Are you looking for screen-free travel activities to keep your toddlers and preschoolers occupied? These can seriously save your trip!
When we took our first trip with our first son (who was already 18 months old, thanks COVID-19), I was so afraid of the travel days. We were flying to Florida to see my family and I was a bundle of nerves. How was I going to keep an 18-month-old occupied on an airplane? Well, it turned out that he liked to sleep on the airplane, so all of my panic was for nothing, but my preparation came in handy as he grew up and as we had our second child, who definitely does not like to sleep when we travel.
What did my research (and now my years of experience) teach me? First, don’t beat yourself up and aim for your travel days to be completely screen-free. As I mentioned when I gave my tips for air travel with young kids, a tablet is a travel day necessity for me for kids 2 and older. A tablet can be a Godsend when you’re traveling with toddlers and preschoolers, especially if your kids don’t get tablet time very often when they’re at home. Second, don’t entirely rely on a tablet. If your kids are anything like mine, they’re going to have short attention spans, even when looking at a screen. So, come prepared with screen-free travel activities that you can pull out for a tablet break.
Over the last few years, we have tried a lot of screen-free travel activities. Trust me when I say that these are the best of the best. They will save your sanity on travel days, whether you’re traveling by plane, train, or automobile!
Screen-Free Travel Activities
Stickers
Your kids probably love stickers. I don’t know if I’ve met a kid who doesn’t. The good news is that you can find multiple screen-free travel activities that rely on stickers.
Reusable stickers
I love reusable stickers for the kids. They’re largely mess-free, easy to pack up and take on the road, and provide entertainment for a fair chunk of time. Of course, there are lots of reusable stickers on the market, but my favorite are the Melissa & Doug reusable sticker books that provide stickers and a scene (or five) on which to position and reposition the stickers.
Regular stickers
If you don’t have reusable stickers handy and you can’t get them before you travel, regular stickers make a great screen-free travel activity too. Just head to the Dollar Tree and pick up a sticker pack or two along with a pocket-sized notebook. It’s amazing how long kids can stay occupied just grabbing stickers and placing them into a notebook, especially the toddler crowd. We have passed entire flights just doing this activity before.
Drawing pad
Even if your kids aren’t yet “drawing” actual, recognizable things, it’s still a great idea to throw a drawing pad in your travel bag. What we call a drawing pad in my family is an LCD screen with an attached pen. These things are super thin and light and almost infinitely reusable for drawing fun for years to come. We keep ours in the seat back pockets in the car, so they get used on a fairly regular basis in addition to being one of our favorite screen-free travel activities when we have taken trips. If you don’t already have one of these, pick one up before your next trip!
Coloring book & crayons
If your kid loves to express himself with art, don’t sleep on the humble coloring book and crayons when you’re looking for screen-free travel activities. I like to get coloring books for travel at the Dollar Tree because they’re usually thin and easy to throw in a bag. They often have my kids’ favorite characters too, which is always an added bonus.
For crayons, I like to just get a pack of regular, washable crayons and dump them into a zippered pouch. I know I’ve often sung the praises of the twistable crayons in the past, and even though I still love them for everyday use, I prefer regular old crayons for travel. They’re much easier to deal with if they break – just rip the paper and voila! You have a new crayon! When the twistables break, it can be meltdown central. And you definitely don’t need a preventable meltdown when you’re on a plane or in a car for a long period of time.
No mess markers
Whoever invented the markers and paper that only work with one another deserves a round of applause. I mean, seriously, you are saving parents (and their walls) everywhere. Although the main draw of these for me is to avoid the dreaded artwork all over the walls (or the couch or the rug), these markers are also fabulous for travel.
Of course, you can certainly make a Color Wonder pack work for travel, but it’s not my favorite mess-free marker situation when I’m looking for screen-free travel activities. The packs don’t close once they have been opened, and it can be a bit tricky for toddlers and preschoolers to juggle individual sheets of paper and multiple markers when they’re in a confined space like an airplane seat or a car seat. An easier option for travel is the Imagine Ink pads. These come with one marker that makes all the colors and the sheets of paper are all attached. Just make sure you have a plan for where to store the marker. These puppies get lost easily.
