Fun activity ideas for long rides and flights

We’ve completed yet another successful long flight to Aruba and back. I am quite experienced in entertaining children in long flights and road trips, as you can read in this post titled, Preparing for long flights and trips with babies and young children. Good news is it gets easier, as the attention span of children grows by age. Parents or caregiver still need to prepare for the trips though.

Here’s what I’ve packed for our flight and some additional ideas, that requires less space for more entertainment.

1. 1. Books:

      I prefer to bring hardcopy books to avoid any tablet sharing issues as well all battery problems.

   2. Little spiral notebook:

      to play games such as tic-tac-toe, hangman, dot game, coloring etc.

   3. Arts Supplies

      Pens, pencils, coloring pencils, crayons etc.

   4. Travel journals:

      Travel journals are great to encourage kids to write and illustrate. Feel free to get one for yourself as well.

   5. A camera:

      An old camera or even a disposable one should work. Kids love to take pictures and look at the pictures they’ve taken.

   6. Toys/Games:

      • Story Cubes
      • Origami Paper (Origami instructions app on smartphone.
      • A deck of any playing cards
      • Any toy or activity that is new to your child and compact enough to fit into your handbag. Dollar stores have great items such as mini blocks or tangram sets etc.
      • An activity book with puzzles, sudoku, word search etc. Dollar stores have mini activity books. Brain-quest cards are a great option as well.

We made chickens (Can you recognize Yellow and Chick Vader?) and cats out of origami papers. There are multiple origami instructions apps for smartphones. They are mostly free but you might need to buy additional instruction sets.

Then, there are smartphones and tablets to play/read on. However, I am quite wary of allowing my children to play on my phone for the duration of a long flight, which depletes batteries. I prefer to have as many offline options as possible.

Important note: Do not bring any play dough along, if you are traveling by air. They cause problems at the security checkpoints.