Mom's Guide To Travel

Trip Planning, Expert Tips, and Fun Ideas For Family Travel.

Can The Progressive Snapshot Save You Money?

Progressive has a new device called Progressive Snapshot that might help you save money on your car insurance by tracking your driving habits.

Several factors contribute to costs when traveling by car: fuel, maintenance, and car insurance. The latter is the only one that’s not fixed and can be improved in your favor. I’ve only worked with two car insurance companies since first owning a car and my satisfaction with my current insurer doesn’t have me in the market for a new company. However, I’m always looking to cut costs around the house and if I can cut them even more by lowering my car insurance, I’m willing to put my driving habits to the test and try the Progressive Snapshot device.  Over the next 30 days, I’ll test drive this device and see how much (or little) I’d save if I switched to Progressive.

Affording Family Travel – Road Trip or Fly?

As my husband and I start thinking about our weekend getaways, I began to get curious to the price of taking a road trip with current gas prices. I have to admit that I was slightly annoyed to spend $64 the other day filling my gas tank although I know many people around the country have to spend a lot more.

Here is a sample price comparison chart of the cost of flying for a family of 4 vs. driving using various departures and destinations across the country.

FLy vs. Drive

Destination Departure Miles Flight for 4 Driving (Fuel)
San Diego San Francisco 500 $149/pp $596 $191.25(3 tanks)
San Antonio Dallas 278 $138/pp $552 $128 (2 tanks)
Charleston Baltimore 580 $280/pp $1120 $256 (4 tanks)
Norfolk New York 357 $228/pp $912 $128
Nantucket Baltimore 475 $447/pp $1788 $191.25
Fresno, CA Salt Lake City 815 $376/pp $1504 $320 (5 tanks)

So looking at these figures, rest assured that although gas prices have jumped significantly in the last few months and have compromised your leisurely driving, a road trip for a family of 4 is still significantly cheaper than flying everyone. Each method of transportation has its positives and negatives. Depending on your schedule, patience, time commitment, and goal for your family vacation, one mode may prove more beneficial than the other.

Parameters:
* Fuel totals calculated using current national average price of $3.72/gal for unleaded gas.
* Flights are based using economy airfare prices for a weekend departure.
* Friday Departure, Saturday Return; early summer; non-holiday weekend.
* Gas/mileage rate of 20mpg with a 17 gallon tank

Note:
* Prices for flights will vary depending on your travel flexibility. It’s cheaper to travel Mon-Thu vs. Fri-Sat, so keep that in mind when comparing the figures.
* The closer you are to the destinations, the cheaper your fuel costs will be and the more reasonable it would be for you to drive. Thus, I have tried to include a collection of popular family destinations.

If you want to do your own math, check out sites like:

www.distancebetweencities.net
http://www.travelmath.com
www.cheaptickets.com

Tips for Family Thanksgiving Travel

Thanksgiving travel tends to be the most hectic travel for most families. Are you traveling for Thanksgiving by road? Hopefully by now, you’ve already prepared for your family road trip. According to AAA, an estimated 39.7 million people will travel by car this Thanksgiving. Here are some last minute ideas to help you before you hit the road and while you are on your way.

The Road
Image courtesy of de.wikipedia.org
  1. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your destination.
  2. If you are driving, save the texting for later. Otherwise, pass your phone to the passenger and have them send and receive your message.
  3. Ensure that your GPS is fully-functional, packed, and charged, just in case you have to take a detour or there are unexpected road closures.
  4. Practice patience on the road with yourself, your spouse, and your kids.
  5. Pack any and all electronics that will entertain and engage your kids (CDs, light up toys, See N’ Say toys, educational toys, iPod, iPad). Don’t forget the movies and videos for the children when you need a break from entertaining them.
  6. Bring flashcards for educational time-out for kids.
  7. Pack plenty of snacks to hold you and the kids over for the ride. Double or even triple the amount of snacks you’d normally bring. You can never have enough snacks. Here are some healthy snacking ideas.
  8. Make sure everyone uses the restroom right before you leave the house.
  9. Limit the amount of drinking you and your kids do in the car and halt all drinking at least one hour before departure.
  10. Take along a CD of Christmas (or Hanukah) songs so that the family can do a sing-a-long and get excited for the upcoming holiday.

Hopefully you are already on the road and just happen to be reading this from your phone – of course you aren’t driving while you are reading this though. If you haven’t left yet, then you may want to prepare yourself for a long practice in patience.

The key to a successful road trip is not only getting “there” safely and soundly but also having enough snacks and activities to make the trip as comfortable, relaxing, entertaining and fun enough as possible. We all share the roads; hopefully we can share these tips.

Road Trip With Kids To New Jersey

In this video we give you tips for taking a family road trip to New Jersey.

Road trips are a great entry point for you if you’re just starting out traveling with your kids. This is a video from our early days of traveling with our kids when I called Mom’s Guide To Travel by a different name.

When our kids are younger, and we’ve never done it before, sometimes it can be scary traveling with them for long distances. Take baby steps first and practice traveling locally or going on road trips before you fly.

Tip 1: Once you decide to take a family road trip with your kids, make sure that you hit the road early for your destination. Roads like the New Jersey turnpike for instance, can be riddled with traffic and easily turn a 3-hour drive to a 6-hour drive.

Tip 2: Travel with some sort of GPS system or an atlas when you hit the road.

Check out the video to hear more tips that I share while the kids chill in the back of the car while mom and dad drive.

Connect with Tawanna

Want to keep up with me and get ideas for your next adventure? Follow me across my Social Networks.