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Are you looking for the best travel toys for kids to keep them entertained on your next family road trip or airplane ride? There are so many options that it can be hard to know, but not sure which are the BEST.
If you are, then today, we will share the best travel toys for kids that you can bring during long road trips or on your next airplane trip. These activities aim to stretch your kids’ imaginations while providing you with some downtime while on the road.
In this article, I’m giving you:
- the best options depending on your kids’ age
- toys that are perfect for keeping kids engaged during long drives and airplane rides, and finally
- what should you look for when selecting the right travel toys for your kids?
Also, for this post, we’re looking at the best travel toys for kids between the ages of 2 and 8.
Our Top Best Travel Toys for Kids (Breaking Down By Age)
- Best travel toys for 1 year old: Felt Quiet Books
- Best travel toys for 2 years old: Melissa & Doug Water Wow Coloring Pads
- Best travel toys for 3 years old: Reusable Sticker Books
- Best travel toys for 4 years old: Magformers
- Best travel toys for 5 year old: LCD Writing Tablet for Kids
- Best travel toys for 6 year old: Travel Scavenger Hunt Game
- Best travel toys for 7 year old: Lego sets
- Best travel toys for 8 year old: Books
💡 Bonus Tip: Keep a Road Trip Activity Book in the car to keep kids entertained between stops!
1. Puzzles
We’ll start with a “no-brainer.” Puzzles are an excellent activity for young kids. Plus, they’re diverse enough that you can find puzzles for your kids’ age.
Puzzles are an EXCELLENT travel toy for kids. Here are our favorite puzzles for kids aged 2 – 6.
- 124-Piece Colorful Wooden Puzzles for Toddler. This puzzle pack is perfect because of the different-sized puzzles, so it’s fun for multiple ages. It comes with 6 different puzzles. The puzzle set is rated for age 3 to 5.
- Melissa & Doug Natural Play Wooden Puzzle. This puzzle pack is perfect for toddlers and babies. There are 4 sets of 4-piece puzzle.
- Ravensburger World Map 60 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle for Kids. This puzzle is perfect because it’s a map of the world 😉 But it’s also a beautiful one. It has 60 pieces, so it’s more suited for older kids.
2. Transformers, Action Figures & Cars
When we use the term “transformers,” we really mean things like “action figures.” But we’ve noticed that our kids love Transformers in particular. I think they realize they’re getting a 2-for-1 deal even at an early age.
Or they’re fascinated by something magically turning into something else. Whatever the case, we’ve enjoyed watching our kids play with transformers and other action figures (like plastic animals).
- Toddler Mini Transformer Set. This set of mini transformers is perfect for toddlers. They transform into cars.
- Transformer Heros & Villans. This set of transformers is perfect for old children who LOVE superheroes.
- Animals Figurines. Animnals figurines are a must-have when traveling with kids. They are perfect for flying, road trips, or to bring to picnic stops along the journey.
- Bakugan Jumbo Transforming Figure. If you DO decide to take a transformer, we’ve found these little guys keep our boys plenty busy (they’re not technically transformers, but you get the idea). They are fun and can be good for introducing what magnets are.
- MagFormers. MagFormers are another great game to bring when traveling. Kids can build different things with the colorful magnetic forms. Kids of all ages can have fun with those.
While action figures are fun, they may not be the best travel toy if you move around a lot. They can get lost, be expensive to replace, and may not entertain your child long enough to make it your best option.
3. Sport Equipment
Kids need to burn off some energy. At least ours do!
That’s why I think it’s essential to travel with sports equipment that can be used anywhere. This usually means a soccer ball, basketball, baseball (and a mit), or an inflatable “kickball”).
Those are harder to pack when flying, but toss a ball in the trunk if you’re taking a road trip. It can provide hours of fun for the whole family and distract kids long enough to give you a break.
That said, if you are going abroad and won’t have a lot of room, it may be better to buy this kind of thing at your destination.