Magnetic items
God bless magnetic items for travel entertainment! My first introduction to magnetic travel items came via my sister-in-law, who gifted my son a set of magnetic travel blocks before our first plane ride all the way back when he was about 18 months old. Since then, these blocks have been a staple in our travel bag. These blocks also opened this mom up to the world of magnetic screen-free travel activities. And oh, what a wonderful world it is!
We now have quite a few magnetic travel items that we always take with us on any trip we take. Mini Magna-Tiles are awesome – as are the Crayola mini magnetic tiles that are essentially the same thing. If your kiddo is a builder, you definitely need some of these in your travel bag. We also love magnetic dress-up and magnetic play sets that come with their own storage. Finally, magnetic puzzles can also be a great option, especially if you have a kid who likes to master something and then do it multiple times. Whatever magnetic travel items you choose, you’ll be glad you did!
Books
My personal favorite screen-free travel activity is to read. I love to bring along a book or six when I take a trip and get some reading done while I’m stuck in a car or an airplane. I also like to bring books for my kiddos to read when we travel, even though neither of them can actually read yet. Just like they like to tell themselves stories based on the pictures in books during quiet time, they do they same when we are traveling. Because books can get heavy, we like to pick a few favorites for each trip, ones we know the kids will want to read over and over again. Currently, we’ve been reading a lot of Curious George books, The Knight Owl, and Buffalo Fluffalo.
Yoto mini
The Yoto mini is an audio player that works via cards that tell stories, lead activities, or just provide ambient sounds. It’s great for any time your kid needs a fun screen break, but it shines as a screen-free travel activity if you plug in some headphones. If you want to invest in a Yoto mini for travel purposes, I highly recommend that you also get a case for it that can hold the player, some cards, and the charging cable so it’s all contained in one place and easy to take from here to there. This is also something that your kids can listen to while they do another of my favorite screen-free travel activities, which can extend the time they want to do whatever activity they choose.
Workbooks
Especially if you have a preschooler who is working on pre-reading skills, workbooks can be one of the best screen-free travel activities you bring with you. Again, I like to visit the Dollar Tree to find these sorts of workbooks. They usually have a pretty great selection that runs the gamut both in terms of skills and characters. Grab a pencil and you’ve got a great screen-free travel activity.
Card games
We have developed a new love of card games in my house. We play them all the time at home, and they are great to add to your arsenal of screen-free travel activities too. Some of our favorite card games (for home and on the road or in the sky) are Spot It, Eye Found It (even the 2-year-old can sort of play this), and Go Shark.
Scavenger hunt
We are taking it back to my childhood travel experiences with the next entry on my list of great screen-free travel activities. The simple, lowly scavenger hunt can be an absolute blast for the whole family. Just maybe don’t initiate this activity if you have a kiddo who should be napping. He or she will get wrapped up in the excitement of the game, even if not technically participating.
Now, you can do a scavenger hunt the old school way, in which Mom just thinks of things off the top of her head one at a time. This absolutely works. You can also buy a travel scavenger hunt game like Found It! that does all of the work for you. Basically, you need to decide if you’d like to save the room in your travel bag or your brain power. Honestly, my answer would change trip to trip.
Busy book
Especially for the younger crowd, you really can’t get a much better travel activity than a busy book. It’s self-contained, it offers a lot of variety, and it involves Velcro – every toddler’s favorite thing! You can find busy books with tons of activities at any price point, so your options are almost endless. The one we have is no longer available, but I recently bought a similar one for a family member that looks to be very similar to the one we have had and loved for years.
Matching game
One of our favorite screen-free travel activities, and a great one to end this list on, is another genius product from Melissa & Doug – Flip to Win Travel Memory Game. When I tell you that both of my kids have been obsessed with this game, that’s actually an understatement. My older kiddo played it so much that he memorized all the cards that came with the game. It became impossible to beat him. Thankfully, some enterprising parent made new card downloads and sells them on Etsy. He memorized those cards too, but at least it bought us a bit of time.
But the game, even with the extra cards, is super easy to pack in your backpack and take with you anywhere. This one is harder to play in the car because you have to be sitting next to one another, but it’s awesome on the airplane.
Other posts
Looking for other tips for life with toddlers and preschoolers? Check out these posts:
I hope you all have smooth travels with the help of these fun, screen-free travel activities. What are your kids’ favorite travel activities? Let us know in the comments or over on Instagram @sarainseason.
[Note: None of this content is sponsored. The links above may be general affiliate links, which earn me a small commission so I can keep making great content for you!]