For the first time in many years, we travelled the week before Christmas. 30A has been such a special place for us and since flying is my least favorite necessary evil, I convinced O to make the 12 hour drive to the sleepy beach town. Here are some of my road trip essentials and current favorites in rotation.

R O A D T R I P:
Whenever we make a long drive, we aim to leave at 4am. The car is fully loaded with the luggage, extra groceries and kids activities before Oshiomogho and I go to bed so in the morning, all we have to do is load up the last of the refrigerated food, wake up the babes, load their pillows and lovies into the car and hit the road. We turn Z’s sound machine on in the car, tell the kids it’s quiet time and hope and pray everyone goes back to sleep (spoiler: the big kids know to be quiet and rest but the baby doesn’t always…you have to expect this.) The goal is to keep the car dark and quiet until the sun rises and then hand out breakfast around 7am. This means by the time the kids are up and at em’ we’ve already knocked out around three hours of driving. It’s fantastic.

As far as packing itself goes- I stock coloring books, activities and books in the back of car seat organizer linked below. I put their backpacks next to their seat and that holds smaller toys and their entire snack stash for the whole car ride. This way, I know they can reach snacks themselves so I’m not always reaching and passing-though I do pack full backs of snacks and food bags to divvy up as we drive. Don’t forget to pack things like large plastic bags, a trash bag just incase, loose paper towel, wipes even if you don’t have a baby and keep them all in the food bag or right beside it for easy access.

Essential Food Containers for a Road Trip:

Essential Adult Food Containers for a Road Trip:

Essential Toys and Activities for a Road Trip:

Essential Car Storage for a Road Trip:

S T A Y:

We rented this house which was a longtime dream. Kate Marker is one of my favorite designers and she managed to, as I expected, think of every single detail. Going forward, I’ll stay in Rosemary Beach because the walkability and aesthetic is our favorite but this house was perfect for the trip.

When we’re renting a house, I try to come prepared as if our needs won’t be met otherwise. For someone who doesn’t have food restrictions, this might not matter or be necessary at all but that’s something I always have to consider. For instance-I can only have this coffee so I can’t risk not having this little coffee maker if they only provide a Nespresso machine. If we’re driving, I like to have our favorite Vitamix to make a daily smoothie or even a quick soup. I always set an alarm to bring things like my neck wrap which you can pop in the microwave or freezer because a long drive isn’t friendly on the body and eye masks and eye pillows incase blinds aren’t sufficient.

I also like to bring activities for the kids. Not many, but enough to know if there weren’t so much as a piece of paper to color on, they’d have at least one or two activities for a rainy day. I’m thankful for that because what was supposed to be a sunny, warm beach trip was freezing and mostly rainy. I packed their karaoke microphone, plenty of paper and coloring utensils and things for a fun bath (praise the Lord-it helped them defrost after a freezing beach day.) And thankfully, the house had cards, scrabble and dominoes which served as pure entertainment. If you pack one thing and one thing only, let it be a couple of my favorite kid’s bath bombs which each have a surprise inside.

In My Suitcase:

In Their Suitcase:

Extra Essentials:

You can find a full roundup of 30A favorites in this post right here.