Things I Just Did: Driving Cross Country With A 2.5 Year Old
A very special, completely detached from the news cycle Context Collapse #92
Well, I’ve officially just earned my driving-across-time-zones-with-a-toddler merit badge.
(And a quick note to readers! This newsletter’s a personal-ish one about travel with absolutely zero advertising/marketing/PR/etc. content. If that’s not your thing, our regular content’s back later this week. No worries.)
My wife, my 2.5 year old kid and I all drove from Chicago to New York so the kiddo could see his grandparents and extended family for the first time in 1.5 years or so. And… it turned out pretty well.
We were going to fly originally, but airfare from Chicago to NYC for three people is surprisingly expensive if you’re traveling within the month. My family lives in a part of the NYC metro area with limited public transportation and where Uber/Lyfting with a toddler is… challenging as well. Factor in the cost of a NYC rental car and the time spent getting a rental car and driving from/to the airport, and suddenly driving 800 miles or so seemed kinda, sorta like an option.
Anyway, quick wins/tips for traveling with an energetic toddler who wants to do everything but be in a car seat all day:
The kid got to spend time with his grandparents and relatives. My wife got a surprise day out with her friends while I took the kid to fancy NYC park playgrounds. Score.
On the way from and to NYC, I made a list of some parks and playgrounds we could stop at along the way so the toddler could blow off some steam. Luckily the I-80 corridor is (mostly, thanks western and central Pennsylvania!) pretty densely populated, so there were lots of options. Even rural areas had towns fairly frequently; there’s nothing like the emptiness you’ll encounter in some western states out here.
I bought a cheap rear seat iPad mount on Amazon, downloaded some Netflix and YouTube videos the kid likes, and strategically deployed as necessary so the kid could watch tv in the car when getting antsy instead of having a meltdown.
Pack lots of snacks! Lots of water! Deal with the toddler hangry attacks before they occur.
The park strategy worked well.
Here’s Pokegon State Park in Indiana, with an awesome old-school hotel.
Bellefonte, PA has a nice park downtown with old railroad cars for kids to explore.
We stopped for the night at the Doubletree Hotel in Youngstown, OH, which was an awesome old office building conversion.
And then, inexplicably, found an alley in Warren, OH decorated entirely in Dave Grohl fan art.
This was the first time I travelled outside of the Chicago area since… well, since the damn start of the pandemic?
Being in one place was especially hard because of how much I used to travel for work. It’s good to be on the road again. I’m also looking forward to going back to NYC for work, meeting friends… and lots of other cities too.
Here’s to travel being a thing again.