be found on Twitter (@reneemmartinez) and Facebook (http:/www.facebook.com/RubyMarCom).
