Things You'll Need:
- small cooler
- ice packs
- sandwich bags
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Step 1
If you have a small cooler and ice packs you are off to a great start. Otherwise, find them for your use. You can borrow, buy new, or buy used if you desire. The cooler should be large enough to hold several bottles of water per person and a few plastic containers for snacks.
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Step 2
Make a list of items to pack. Packing things your family likes will make your shopping easier. Just be sure that the items are healthy, or at least most are. A few sugary snacks are fine as long as you balance them with the healthy.
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Step 3
Choose vegetables that can be cut into bite size pieces. Fruit should be easy to eat in the car without too much mess. Cheese cubes or sticks and yogurt in tubes are a great snacks as well. Crackers are nice when you want something salty. Granola bars are also a great way to keep up energy, just choose bars that have less sugar.
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Step 4
Gather containers together to fill the night before your trip. You can either use sandwich bags to hold the veggies so each person has their own, or a large container that you can place all of them in. You may also need small containers to hold dips or yogurt.
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Step 5
Cut up your vegetables such as celery, carrots, broccoli, and sugar snap peas. If you have fruit you can start cutting them up too. For fruit, place in a bowl with lemon juice squeezed on top to prevent browning. Place them into your chosen containers. For easily squashed items, hard containers are best, but everything else is fine in bags.
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Step 6
To encourage eating the vegetables, you can use small containers filled with a dip. Ranch dressing works well although any vegetable dip will do. You can also take some peanut butter or yogurt for dipping the fruit if you like.
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Step 7
To avoid smashing everything or losing something, place each bag into a larger container that will go into the cooler.
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Step 8
Water is important on trips. Keep several in the freezer the day or two before to keep them cold as well as the snacks cool. Place several frozen bottles (or your ice packs) on the bottom of the cooler with the snacks on top. If there is spare room, you can add more water around.
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Step 9
For items that do not need to be cool such as crackers, keep in a large bag between the seats so they are easily accessible, but not in the way.
