Last week I talked all about snacks and how to pick healthy ones. You can check that out here and here if you’re interested.
Since summer travel season is upon us, today I wanted to dive into a little more detail on snacks that travel well for the toddler set. Our little man has been lucky enough to have taken over 10 flights in his 2 years of life, so we’ve been honing this approach over time to figure out what foods travel well, keep him busy and interested, and don’t cause the dreaded junk food crash in the middle of a crowded plane.
My travel tips would vary widely depending on the age of you child (and their personality, of course). And if I had any brain cells left for remembering things I’d tell you what my infant vs. toddler tips are, but maybe someone who’s closer to that stage can chime in and remind us!
If I were to sum up my tips for traveling with a toddler, it would be this:
- Bring several activities, especially if you kid isn’t yet into the iPad or tablet. Some favorites of ours have been:
- Melissa and Doug Water Wow
- Melissa and Doug Reusable Stickers
- Crayons and coloring books
- Small toys to play with and sort – like these bears (of course, keep an eye on them!)
- If your kid IS into the iPad, congrats, everything will be much easier! Don’t be ashamed to put it to good use. While we generally try to limit screen-time, all best are off when it comes to airplanes now that my son is into watching shows and playing games. Some of the ones that have worked best include:
- Download favorite (or new) shows or movies on iTunes or on the Amazon Video app – the cool thing about the Amazon app is that you can download Prime videos for offline access for free. (Pro tip: Open some of them and make sure they work without authorization before taking it on the plane!)
- Interactive games like:
- Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood – there are all kinds of cool ins and outs including cake decorating and digging
- Busy Shapes – this is an awesome Montessori style app that really does seem to be educational
- Jigsaw puzzles – my son loves putting together puzzles in real life, but the iPad ensure we don’t leave any key pieces behind
- Pepi Bath – this one is really weird but I got it for free and my son is surprisingly entertained by it
- Bring lots of snacks! These are great boredom busters and keep both parents and kids happy. More on this below.
Here’s a picture of what we brought with us for a recent 3 hour trip:
In hopes of making your summer (or anytime) travel a little bit easier, here are 10 great whole-family-friendly snack ideas:
- Peanut butter (or cashew, coconut, sunflower butter) and jelly sandwich on whole grain bread
- Whole grain crackers like Mary’s Gone Crackers (GF and Vegan) – extra good because you can usually get some travel sized hummus to go with it.
- Squeeze packs – most of them are small enough to make it through security – and to this point they’ve never given me trouble. They make adult versions of these packed with kale and chia seeds as well.
- Hard boiled eggs – if you don’t mind throwing a couple of cold packs into your bag these keep pretty well and provide a much needed dose of protein
- Berries – stemmed and cleaned and cut as needed, these are super convenient and have tons of antioxidants to fight off potentially icky germs flying around.
- Cheese sticks – these wouldn’t always be my first choice for a healthy snack, but they’re a great self-contained option for travel that packs a protein and calcium punch.
- Bananas and apples – the most transportable fruits as long as you don’t smush them in your bag!
- Low Sugar, Whole Grain Cereal – snacks like O’s can double as something to play with (sorting, stacking, stringing on a necklace) as well.
- Edamame – pack them frozen and let them defrost throughout the trip (bonus points since it’ll keep the other items cold). Eating them is a whole project in itself if you get them in the pod.
- Bars without refined sugar – I haven’t been shy about sharing that Larabars are my favorite. Cosctco sells awesome snack sized ones that would be perfect for travel! If you’re looking for something for yourself, I’d splurge on a few Rx Bars.