Planning Healthy Road Trips

Family trips are suppose to not be stressful, a chance to relax, a chance to get out of your daily routine and see something greater than yourself. When I was younger I had the privileged to travel a lot, including over seas. Before I was a teenager we had road tripped most of the Western USA.

I remember a lot of stopping at gas stations for snacks, soda cans in a cooler, a lot of stops at McDonald's and Costco with an occasional stop off at a small restaurant, card games, movies and Nintendo (when we got a TV in our van). Besides the joys of the trip, I also remember never really feeling good in car rides. Several times we had puking incidence and even one year, on a trip to the Grand Canyon, my father became so sick from all the fast food we were eating and dehydration, that we almost called to get him flown out. I am vowing to not have that happen because of bad food choices.

Being an A-type personality I really like having trips planned out. Especially road trips with my little children and being pregnant. Our trip this year is a trip to Yellow Stone! I am going to make a list of our favorite foods for the trip. These foods are low mess, low smelling (a necessary for pregger's sensitive nose), and easy to nibble on and enjoy. I did not add dipping sauces because my babies do not do well with those. All are finger foods with low preparation.

 

 

 

 

 Fruits:

• Grapes
• cherry tomatoes
• apples
• peeled oranges
• strawberries
• cubed watermelon
• dried fruit
• coconut water

Note I did not put bananas or berries here. Berries stain which is why they are not on here and bananas leave a smell when the car gets too hot which will haunt your children when they are older.

 Protiens:

• Yogurt balls (watch for sugar content)
• beef/turkey jerky
• hard boiled eggs
• almonds
• peanuts
• granola bars
• shelled sunflower seeds
• dark chocolate
• medium-hard cheese cubes
• string cheese
• deli meats-sliced into strips
• cubed and cooked chicken

Vegetables:

• Pepper Slices
• snap peas
• baby carrots
• celery
• broccoli florets
• cucumber slices
• Cherry Tomatoes

Carbohydrates:

• Crackers
• rice crackers
• cheerios (my kids love Cheerio necklaces)
• Cheerio and peanutbutter bars
• mini pancakes and waffles (I just do the frozen ones I have, toast them and pack them.)
• your favorite, or kids favorite, bread (we like to go to a bakery and get special breads)
• muffins
• pretzels
• Granola Bars
• Grahmcrackers

We made sure to have each one in sandwich size bags so we can grab it, open it, and hand it back. This reduces messes of 'accidentally grabbing the bag from the wrong side and having everything dump on your car' and controls the caloric intake so as to not spoil their next meal.

ANOTHER TIP with keeping these foods fresh and not watered down with ice in the cooler (another pass time was reaching into soggy mush to get the last of the snacks), use ice packs to wrap around the more perishable foods like eggs and cheese. Put those on the bottom of the cooler. As long as the cooler stays cool it will last at least to the first night where you can hopefully cool them down at your next stop.