What are the best travel toys for kids?
You know that we are huge lovers of a road trip and campervan holidays. It is great to throw out the routine, enjoy quality time as a family… and I love to see the children with messy hair, dirty feet, and enjoying life outdoors. If you have read my post on tips for a happy road trip – you will know that I always try to put together a little rucksack for each child with a few travel toys to keep the kids occupied during our travels, particularly when we are camping and can not always guarantee the weather. So what are our best travel toys for kids? Here are a few of our favourites from this Summer….
We have just returned from a wonderful campervan trip to Brittany, travelling over with Brittany Ferries and stopped at three brilliant The Camping and Caravanning club sites. Our children are 7, 4 and 2, and the sites had an abundance of activities to keep kids of all ages entertained, including outdoor and indoor pools, soft play, pony trekking, adventure parks, play parks and kids club. That being said, there is always the opportunity for a little down time, and during our trip we spent lots of time on the road, so here are a few of our ideas to keep the kids occupied whilst travelling.
Fingerlings
Now these two monkeys made for hours of fun. Our girls are 4 and 7, and they absolutely loved these interactive monkeys. The Fingerlings Baby Monkeys come to life with 40+ animations including monkey sounds, blinking eyes and head turns. They respond to sounds, motion and touch, and these cute interactive pets come in a variety of colours and are easy to squeeze into a travel rucksack. Meet Eddie and Candi…
Fuzzykins Cozy Cats and Fuzzikins Dozy Dogs
The girls loved these. We had one rainy day during our trip and I always like to take along a ‘rainy day’ toy for such days. Each craft kit includes three figures, felt tip pens sleeping bags and accessories to play with. The girls spent hours colouring the Fuzzykins Cozy Cats and Dozy Dogs – a super rainy day toy.
Campervan carry case
As the Fuzzykins Cozy Cats and Dozy Dogs love life on the open road, we had to take along this cute Campervan carry case. The children can customize the campervan with the colouring pens and stickers provided and it then contains all the Cozy Cats and Dozy dogs to keeps them all in one place!
Books
We always take a few books along on our travels as it keeps the kids occupied whilst we are on the road. This year we took a couple of interactive books for our two year old, The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton for my 7 year old, and ‘Handstand’ by the wonderful author and illustrator Lisa Stickley for my 4 year old. Lisa Stickley is an award winning designer, author and illustrator and what’s more she supports ‘Beanstalk’ – a charity that recruit, train and support volunteers to provide consistent, one-to-one literacy support to primary school children who need a little help improving their reading ability and confidence. Finally we took My First Campervan book for our youngest.
Handstand by Lisa Stickley
Sticker and Activity books
We have previously talked about our favourite selection of books available from The Book People, and they have some fabulous sticker and activity books that are great for travel. We have now worked our way through all of the Julia Donaldson activity books, the Usbourne Around the World Mazes Book and Travel Doodles book. Our seven-year old has a Lonely Planet Travel Journal that she fills in on her travels, and both the girls also love the fashion design books. For our youngest little man we love Crayola’s Color Wonder kits for mess free colouring – a great choice when travelling!
Tablets
We do always take a tablet with us on our travels, I have to say they can be a life saver when we are stuck on the motorway or have a long road trip planned…and we have the Amazon Fire 7 kids addition. We also try to download a new app or video in preparation for our trip to pass the time during a long road journey or flight.
Travel games
We always take card games with us as it occupies the children on rainy days, sunny afternoons and long road trips. We often take a card game and drawing pad along with us if we visit a cafe or restaurant to keep the children entertained, quiet and chilled out whilst we are waiting for food. We recently purchased a travel chess set and I have loved teaching my seven-year old the rules of the game. We also love UNO – a much loved card game (for ages 7+).
Inflatables and games for the pool
Finally, we always make room for one or two games and an inflatable to take to the swimming pool. Inflatables often fold up to allow for easy storage and this year we took dive sticks and Zoggs seal flips, an inflatable surf board and a Justice League Superhero Soakers – Wonder Woman. Oh, and buckets and spades…we have to make room for a bucket and spade when camping ..and maybe a fishing net 🙂
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These all look fab – I’ll definitely be looking into some of these for our next trip! Thanks for the recommendations, Katy!