We could recommend some of our favorites, but it really depends on your preferences and what you already have at home. But if you need to shop for sports equipment, we love shopping at Decathlon.
4. Card-Based Games
We classify card-based games as any activity that uses a standard or a modified deck of cards. This could be anything from a deck of playing cards to Monopoly Deal to world trivia games.
Card-based games are perfect for road trips, but also for the long wait at the airport (or on slow evenings during vacation).
5. Arts and Crafts
Arts and crafts are perfect for long car rides, especially during quiet moments on the road. It’s a bit “broad” as a category. When we use that term, we mean things like markers, paints, coloring books, and so on.
We don’t really mean things that require glue guns or more in-depth tooling than some color pencils and some scissors. Let’s see how these rank.
- Melissa & Doug Water Wow Coloring Pads. Water Wow Coloring Pads are perfect when traveling. They are mess-free, but they can be used. They are amazing for toddlers, but even older kids can use them.
- Reusable Sticker Books. There are so many sticker books available in stores and on Amazon. We personally really like the reusable sticker books. It’s better for the environment, it’s less messy and it stays longer.
- LCD Writing Tablet for Kids. LCD Writing Tablets are a great alternative to pens and paper when traveling. One of our sons got one for Christmas to both boys ended up playing with it for most of the drive back home from California.
I think that every traveling family with kids should bring some kind of arts and crafts kit. This usually means a box of markers or color pencils, a few coloring books, and some blank pieces of paper. There’s A LOT of things you can do with those basic ingredients.
Here are our favorite items for an arts and crafts kits for travel for a DIY travel craft kit:
- Craft paper and white paper
- Coloring markers
- Glue and scissors
- Stickers
- Fun accessories: feather, buttons, chenille stems, …
6. Books
Kid’s books are interesting. Personally, I converted to a tablet reader years ago. It started with the Kindle, but has progressed to the reMarkable 2.
And for the record, I was a HUGE book nerd who never thought I’d make the switch.
That said, I still haven’t turned my kids into eBook readers yet, and I don’t plan to any time soon. I think there are too many benefits for young kids seeing colors, touching the pages, and holding the book itself as they learn to read.
I may be a snob, but I think all families should bring some real, good ol’ fashion kids’ books with them on their trip.
Like arts and crafts, we think the right kids books are great for traveling families.
Also, we found a lot of Little Free Library (or the equivalent) all across Canada, so we were able to get new books here and there, by swaping with one that the kids where tired of reading.
Final Thoughts
While driving across Canada, it was consistently books, puzzles, and arts and crafts kits that gave us the most downtime throughout the week.
This list tends to make sense to us as we look back on it. While we were driving across Canada, books, crafts, and puzzles consistently gave us the most downtime throughout the week.
Our kids could do these activities on their own without much parental intervention for at least 45 minutes to an hour.
The sports equipment killed the most time, but often required us to get involved.
The action figures were great, but our kids ended up getting bored with them a few days into the trip. Then we had TONS of little figurines and transformers that our kids loved too much to throw out without having a meltdown, but not so much they played with them consistently.
And that’s it! We hope you found this post helpful.
Related Articles – Travel Toys for Kids
If you enjoyed this article, we think you’d also enjoy the following resources:
- 7 Travel Sleeping Solutions for Toddlers
- The Best Road Trip Snacks for Kids
- Best Type of Stroller for Travel
These articles will have everything you need to travel with young children.
Interesting post Emilie! I don’t know if this one counts, but every time we go on travel, I always make sure to bring in my daughters building blocks 😀
Building blocks are great! They keep the kids busy for a while and they can also be used for counting 🙂 We have a small bag of LEGO, and the boys loved them.
Such a great article. Great ideas! I always try and remember that where we are going has toys too so if I bring less, I can always add a couple IF we need to. But this is great master list to work from, nice work!
That is so true! There are toys everywhere IF they need more and then it returns home as a souvenir 🙂 Also, we found out that many Airbnbs have a few toys. I’m glad you liked the post!