• Use a dishpan to hold books and other items while traveling
• Spread a large sheet over the back seat of your car when you are traveling with kids. To clean, just shake it out.
• Mount a shoe bag on the back of the front seat to store essentials such as tissues, napkins, babywipe, pencils, sunglasses, etc.
• Keep a large tote bag to hold discarded shoes, jackets and sweaters while traveling.
• Line the bottom of a travel potty with a small plastic garbage bag and place a disposible diaper in the bottom to prevent sloshing. Dispose when convenient.

CAMPING

• Tie several helium balloons to your tent so the kids can locate your campsite easier.
• Store your camping equipment, such as pots and pans, utensils, flashlights, etc. in a large plastic storage container. That way it will be handy when ever you are ready to head out.
• Cooked scrambled eggs: Put eggs in sturdy plastic zipper bag. Zip and mix. Boil bag in water until eggs are cooked through.
• Keep a foam cooler free of liquid and mold: Drill a hole on the side, near the bottom of the chest that's exactly the same size of a cap from a bottle of liquid dish detergent. Push the cap in the hole and glue with waterproof carpenter's glue. You can pull open the cap to drain out the water.
• Coat the bottom of pots and pans with shaving cream or bar soap before cooking over a fire. The black marks will come off easily.
• Keep bar soap in a nylon stocking for grit-free cleaning. Tie off the end so the soap doesn't fall out.
• Carry utensils in a Pringle can or oatmeal container

GENERAL TIPS

• Keep a clothespin with you to keep the motel curtains closed for better privacy
• When you go on vacation, collect postcards from all the exciting places you visit. Keep them in a scrapbook. You can also write a daily journal of your travels and all the funny things that happened, as well as the new things your learned. Add the pages to your scrapbook so you can look through them and remember the good times that you had. Remember to pack tape, glue and scissors to make sure you don't lose what you collect. Another idea for a scrapbook is to write a description of the days fun and paste different items you might collect such as menus, ticket stubs from any park or museum you visited, a map with your travels highlighted, as well as photos and postcards. With either of these scrapbooks, you will have an answer when the teacher asks you what you did for the summer.
• Try renting a condo instead of a hotel when visiting resort areas or popular vacation spots. The price may be comparable and you will have more room and a kitchen
• When traveling in the summer or holidays, check with colleges to see if they rent out dorm rooms.
• Don’t pay full price to get into amusement parks. See if family and friends can get discount tickets from their employers.

GAMES

Alphabet Games

• Choose a letter to start with. Each person tries to be the first to spot 3 items that start with that letter.  The first person that finds three items gets to choose the next letter.
• Start with A. Look at road signs until you find an A, then go to the next letter until you find all the letters of the alphabet. This can be played with one or more players. There is no point in it except to make the time pass quicker but you can make a contest out of it if you wish.
• Choose a catagory, such as animal, countries, states, etc. Start with A and start with one player.  That player has to name off an animal, state or country using A, such as Amanda. The next person has to come up with a name that starts with the last letter of the word, in this case another A.  Keep on going until a player can't come up with a word.
• ABC Animals: Start with one person and then start with A. That person has to think of  an animal that starts with A, such as alligator. Next person thinks of an animal that starts with B, and so on. You can use countries, cities, songs, names, etc. instead of animals.

Other games

License Plate Game: With a piece of paper and a pen, watch for license plates from different states. Keep a log of what you see. If you are in the state you see, that plate does not count. Example: If you are in Virginia, do not write Virginia on you your paper until you are in a different state. You only need to count each state once and the goal is to see all 50 states before you get to your destination.

Travel Bingo: With paper and pen, make a Bingo card, with 5 squares across and 5 squares down. You can make the middle square a "free" space if you wish and put an X in it before you begin to play. In each square, put the word of something you might see out the window, such as a barn, a cow, yellow arches, or a yellow car. Each card can be different. When you see a barn, mark out the square that has the word barn in it. Whoever marks their squares first, wins.

20 Questions: One player is chosen to think of something for the others to quess. It has to be a person, place, or thing. The other players take turns asking questions that will help them figure out what it is. The questions have to be answered by either "yes" or "no" or they don't count. Example: Are you thinking of a person?. Only 20 questions can be asked. If the word isn't figured out by the 20th question, the same person gets to think of another word. If someone guesses the word, that person gets to be the one to think of a word.

Hangman: One person thinks of a word and makes "_" for each letter. The other players guess the letters and for each letter right, add it to the correct"_". For each wrong guess, add a body part to make a stick figure, starting with a head. If the whole body is drawn before the word is guessed, the same person chooses a new word, otherwise, the person who correctly guessed, picks the word.

I Spy: One person says "I spy with my little eye, something that is green", or round, or purple, etc. Now everyone takes turns trying to guess what it is.

The Zoo Game: Draw pictures of all the animals you see and collect them on your paper zoo.

Another Zoo Game: Everyone looks for animals to collect for their zoo. The first person to see a cow in a field or a giraffe on a sign, gets to put that animal in their zoo. You can draw a picture or write the words. At the end of the game, who ever gets the most animals wins.