Think Outside the Box Thursday: Music-free Car Trips

Think-Outside-The-Box Thursdays will include posts that aim to solve tricky family situations at home and beyond. This week I am tackling one of many aspects of car trip challenges: what to do about the stereo? Perhaps you have multiple passengers ranging in ages who have different tastes in music (i.e.: mommy can't listen to The Wiggles even one more time today) or perhaps you live in a Jewish home like ours and are coming up on The Three Weeks, a period in which many Jewish families take on customs of mourning including the custom to not listen to music. The good news is that my toddler and I both love listening to music in the car and it makes car trips a lot easier for us both. The bad news with these music-less three weeks coming upon us is that my toddler and I both love listening to music in the car and it makes car trips a lot easier for us.

So, thinking outside the box a bit, I traveled to one of our local libraries and perused the audio books section. For older children, there are a host of audio books in fiction and non-fiction available. For younger ones, there are packs containing both a CD of a recorded story and a copy of the book along with it. This seemed like a great fit for our car over this period of time and perhaps one we will keep stocked even afterward. You can certainly all enjoy just playing audio stories alone and if your children are prone to carsickness, this may be a best option. If your little ones can read in the car or enjoy having books or toys in the car seat, an audio and physical copy of a book can be a great car activity. I let my son drink water and eat snacks in his car seat and didn't entirely trust library books back there as well. I opted to seek out audio book sets with some of his favorite stories we already have copies of at home so he can flip away at the pages worry free. Board books are a great travel friendly option for toddlers. If you have multiple passengers in the back seat, many libraries have multiple copies of children's books so each passenger can hold his/her own copy for the trip. Additionally, there are a variety of great audio-book apps out there and podcasts that can be downloaded prior to a trip. And if your child's favorite story doesn't happen to be already recorded, you could record yourself reading it on your phone and play that in your car.

I burn copies of audio books onto my iPhone's playlist so I always have them handy. I keep the audio book sets and CDs we check out of the library organized in our car by keeping them all in a tote bag that's ready for library trips and returns whenever we are. To organize individual sets, you can also use ziplock bags.

Whether you're trekking near or far, listening to The Wiggles or Pride and Prejudice, may you have safe and easy travels and happy playing!