How to Keep Kids Entertained While Traveling
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Travel days with kids can feel very, very long.
You can start the day feeling organized and optimistic, and three hours later someone is bored, someone is hungry, and someone has apparently watched every show ever created.
The goal isn’t to keep kids entertained every second of the trip. Honestly, that sounds exhausting for everyone involved.
The goal is to have enough good options available that when boredom hits—and it will—you have something easy to pull out before the entire travel day starts unraveling.
You don’t need dozens of travel activities for kids, either. A little planning, some variety, and a strategically timed snack can go a long way.
Keep Your Expectations Realistic
First, accept that your kids are probably going to get bored.
That doesn’t mean you packed the wrong things or planned badly. Travel involves waiting, sitting, standing in lines, delays, and stretches of time when there just isn’t much happening.
Instead of trying to eliminate boredom completely, plan for it.
Give kids a few options, expect some downtime, and don’t feel like you need to immediately entertain them the second they say, “I’m bored.”
Sometimes staring out an airplane window for ten minutes is perfectly fine.
And sometimes it buys you ten glorious minutes.
Use a Mix of Activities
One of the easiest mistakes to make is relying on one form of entertainment for the entire travel day.
Even something your child normally loves can get old after several hours.
I like having a mix of:
Screen time
Books
Coloring or activity books
Small games
Snacks
Music or audiobooks
Movement breaks
You don’t need something from every category for every child. The idea is simply to have a few different types of entertainment so you can switch gears when one thing stops working.
A tablet might work for an hour. Then a snack. Then a card game. Then another show.
Variety makes a limited number of activities feel like a lot more.
Download Everything Before You Leave
This is one travel lesson that usually only needs to be learned once.
Download movies, shows, games, books, music, and anything else your kids want to use before you leave home.
Do not count on airport Wi-Fi.
Do not count on airplane Wi-Fi.
And definitely do not wait until you are sitting at the gate to discover that the one movie your child wanted to watch isn’t actually downloaded.
We’ve gotten a lot of use out of the Kindle Fire for travel because kids can have their shows, books, and games all in one place.
Charge devices the night before and make sure headphones and portable chargers are charged too. If you’re traveling with younger kids, having a pair of comfortable kids' headphones that actually fits their head is worth it too.
Travel days are much easier when your entertainment doesn’t depend on a decent internet connection.
Bring Simple Entertainment
You really don’t need an entire backpack full of toys.
In fact, bringing too much usually creates more work because now you’re keeping track of twelve tiny things while traveling.
A few solid options are usually enough.
Depending on your child’s age, that might include:
Coloring or activity book
Sticker book
Favorite book
Small card game
Travel-sized game
Puzzle book
Small toy or fidget
One of our go-to options is LEGOs.
My son loves LEGOs, so when we travel I fill one of these small zippered pouches with a handful of LEGO pieces and mini figures. It takes up hardly any room, but it gives him something he can actually build and play with instead of just looking at a screen.
The zipper is key because loose LEGOs rolling around an airplane floor sounds like a special kind of travel nightmare.
For younger kids, removable stickers are another great travel activity. They’re easy to pack, don’t take up much room, and can keep little hands busy for quite a while. Just make sure they are actually removable before you hand them over—an airplane tray table is not the place to discover you accidentally packed the permanent kind.
We also love UNO because it’s small, easy to throw in a backpack, and works for a pretty big range of ages.
Whatever you bring, look for things that are lightweight, easy to pack, and don’t contain approximately 400 tiny pieces.
Unless, apparently, they’re LEGOs. Then at least put them in a zipper bag.
Don’t Give Them Everything at Once
This is one of my favorite travel tricks.
If you hand kids every activity at the beginning of the trip, they will somehow manage to go through all of them before you have even reached cruising altitude.
Instead, rotate activities.
Bring out one or two things at a time. When interest starts fading, switch to something else.
For younger kids, I especially like keeping one activity completely hidden until later in the trip.
It doesn’t need to be expensive or elaborate. Sometimes something they haven’t seen yet feels much more exciting simply because it’s new.
Never Underestimate Snacks
Snacks absolutely count as travel entertainment.
There. I said it.
They break up the day, give everyone something to do, and help prevent hunger from turning a minor inconvenience into a full travel emergency.
I usually choose foods that are:
Easy to eat
Not too messy
Easy to portion
Able to survive being tossed into a backpack
Think crackers, granola bars, pretzels, fruit snacks, nuts, trail mix, or individual snack packs.
I also like having a mixture of familiar favorites and a couple of things that feel a little special.
