How to Plan a Road Trip the Whole Family Will Love

Are you at a loss of where to begin when it comes to planning a road trip? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Tons of people struggle with where to begin when it comes to planning a road trip. In this post, we’ll show you how to plan a road trip.

Road trips are one of our favorite ways to travel. There’s nothing better than throwing your suitcases in the back of the car and hitting the open road. Our 3 kiddos (and even our pups!) are expert road trippers. They’ve been on countless road trips throughout Florida and all over the eastern US to places like Kentucky, Virginia, Washington DC, Alabama, and more!

Table of Contents

Pick a Destination

Our next road trip will take us from Florida to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and DC.

For this trip, we put the names of all of the states the kids have yet to visit into a hat. Each of the kids drew the name of a state. Once we narrowed it down to 3 states, we selected one of the states at random and centered our trip around that state.

Download your state cards here!

As you can see in the reel, we selected West Virginia, which became the starting point for our Christmas trip.

While this is a super fun idea, the spontaneity of it might not be for everyone. Consider what kind of activities your family likes to do. Do you enjoy hiking or outdoor activities? Consider looking into the mountains. Are you more of a beach person or a lake person? Do you want bustling cities or quaint towns? Would you prefer museum hopping or shopping? Are you aiming to visit all of the National Parks?

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Time to Do Some Research

Once you pick out a destination, it’s time to do a bit of research. For this step, I head over to my favorite blogs and the socials to see what others recommend. Some of my favorite Facebook groups to scour are: Visit All 50 States, US National Park Travel, Families Who Love to Travel, and Girls LOVE Travel. I posted a question asking for suggestions of things to do for this trip and had nearly 400 responses on the post. It was a great jumping off point for my planning!

I take each of our family members interests into consideration when I’m mapping out our trip. For instance, when I planned our 4 day trip to Washington DC, our kids were into art, dinosaurs, and space so we went to the the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, a STEM museum called the National Children’s Museum.

Pro-Tip: When you see a place of interest on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or the blogs save it on Google Maps!

To do so, search for a place in Google Maps, such as the Statue of Liberty. Next to the Directions icon is a “Save” button. Click the button and all of your saved locations will appear on a map as pictured above.

I’ve found this incredibly helpful for trip planning.

We established that our first stop would be the Canaan Valley Ski Resort in West Virginia. We wanted to include winter activities in our Christmas Trip and the resort offers snow tubing, ice skating, etc. If there isn’t real snow on the ground, the state park has fake snow, so it offers the perfect backup plan.

Pro-Tip: Always have a backup plan in case of weather, closures, or temper tantrums.

On this particular trip, we knew we wanted to tackle a few different states, in our quest to visit all 50 states. So, it was time to look at neighboring states. West Virginia is bordered by Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. The kids have already been to Virginia and Kentucky, so we focused our attention on Pennsylvania and Maryland, since they can easily be paired together. Plus, our kids favorite city is DC, so this gave us an excuse for a return visit.

Many popular museums require you to reserve a timeslot for your visit. While you’re researching things to do in your location of choice, be sure to make note of this. For instance, in DC many of the Smithsonian’s require you to have a timed ticket that you can reserve 30 days out. I set a reminder on my phone or Alexa to look into tickets.

Pro-Tip: Purchase tickets in advance whenever possible. You’ll often have shorter lines and save money.

Take Drive Times Into Consideration/Make Necessary Cuts

Come up with a list of things that you want to do each day. I like to include opening and closing times in my plans, just so I have that information handy.

I also add driving and walking maps in my itinerary, whenever necessary. For instance, when we are in DC, we typically walk or take the Metro. So, I included a map of where I plan on parking and the walking directions for the sites we’ll slated to hit up that day. We’ll most likely take the Metro from the Lincoln Memorial to the National Archives Museum, so I screenshotted the route info for that, as well.

Once you have a list of everything you want to do each day, it’s time to plug everything into Google Maps and assess drive times.

Pro-Tip: Check Google Maps for drive times more than once! Jot down the travel times and take an average to come up with a rough idea of how long it will take you to get from place to place. You’ll be amazed at how much the drive time changes if there was an accident impacting travel time on your original search.

Be sure you factor in travel time for each day to help determine whether you need to cut things from your list of things to do. As you can see in the image below, even though I’m obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, I decided to skip visiting the memorial site of his mother’s birthplace, and I nixed Harpers Ferry. Despite our goal of visiting all of the National Parks with the kids, we won’t be able to dedicate much time to Harpers Ferry, so instead of rushing through it, we’ll save it for another trip.

Our plan for this particular day is to make it to Hershey, Pennsylvania by at least 6 PM. We have tickets to Hersheypark and with our tickets, we’ll be able to access the park at 7 PM the night before and get a 2-hour preview of the park. Since our kids are really into theme parks, we decided this was a no-brainer- sorry Harpers Ferry!

As you can see, instead of removing these sites completely from the itinerary, I simply crossed them out. That way, if something comes up and we have extra time, these places can be a contingency plan.

Take a Look at Your Budget

Create a budget based on the length of your trip and the sights you want to see.

To do this, I jot down the name of the attraction, where it’s located, and how much it would cost for our family of 5. At this point, I begin making cuts.

For instance, our family only counts states that we have done something in when we add up the list of places we’ve been. So, if we simply drive through a state, it doesn’t count (for us). This meant we needed to do something in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey, for them to count for us.

