Share the ways you keep your children entertained on long journeys with Vodafone

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Every parent has their own special way of keeping long journeys fun – whether it’s through using devices to watch videos, or involving the whole family through songs and games. As the summer holiday season is in full swing, Vodafone want to know how you keep your children occupied on long trips.

Here’s what Vodafone has to say:
“It’s a glorious summer’s day. You’re stuck in the car and there’s 100 miles still to go. The kids are getting restless. But you know the perfect way to keep them entertained. A sure-fire way to keep them distracted just a little bit longer. That back-pocket ace card that you can play during times like these.

We want to know your secret!”

What’s your trick to keeping your children entertained for most of the journey? Are you a key part of the entertainment (think a family game of ‘I Spy’), or do you let them get on with it and hope for the best? Are there any particularly memorable journeys you’d like to share?

From young children to teens, what are your tips and tricks in keeping them entertained? Share on the thread below and everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where 1 MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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When we on are long car journey we all play eye spy, or I give my give my phone to my daughter who watches peppa pig on my Vodafone internet which is great 👍🏻

Introduce the Rubiks Cube to eat up an hour or two

Audio books! My kids listen to them for hours from the age of 3!

we take top trumps and a book for my 7 yr old son and my daughter aged 4 loves sticker books, colouring and has a small case with a doll and osme accessories. Add in a few snacks and they are good as gold.....usually

When they were younger for long journeys we’d do our version of the old I spy books, where they’d tick off features and landmarks. Whoever won would be first in to the holiday house!

When they were older we saved audio books which we knew we’d all enjoy. We also had a fun rule that every so often we’d say ‘silence in court!’ And the last person to speak would get a sweet

We play the car game which is something we have invented during long car journeys. Each person picks a car colour, the aim of the game is to pick the rarest colour car and the winner is the person with the lowest number of points at the end of the journey.

Most popular colour to choose is pink! Each sighting has to be verified by a second person in the car so that no one can just claim to have seen someone else's colour. Eye spy also figures quite heavily too.

Snacks, eye spy, music, magnetic drawing pad, more snacks, Netflix, no end of chatting cou tong colour cars. A c lorry game where you have to find lorries with each letter of the alphabet in order, good for long motor way journeys.

'I spy in my mind's eye'....
Infuriating but addictive. Recent answers including VB= the venerable Bede (we're a weird family)

we have a card game called "are we nearly there yet" which is great for car journeys.
And let's be honest, a tablet or DVD player is the top choice!

We always look for new country number plates when driving across Europe and in the US we look for state number plates. This often becomes a try to name all the states game. We sound so nerdy but we love it

Other things we all enjoy are Harry Potter audio tapes and singing songs

lots of snacks
Uno cars
Ipads
Netflix
spotify for karaoke
Books/magazine
Maths Quiz

We play games like cheese on wheels we shout if we see a yellow car 😂 or they play games on kindle or they colour in. My daughter in particular loves dot to dots.

We create a playlist of songs and rhymes for the kids and sing together. When they're older we might try audiobooks. Wooden puzzles that can be played with for ages are great. The best one we have is a robot "transformer" made our of cubes and elastic. They love playing with that. Our littlest usually falls asleep on journeys so not really a problem!

We have been travelling the 3 hours from London to the Peak District to visit the In Laws every holiday since the children were born (they are now 14,12 and 10).

When they were very small we played children's music and sang along and hoped they would sleep. Then we progressed to portable DVD players, as they moved onto DSs, kindle s loaded up with films chosen by each child and audio books.

Now we are heading into teen years, we travel late and hope the eldest two sleep but they bring electronics to play with as needed. The nocturnal 10 year old plays word games with us, A-Z of animals, boys names, girls names, songs until we are pulling out our hair. Guess the name on the Eddie Stobbart lorry, and her current favour pointing out all the number plates with repeated letters or numbers by calling out double or treble as we go passed.

We make up quizzes. There have been some where we've been revising for tests for my eldest. The younger one had easier and general knowledge questions. They seem to love it, but I can only do this if I'm a passenger.
We listen to music and argue about whose turn it is to choose and whether a song is awful/ brilliant or not!

audiobooks, novels or comics do the trick!

I break the journey into smaller parts. At 1pm we have food. 1.30pm drawing. 2pm a new book (from the library) and so on. I keep all the exciting stuff in a bag so it’s a surprise for them what we are doing next. As long as one of your kids can tell the time it works ok.
I also have a bag of really tiny sweets (so they don’t feel sick) I hand out every 20 mins or so.
I give them a list of things to look for like a red lorry or 3 cows next to a sheep.
It’s meant a huge decrease in ‘are we there yets?’ and acts of violence against each other

I use tablet and we sing the songs.

Audio books in the car - David Walliams collection are our most recent favourite. Card games on the train or plane - Uno and dobble are the current favourites.

We like to sing songs together and when we need some peace and quiet we play count how many cars you can spot in your head for 10 minutes!

We play I-spy, but my kids are still very little and can’t spell yet, so we play it with colours, ie I spy with my little eye, something the colour...

I spy, spotting different colour cars, singing, audio books

singalongs plus kipping

What we do is singing we will take our portable karaoke machine and sing also we would play with dominos and puzzles

Never forget snacks and drinks.
The classic eye spy always works well and ‘first one to spot a red car/tree/bird’ et al always works well
The iPad, books (including colouring books).
Singing songs