How many more miles? How much longer? I’m BORED!
Sound familiar, parents?
One great solution that our family loves during our longer road trips is to listen to Adventures in Odyssey. It’s a radio show done by Focus on the Family ministries. Don’t confuse it with an audio book. I’m sure that some of those can be nice, too, but these are dramas, with actors’ varying voices, sound effects, etc. Just when everyone is getting on each other’s nerves, it’s great to stop and listen to a show together, laugh together, and enjoy each other’s company again.
There are a variety of collections available. You start off with just a single CD if you’re not sure if your family will enjoy them or not. For example, Amazon has this one:
One thing that we like about these CDs is that the whole family listens and enjoys them together. It’s all part of a shared fun family memory, instead of each child being busy on their own device.
If you find that your kids enjoy them as much as ours do, and honestly we adults enjoy them, too, here are a few collections that are great.
Here’s our favorite collection (so far!):
In The Ultimate Road Trip, you’ll find that every story has a theme of some kind of vacation or road trip adventure. For our family, these were the first we listened to on our first trip from the middle of the country to the East coast, so they have become classics that we go back and listen to again. In fact, we also listened to the same stories on our trip to the West coast, and many other road trips as well.
Another good option for a starter CD would be this one, to explain all the main characters for those not familiar with the radio show:
If you would like to work on character development as well as entertain, there are themed collections, such as this one that includes different stories that highlight the importance of being honest:
This one is just a few episodes focusing on Respect:
Or, how could you go wrong with a special collection of fans’ favorite episodes?
These are just a few suggestions. The main thing is to make sure to keep the road trip a fun family adventure, and these CDs help you all listen to the same thing, rather than each child listening to their own device on headphones. You can laugh and enjoy the shows together.