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My mate has to travel to Lowestoft for Family next week.
Travelling from Manchester area, it's roughly 41/2 > 5 hours it's a journey he has never done before and he will have his Wife and kids with him, Daughter 4 years old, Son nearly 2.
I'm just looking for suggestions I can pass to him for stop offs with the kids to keep them as happy as they can be on such a long journey ?
I'm thinking parks, wacky warehouse type places just off route ?
ive no kids so any other suggestions may save the sanity in my mates car 😀
Cheers
Keep the kids up all night, then they'll sleep right through.
4.5hrs is driveable in one go.
Bosh.
Aye thats nothing.
When i was a toddler we drove from fife to switzerlands through holland and germany etc.
You know you can swipe knees from the front seat right? That'll shut them up.
Long journeys are a state of mind.
If you tell yourself and the kids it's a long way then it will seem like a long way.
Just think of it 2 x 2.5 hr trips and split it with some lunch and a petrol stop.
Yep we do Leeds to the Pyrenees or Alps twice a year. Dvds and snacks is the answer to keeping kids happy. They can only cope with so much car counting and eye spy! They'll fall asleep every now and then.
With little ones, the code brown emergency stop is always the worry....
We regularly do a similar length trip. We leave at 7 pm. Lil J sleeps all bar the first 20 min.
What Jamie said. We did this last year to get to the Islay ferry. me and the kids went to sleep at 19:00. my wife packed the car. I got up at 23:30, poured the kids into their seats, wife slept, I drove. Met no cars for a 90minute period, didn't stop. Great drive as the sun was coming up.
It's a state of mind man.
The journey to Lowestoft will be more interesting and varied than 4+ hours on a motorway.
Loads of places to stop-off and stretch your legs.
I did Manchester to Southwold last year. It's not a bad journey. Just do it.
My 2 are well used to 6-7 hour journeys (Cambridge to Edinburgh) depending on what's convenient leaving after dinner then they sleep most of the way or go to bed with them at 7, get up at 1am they sleep the whole way and arrive for breakfast. I try to avoid traveling during the day as it's a waste of time as much as anything else, but books, colouring in and toys sort the boredom out.
Leave at 5am, kids will sleep for a few hours, breakfast somewhere then the last hour to the destination.
We do Glasgow-ish to St Ives every July with 3 kids. 550=ish miles.
Depending on Traffic it's anywhere between 10 and 12 hours.
Two stops - Tebay for breakfast and Exeter for lunch
DVD player / Ipads for the kids. Easy.
So do I get to be first to actually answer to OP's question?
This one only works for the motorway portions:
[url= http://www.justoffjunction.co.uk/ ]Just Off Junction[/url]
For the non-motorway stuff it's not an area I'm at all familiar with.
So I kind of answered the question, but more so than the rest of you!