Hobbies And Interests
Scavenger Hunts for Girls
Remember looking out the window to spot cows, blue pick-up trucks or red sedans? How about making the classic game more girl-friendly? Girls could be on the lookout for their favorite colored vehicle (pink, anyone?), or favorite roadside flower. If you do your homework, you could get our map ahead of time so you can point out areas of interest that might or road signs that appeal to them. Keep it simple, though, most kids lose interest if the scavenger hunt items are too difficult, too repetitious, or the list is too long.
Travel Diaries
Girls love to tell their stories, record their emotions or, better yet, tell their secrets. Before your trip, purchase a diary for each of your girls and encourage them to keep a journal during the car drive. You could structure so that they could have quiet, writing time and allow them to keep any thoughts they wish to keep secret, like how Dad's singing is awful or their brother Bill smells. You could allow a forum to share diary entries and bring along some craft items to decorate the front of their diaries, allowing for those precious moments of extra quiet time.
Arts and Crafts
Bring along some inexpensive items such as rolls of aluminum foil, string and paper. Girls can design their own bracelets and rings out of foil, create crazy people or designs or string, or cookie catchers out of paper. Bring crayons, colored pencils, decals and glitter glue for decorating. If your girls tend to be messy, you might want to go easy on the glitter! You can even give each girl a purse or travel bag with craft items they selected before the trip, empowering them in the creative process and getting them excited about the trip. Their bags may also be good places to store their books, special toys, dolls or any gifts that might collect on the way, and avoiding arguments over ownership along the way.
Family Games
Games getting the entire family involved are perfect for engaging even the moodiest of girls. You can try sing-a-longs to their favorite songs, engage in group story telling or story chains, riddles, jokes, even truth-or-dare, though, if you are riding with young teens, you might want to here some of the answers. The games that require the whole family to participate are the games most likely to get everyone laughing and smiling.