And pack more than you think you’ll need.
Travel delays have an incredible ability to happen exactly when everyone is hungry.
I also bring an empty refillable water bottle for each person and fill it once we’re through airport security.
Let Kids Have Their Own Travel Bag
If your kids are old enough to carry a backpack, giving them their own travel bag can make the day much easier.
Let them help choose what goes inside.
Depending on their age, they can carry:
A book
A few activities
Snacks
A sweatshirt
A comfort item
I like these foldable backpacks because they’re lightweight and come in several colors. Giving each child a different color also makes it much easier to know whose bag is whose.
Having their own bag gives kids some independence and keeps their things from taking over your carry-on.
Just keep the bag reasonably light.
Because there is always a chance that halfway through the airport your child will decide they are physically incapable of carrying the backpack they enthusiastically packed themselves.
If you want a little more help figuring out what everyone actually needs to pack, the Ultimate Family Packing List Bundle →includes printable age-based packinglists, carry-on checklists, and travel add-ons to make packing the whole family easier.
Give Kids Some Choices
Travel involves a lot of adults telling kids what to do.
Sit here.
Wait there.
Put your shoes back on.
Stop touching that.
Giving them a little control over the things that don’t really matter can help.
Let them choose:
Which activity they want next
Which snack they want
Which movie to watch
Which book to bring
What goes in their travel backpack
Small choices can make kids feel much more involved in the day.
Build in Movement Whenever You Can
Kids are not designed to sit still for six hours.
Frankly, neither are most adults.
Take advantage of opportunities to move.
Before boarding a flight, walk around the terminal instead of sitting at the gate for an extra hour.
During road trips, let everyone stretch during stops.
On longer flights, get up and walk when it’s appropriate and safe to do so.
Even a few minutes of movement can help kids reset before another stretch of sitting.
Adjust Entertainment for Your Child’s Age
What works beautifully for a five-year-old probably isn’t going to impress a fifteen-year-old.
Younger Kids
Younger children often do better with several shorter activities.
Try:
Removable stickers
Coloring
Simple activity books
Small toys
Favorite shows
Snacks
Comfort items
You may need to rotate activities more frequently.
Tweens
Tweens can usually manage more of their own entertainment.
They might enjoy:
Tablets
Books
Puzzle books
Card games
Music
Audiobooks
Downloaded shows
Small travel games
Letting them pack part of their own bag can work especially well at this age.
Teens
Teen entertainment is generally pretty straightforward.
Give them:
A charged phone
Downloaded entertainment
Snacks
And perhaps the greatest gift of all: a little personal space.
Save Something for Later
If you have a particularly long travel day, don’t use all your best options in the first hour.
Think about the difficult parts of your trip.
Maybe it’s the second flight.
Maybe it’s the final two hours of a road trip.
Maybe it’s the airport layover when everyone is tired.
Save one favorite snack, movie, activity, or small surprise for that stretch.
You don’t need to announce this plan to anyone.
Consider it your emergency entertainment reserve.
Don’t Overpack Entertainment
It is very easy to start packing for every possible travel scenario.
Suddenly your child has seven books, four games, three activity sets, seventeen snacks, and a backpack that weighs more than they do.
You don’t need that much.
A few good activities that you can rotate will usually work better than carrying an enormous bag of things no one ends up using.
For most kids, I would rather have:
One device
Headphones
One or two hands-on activities
A book
Snacks
One comfort item
Then adjust based on your child’s age and the length of the trip.
Simple is much easier to manage when you’re actually traveling.
Keep the Rest of the Trip Organized Too
Entertainment is only one small piece of a family trip. There are still reservations, budgets, schedules, confirmation numbers, packing, and all the other little details that somehow multiply as your trip gets closer.
That’s exactly why I created the Wander With Ease Travel Planner. It gives you one place to organize your itinerary, reservations, budget, packing, and important trip details so you don’t have to keep everything in your head—or scattered through approximately 37 emails.
Take a look at the Wander With Ease Travel Planner →
Final Thoughts
Keeping kids entertained while traveling isn’t about creating a perfectly scheduled day where no one ever gets bored.
That’s probably not happening.
It’s about having a few reliable options ready, rotating them throughout the day, building in snacks and movement, and knowing when it’s perfectly fine to let everyone have a little downtime.
You don’t need to bring an entire toy room with you.
Pack a few things your kids genuinely enjoy, download entertainment ahead of time, keep everything easy to reach, and save something good for later.
It won’t make every travel day perfect—but it can make a long one feel a whole lot easier.