Family Travel Printable Planner: Road Trip Hacks

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #GiantEaglePerks #cbias #CollectiveBias

If you’re wanting relaxed travel with kids, the key is planning ahead. This family travel planner will make sure you and your family are fully prepared.

As many of you know, we do a lot of traveling together as a family. We’ve decided early this year to make it a summer full of exploring as much as we possibly can. The girls just finished up school last week and we are counting down the days until our first trip. So far on our summer bucket list, we have Detroit, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Mexico and Santa Claus, Indiana.

Like us, many other families will be hitting the open road this summer so I wanted to share a few of my favorite road trip hacks. Afterall, if you’ve ever been in a car with kids for any extended period of time, you know that it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. The kids will get bored and chances are you just might lose your mind or two. Don’t worry, I am right there with you.

The key to any road trip with kids is planning ahead. There is nothing like being out on the open road and not being fully prepared for what you might encounter. I created this free family travel printable planner because I learned the hard way – forgetting stuff gets expensive quickly.

Yes, it seems a little cheesy at first to need an entire printable to take your family on vacation. I was right there with you until I actually started using it and it was almost as if the heavens had parted and a bright light had shown. Ha!

Example page:

Instead of printing this amazing family travel printable planner for every single trip we went on, I decided to create a binder and use dry erase markers so I only had to print this document once.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Free Family Travel Planner
3-ring binder (mine is not a hardcover)
Clear protective sleeves
Dry erase markers

Once you have printed your planner, place the pages in order into the clear protective sleeves and place them accordingly into the 3-ring binder.

That’s literally it.

Now your family travel planner is ready to use… forever!

There’s a section for a family bucket list. This is a great way to get the whole gang involved in helping to plan your trip.

The marker wipes off easily.

Once you’ve planned out your trip, it’s time to put your plan into action. Make sure you pack a busy bag full of road trip games, small toys and possibly a tablet.

Oh, and let’s not forget to fill the gas tank and stock up on snacks.

Even though it isn’t the closest retailer to us, I always stock up on all of our road trip essentials at Giant Eagle. It only makes sense!

Here’s why:

With fuelperks+ I earn perks at the pump and at the store. I’m then able to redeem them for up to 20% off any grocery cart or free gallons of gas. Yes, FREE gas! What more could you ask for when planning the ultimate road trip. If fuelperks+ isn’t the ultimate road trip hack, I’m not sure what is.

Here’s how to earn:

Just scan your Advantage Card each time you make a purchase at Giant Eagle, Market District, and GetGo, including groceries and prepared foods, prescriptions, gift cards, GetGo fuel, Curbside Express,* Health and Beauty products and more! Perks are not earned when redeeming.

Once your vehicle is loaded up with snacks, toiletries and all of the other items on your printable travel planner, it’s time to fill the gas tank. We usually do ours the night before so it’s one less thing to think about the day we leave.