Moving cross country with kids can be stressful, but with a little planning you can have a nice road trip with your children. Just avoid these mistakes.

Rob and I tend to move a lot. 

There is something about getting to know a new location that really appeals to us. 

We met in Arizona, where we had both moved to separately from New York and Minnesota. 

We moved to Vietnam together to teach overseas for a year. Then, we moved to Colorado.

This past June, we moved to Minnesota to live closer to family. 

All of these moves were fairly easy, except for the last one with a whole house and two young kids to pack up and make the 900 mile drive. 

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While we consider ourselves pretty good at moving, moving cross country with kids is a whole different ball game. The planner in me went a little nuts creating busy books for the kids, loading enough snacks, and strategically packing three different sets of clothes and essentials for our three different living situations when we arrived. 

I am sure you know what to do when you move – pack boxes, load truck, slog out miles, unpack – but there are a few considerations you should not do when moving cross country with kids. 

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Push The Distance

If it were just Rob and I, we would easily drive 8-10 hours a day, or just straight through, to make it to our destination. Moving cross country with kids (aged three and one), we really had to know their driving limits. 

We planned our drive time around naps. A driving day involved having breakfast at the hotel (which the kids absolutely loved), finding an activity to do for the morning like visit a museum or go for a walk, drive for an hour or two, stop for lunch, then drive for the duration of nap time before finding a hotel.

The longest total drive time in one day we ever made it was five hours and that was seriously pushing the kids’ patience and ability to sit still.

Only Go From The Car To The Hotel Room 

Instead of going straight from those hours in the car to hours in a hotel room before bedtime, make sure you get in some play time. 

This could be using the hotel pool, going for a walk for some fresh air, or using the hotel recreation area and game room.

One of the things Zoey and William looked forward to the most during the drive (besides all the snacks) was being able to go swimming once we settled into the hotel. It was the perfect way for them to get some wiggles out and not have to be cooped up in another small space for too long. 

Making time to avoid solely being in the car and hotel room will save your own sanity as well. Do not underestimate the power of fresh air and exercise!

Ignore Bed Time

Rob and I are known for the tight schedule we keep for the kids. Breakfast is at 7, lunch at noon, quiet time and naps at 1, dinner at 6, and bedtime by 7:30 latest.

Just because you are on a road trip and have access to movie channels you normally might not, keep the kids (and yourself) to a bedtime. It would be really easy to get caught up in a movie, or the excitement of staying in a hotel, and let the kids stay up much later than normal. 

Avoid doing this. It will just make everyone a bear the next day and be even harder to get back on schedule when you arrive at your destination. 

Pack At The Last Minute

Packing takes time. 

A lot of time. 

Even more time if you have children to care for while you pack not just because they want to “help”, but because they need attention, snacks, naps, etc.

Give yourself plenty of time to pack. I am talking about a few months, not just a few weeks. 

Donate as much as you can and throw out as much as you can. When you are loading that moving truck, you are going to be thrilled that you were ruthless about what stayed and what went. 

Rob and I are still unpacking boxes and sorting through items that we should have just gotten rid of, but because we were in a hurry towards the end, those random items were just tossed into a box. 

If you really want to give yourself some grace with your packing endeavors, hire a moving company like Relief Moving Company LLC and let them do the packing for you. Not only will they pack up your valuables, but they will assist in the heavy lifting of couches, refrigerators and even pianos in the Blaine, MN community, so you do not need to bribe your friends and family to do it for you. 

Drive In Two Different Vehicles 

Since Rob drove the moving truck with a car trailer, I drove our second car with the kids. Sure, 900 miles only takes about 13 hours and we broke it up into a few days, but it was still hard to do so many miles solo. 

It became even more difficult when the kids needed something and I had to reach back to hand it to them, or they dropped something I could not reach, or they both started crying at the same time. Having a second set of hands during those times, and to chat with during the quiet of nap time, would have made the drive that much more pleasant. 

That being said, I did listen to a solid amount of podcasts during the drive because I did not have to share the audio choices, but I still would have liked to marvel at the flatness of Nebraska with Rob at my side. 

Rob would come out of a day driving the truck completely exhausted. We should also just ignore that one afternoon he got the truck jacknife stuck in a fairly busy Cracker Barrel parking lot. This is another excellent reason to hire a moving company and let them do the truck driving for you.  

Pick Up A Snack At Every Stop

I am a huge road trip snack fan. 

In my opinion, it is not really a road trip unless there are an abundance of snacks. 

Rather than picking up a snack at every gas station fill up and pit stop, pack your own. The kids will most likely not be patient enough to wait for a rest stop and having a cache of food on hand will keep the whining to a minimum, the food budget happy, and provide healthier options than what you would grab from the truck stop. 

For our move, I overpacked on snacks. Rob had his own stash of food with him in the moving truck and I had one for the kids and I. The cooler was in the car with me and I would make sure to restock Rob with carrot sticks, water, and apples from it each morning. 

Solely Rely On Devices For Driving Entertainment

Depending on how old your kids are, and if they have their own devices, they are most likely going to want to be lost in them for the vast majority of your drive time. 

Try not to let them. 

Make time to talk, play road trip games, listen to an audio book or podcast together, or have them read if they do not get nauseous. 

Since we are a screen free family, and our kids were so young during this move, I made busy books for each of them. I also had a stash of toys to keep them occupied.

William spent more time playing with this toy during the road trip than he did eating snacks. For our always hungry boy, that is saying a lot. 

Move Three Times In One 

It was just the nature of this particular move that we ended up moving, three times. 

When we arrived in Minnesota, Rob’s parents graciously put us up for a week and let us unpack our moving truck into their garage. 

From there, we were able to stay in a furnished family rental house for a few months while we house hunted. 

Once we closed on our new house, we moved all our possessions out of both the family rental and my in-laws’ garage into our home. 

While all this moving around is actually fun for me because I get to try out different neighborhoods and homes, it gets hard on little kids. New bedrooms, new smells, new house rules. It is just a lot of new before the kids can really settle in. 

Add in moving all of our furniture and boxes twice and this would have been a good place to hire movers for at least one of those transitions. 

With a little forward planning and strategic timing, you can make your cross country move with kids actually fun and not so stressful. Rob and I really tried to make magic for the kids during the four days of driving by having special treats, a few surprise toys, and lots of pool time. 

No matter how you do it, I hope your move goes smoothly!