Road trip with toddler

July 31, 2017 4:56 PM

We are driving from San Francisco, CA to Bend, OR with 2 year old toddler this August. Baby doesn't love cars for over 30 minutes at a time, so we'll be taking several days to make the trip up there.

I'm looking for great places to stop either for a day activity, or overnight on the way, bonus points for something a toddler might enjoy. Anyone have good suggestions along the 5->97 corridor? Maybe with a max of 30 minutes off the highway. Thanks for any suggestions!

posted by gatorbiddy to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total)

Have you considered driving through the night? That's our preferred option for traveling with a toddler.

Otherwise, Redding has a cute children's museum & splashing areas along the river. There are some great mountain lakes just off of 5 in the Shasta area as well.

Plan for indoors and/or water with the temps you're going to see in the Central Valley in August.
posted by Jaclyn at 7:16 PM on July 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

When my son was this age we would just pull over at city parks or school playgrounds. It was good enough.
posted by kerf at 11:23 PM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

I agree with kerf here - make it a grand tour of city park play structures. We did that with our toddler on one road trip and it was really fun. It's way easier to hype to a 2 year old than visits to important tourist sites, and the stops are loads less stressful for the parents.
posted by adiabatic at 8:01 AM on August 1, 2017

Joining the chorus of "City Parks"! Pull off the freeway at anonymous little towns, look for big buildings (courthouse, library). They usually have big lawns, maybe trees, maybe a fountain. Enough for a 2 year old -- space to just run around. (Bring appropriate toys, like balls. Maybe even a trike?) Sometimes you'll spot a playground, but you don't need one.

I enjoyed these trips a lot, and remember them fondly. I saw a lot of interesting places that weren't tourist destinations, but weren't home, either.
posted by kestralwing at 9:25 AM on August 1, 2017

Did you see this question from last year about road-tripping with an 18mo between East Bay and Oregon?
I was fresh off a trip we'd just taken with our 23mo for that question and put in some advice there. If your guy is closer to 2.5, I strongly recommend a tablet with games and movies. Our kiddo has a 7-year-old iPad 2 with a chipped screen that was invaluable during our road trip this summer. But, yes, we still stopped at playgrounds. Every little town has a playground.
posted by aabbbiee at 9:50 AM on August 2, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses. Yes I saw that previous post, but the responses seemed geared towards coast travel rather than I-5. I found some fun train related stops on the route up using the roadsideamerica.com site, so we'll do that on our way, in addition to playgrounds of course!
posted by gatorbiddy at 9:47 AM on August 3, 2017