Spring? Is that you?

Are you up for a challenge?

Try explaining why spring has allowed it to snow, to a 3 year old and two 5 year olds. Apparently spring has lost it’s touch. The weather may be confused about what it’s doing, but we are still all hands on deck with trip-planning.

We have a more definite schedule now as most of our hotels and campsites are booked. Here’s a look at our projected route. We will be heading up the east coast first.

I wanted the majority of this post to be about the different ways we are trying to save time, space and money. All three come at a premium on road trips with young kiddos.

Reflecting back on last summer’s trip we were able to easily pick out a couple areas where we could save time. We spent SO much time setting up our tent and taking it down. We decided to upgrade to an Instant-Tent.

Even after we “got good” at putting up our old tent, it would still take around 20 minutes. This tent was out of the box and ready to go in less than 5 minutes!! We had it taken down and back in it’s bag in the same amount of time.

We were impressed!

On longer trips, that involve multiple campgrounds, saving 15 minutes during set up and take down really makes a difference.

We also said good bye to our old white van and said hello to a less old white van. This upgrade falls into multiple saving categories. First would be space-saving. This less old white van has the Stow-n-go feature which will allow us to store items only needed for camping under the floor. Second would be money-saving. We are getting better gas mileage and hopefully won’t have to worry about unplanned trips to the mechanic (fingers crossed).

One thing we are still looking into, is the possibility of installing built-in DVD players in the van. We were hoping to find one that already had them but it just didn’t work out. That would be a big time-saver as we don’t like leaving the portable DVD players up all the time. However, it’s also an extra expense. We’re still weighing our options.

Our plan is to look at the necessity of each item we packed last summer. If it’s something we didn’t use last year and we don’t see a possibility of using it, it’s not coming with us. We already purchased two heater/fan combos to take the place of multiple heaters and fans.

Another area that tested our patience last summer was the meals. Cooking at the campsite with two electric burners was more challenging than we anticipated. It required lots of effort and time. In addition to fixing more time-efficient meals, we feel we can benefit from researching “Kids eat free” nights at various restaurants.

Two months from today is go-time!! We get more excited each day!