Traveling with a Tribe

Road tripping with four kids isn’t always the easiest thing to do, heck, getting everyone in the car to head anywhere can be a challenge at times. Even though our trip to Michigan this year was short, there were things that I learned last summer that set my mind at ease when traveling. From a father’s perspective, this one thing is vitally important. Packing.  

Let me take you back to the summer of 2015. With mountains and marriage on our minds, we plotted a course west. We booked hotels in each area with the requirement of 3 beds in one room or in a suite if possible. Expedia made it easy to select all that criteria, or at least we thought. More on that later.

Packing for six people for two weeks, including wedding attire, can be a challenge, but we came up with a plan. Personally I think the key when driving over 3,000 miles, is comfort. I wanted to make sure everyone had enough space to stretch and keep their hands off each other!  I had a roof carrier bag, but putting that on a Ford Expedition, even for a tall person, is a pain in the butt.  So, I decided to go with a hitch cargo carrier and a rain resistant cargo bag. All of this needed to be lightweight because I knew I would be doing most of the work, and with eight stops, I didn’t want this to wear on me.

The hitch cargo carrier system gave us the ability to keep the car free of luggage with the exception of a cooler, snacks, wedding clothes and bathroom essentials. The kids could also bring their bag of entertainment, a pillow, and blanket. One problem was that standard luggage is too bulky to fit into the cargo bag and, let’s be honest, one piece of luggage for each person with 5 to 7 days of clothing isn’t going to happen. Plus if it rains, even though the cargo bag is supposed to be rain resistant, we may have wet clothes.

Ziploc Big Bags became the solution. These things are great! At around $10 for 3 bags these are a no-brainer. Each person gets their own big bag, which they can stuff with their clothes. It’s waterproof because of the purple ziploc. And most importantly, it’s squishy, so I can stuff these Big Bags into the cargo hitch bag without feeling like I’m playing a daily game of tetris. In that two week road trip, we only had one zipper fail on a bag. It worked out beautifully. We kept a few garbage bags for dirty laundry, which again was easily stuffed into the hitch bag.

As simple as it sounds, taking the stress out of the packing process is important; almost as important as confirming your hotel room arrangements in advance. Unfortunately, after 13 hours of driving to our first stop in Nebraska, our hotel informed us the room I had booked could only handle 5 occupants. Luckily we found another hotel nearby. That was the last time I was going to make that mistake, and fortunately, all the other places we booked had it right.

All-in-all we had a fantastic trip! Fortunately, all of our kids were pretty darn good. They knew the plan: see nature, get married, and visit family. We only suffered one meltdown, but after order was reestablished, everyone knew where we stood.

Our cargo hitch Ziploc luggage system allowed me to pack quickly, efficiently, and without much thought. This was really important to me and to the whole family. I wanted to be free of those Griswold moments, so I could drive with a clear head and be present in the moments that really mattered. Like this...

-Andy