Moving from Miami,Fl to Silicon Valley, CA

My family and I are relocating to the San Francisco Bay area this summer (June), and we are seriously considering making it a road trip. I will be traveling with my husband, two kids (ages 5 and 3) and our labrador retriever. First of all I want to know if we are insane for thinking of driving that far with two young kids. Thankfully they are good travelers (they have made the trip from Miami to Atlanta several times with out any problems), but that is just one day. Next we are tossing around renting an rv versus driving our minivan. My husbands' job is paying for the relocation. Lastly we are trying to figure out what would be the best route. We really want to make this a great and memorable trip with the kids; see as many sights as possible and experience america. I know that there are so many possibilities, but some recommendations from those who have already done this would help me focus in on what we want to do and what we can avoid. Thanks for the help.

Welcome to RTA!

Many people have made relocation trips by car with small children, and survived. Goodness knows we did (our kids were 2 and 1 at the time). Your car has to get to the new location, and renting an RV can be quite expensive.

Best route -- well, around here we don't do "best route", especially to make this "a great and memorable trip with the kids; see as many sights as possible". If you have a good road atlas, or a big map of the US, get it out and start flagging things that interest you. Perhaps it's national parks, of which there are many that could be "along the way" for your trip. Perhaps it's museums. How long will you have to make this trip? That will help us help you plan. Go to the Map Center on this website and poke around, and see what interests you.

A couple of recommendations - when our kids were really young, we made sure that we would get out of the car and let them run around a little bit, highly supervised of course! Though ours were trained from Week #4 to be in the car for at least 7 hours (while we took them to see grandparents), we tried to limit how many days in a row we could do that kind of traveling (3 in a row). Make sure that you keep lots of different toys that they can play with in the car, and rotate them a lot. When ours were young, I kept the bag so that the toys wouldn't all be strewn about the car. Yours are old enough for games like "I Spy" and "count how many red cars you see". If they like music, make sure you have a CD or two of things the kids like. Sing songs -- no one in other cars can hear you! If they fall asleep in their car seat, that's fine. Choose motels with either a park nearby or a pool. Either one of those can help them relax enough to sleep. We always stopped early, played in the pool or playground, had dinner, and then it was bedtime.

So, no, you're not insane for this thought of driving to your new home. If YOU think of it as an adventure, so will your kids!


Donna

As you have already identified, multiple days require different considerations when travelling with young ones. Donna has given some great ideas for travelling with little ones. We did most of all that when travelling with our brood. Lots of water drinks, and laying off the sugar, helps as well. However, we always found that the most important thing is to be alert to their needs at all times. If that means stopping a hundred miles short of your intended destination on any given day, and so be it. We also found that stopping in time to give the children time to familiarise themselves with their new sleeping environment before dinner time, made for a more restful night for all.

Travelling with little ones can be very satisfying. If their needs are paramount, it will be fun for all. Have a great trip.

Lifey