Recently my wife, my two daughters and I went to Ireland to visit family. We decided to drive rather than flying, which meant we had a rather daunting six-hour drive to Holyhead and back.
Before the trip, I took ten minutes out to decide how to keep my two kids (Age 4 and 16 Months) entertained for the journey. I knew we would have to stop and that if we timed it right, they would at least sleep for some time during the trip.
On the way to Holyhead, I planned two divide the journey into three and stop twice. I looked up services and outlined where we would stop.
This, however, all went out of the window!
On the way to Holyhead, the kids slept for the first three hours of the drive (happy days!). Which meant we stopped halfway rather than a third of the way when they woke.
For the second half of the trip, I used the gadgets I had prepurchased to keep them entertained.
So here they are. My 5 Essential Gadgets for long car journeys with kids
The first gadget is my two iPad Mini’s. My eldest daughter has a third-generation iPad mini, and my youngest watches Happy Feet repeatedly on my wife’s fourth-generation iPad mini.
The second gadget is a CHGeek Back Seat USB Car Charger. The charger plugs into a cigarette lighter and routes round under the passenger seat. Which then clips into the back of the front seat to connect the iPad’s into to keep them charged.
The third gadget is the AAJ ® Universal 360° Degree Rotating Tablet Car Headrest Grip Mount. This mount clips to the headrest, enabling me to make sure the iPad is well our of her reach but still at eye height so she can comfortably watch a movie.
The fourth gadget is the JUMKEET Car Seat Headrest Mount. This mount is for my four-year-old; she loves watching the YouTube kids app and paw patrol on the SkyQ app. As well as this, she loves games like BubblePop. Having the iPad mounted so she can reach it for games and push it back for watching videos is the perfect scenario, so she isn’t sitting uncomfortably, looking down at her lap.
The fifth and final gadget is my Huawei E5885 CAT6/ 4G+ Mobile WiFi Hotspot. This hotspot combined with an unlimited data 30-day sim from Three provided us with enough data for the whole family to use with the girls WiFi-only iPad’s and gave my wife and I another network for data incase our EE sims didn’t have any coverage.