My outline went a little something like this:

West Virginia: Ski lodge
Pennsylvania: Hersheypark, Gettysburg, Eisenhower National Historic Site, Amish Country
Maryland: Fort McHenry National Monument, Star Spangled Banner House, National Aquarium
Delaware: New Castle Court House National Park, Old Swedes National Historic Site
New Jersey: Fort Mott, Adventure Aquarium, Diggerland USA

From a budgetary standpoint, some of these things needed to go. Hersheypark and Diggerland are both amusement parks. While our sons would love Diggerland USA, everyone would enjoy Hersheypark. Financially, it didn’t make sense for us to do both, so we nixed Diggerland USA.

We plan on hitting up New Jersey, Delaware, and part of Maryland on the same day, so we needed to get crafty with our budget and time.

It would cost us $220 to do the National Aquarium in Baltimore. While that is doable, it would eat up a large chunk of our time and we wouldn’t have much time to do some of the other things we wanted to do. So, we cut the National Aquarium.

We had another aquarium on our list, the Adventure Aquarium, in New Jersey, which would only cost us $170 to visit, as a family of 5. Though it’s $50 cheaper than the National Aquarium, it would still take up a considerable amount of time for that day. There’s no way we’d be able to fit in things in Maryland and Delaware if we did the aquarium, so we crossed it off our list. That left us with visiting Fort Mott State Park, as our Jersey activity.

Decide Where You'll Stay

There are two ways to decide where you’ll stay: 1) Determine how far you’re willing to drive each day and figure out what destinations are within that parameter, or 2) Select your locations based on places you want to visit on your trip.

I tend to go with the second option. This trip is over our Christmas Break. Most places will be closed on Christmas Day, which limits our options. Instead of going from Hershey, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia (where we would run into lots of things being closed), I got a little crafty and booked us a visit the the Great Wolf Lodge in Perryville, Maryland.

As much as I’d love to see all of the historical sites in Philly, spending Christmas Day at an indoor waterpark is totally a kid’s dream come true. We could have booked the GWL in The Poconos, but visiting Maryland would add another list of states to our kid’s list. Heading to Maryland is a win-win.

On this particular trip, we’ll be staying at 1 ski lodge, 1 Great Wolf Lodge, and 2 hotels. For the hotels, I narrowed our options down to hotels that we accrue points for. When I search for hotels, I always ensure they include breakfast and try to find one that includes on-site parking (which is often a challenge/next to impossible in some cities). You should also consider what eateries are nearby and the proximity to things you want to do.

Pro-Tip: Include your hotel confirmation plans in your itinerary, just in case.

Wrap Everything Up in a Nice Neat Package

Now that you have everything all mapped out and ready to go, it’s time to wrap everything up in a nice little package. Your itinerary doesn’t have to be fancy, but you should have all of your notes organized and your trip outlined so that it is easy to follow.

I have a generic template that I created in Canva that I use for all of our trips. The detailed version on the left is for me and the more simple version on the right is for the kids to follow along with.

You might notice I have a Flex Day built into our schedule. This is just me being extra (hell the whole itinerary presentation is me being extra), but there are 3 separate plans ready for that day. We’ll probably go with plan #2 (as seen in the picture above left). We’ll play that day by ear but it could take us into Philly, or it could have us spending a little more time in Baltimore. Only time will tell!

Pro-Tip: Leave a copy of your itinerary with a loved one.

Our Road Trip Essentials

You’ll find items like these every time we pack a car for road trips. They help keep our items tidy, organized, and most importantly- accessible. Some things that we have found that work for us include lap desks, hooks, storage totes, tablet holders, and snack boxes.

Cargo Trailer
Bungee Cords
Lap Desks- these were in the video but we love this one!
Backpack Hooks
Tablet Holder- we use these so we can adjust them to see from the third row. If you don’t need that flexibility, these are great too!
Snack Boxes– we recently started using these snack boxes on road trips and our kids love them! Some of the things we pack into them are: trail mix, peanut butter crackers, apple chips, dried fruit (bananas, coconut, strawberries, etc.), granola bars, Nutrigrain Bars, rice cakes, fruit snacks, etc. We used these snack boxes on our last road trip (which was about 8 hours each way) and we found that it was enough snacks for driving up and back! Only the Nutrigrain Bars needed to be replaced. If your kid is a big snacker, you may need to replenish it before your return trip.
Collapsible Cooler

Other Things to Think About...

Vehicle: Get your vehicle inspected before you hit the road. Have your tires balanced and rotated, get an oil change, and make sure everything is good to go.

Weather/Driving Conditions: Monitor weather conditions, take breaks, and get enough sleep. You can also use cruise control to reduce fatigue

Distance: Nobody wants to spend their entire road trip in the car. Make sure you have plenty of stops planned along the way and that these stops aren’t super far from each other. Our longest driving day, aside from the day we drive up to West Virginia and the day we drive back to Florida, is about 4 hours.

Save a Pin & Start Planning Your Adventure

For future reference, be sure to save our post “How to Plan a Road Trip!”! While you’re at it, take a look at our printable children’s travel journals, they are the perfect way to keep your kiddos entertained in the car. Pin one of the images below to Pinterest. Go ahead and follow 5 Suitcases on Pinterest while you’re at it!