Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Can you drive cross country in 3 days with your kids? Yes. Should you? Probably not the ideal. Let’s just say, it depends why?

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On our first cross country RV trip with our kids–the youngest of whom was barely 2–WE WERE CRAZY!!! We had planned to leave LA Saturday evening. But due to circumstances beyond our control, we didn’t leave until Monday evening. Anybody familiar with LA traffic? Took HOURS just to get out of the city at that point! But we still wanted to be in NJ by midday Friday…could we make it cross country in 3 days?

To quote Viktor Frankl, “those that have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how”. (I know he was writing about the Holocaust, but since his original manuscript was written beforehand, so not as extreme as it may seem.)

Prepare the Kids

The first thing we had to do was have buy-in from the kids. We told them that we had the RV for 2 weeks. We could go visit their cousins in NJ (for Shabbos) or we could just spend 2 weeks in Arizona. It might just be me, but Arizona in August does not sound like such a great plan. It was up to them.

They definitely wanted to visit their cousins. What did we need from them? To make up for the lost time, we would have to spend much longer stretches just driving–even straight through the night. As such, my husband and I would just have to alternate sleeping and driving. So, the kids would have to keep each other occupied, behaved, and entertained since there would be no adults available. They would have to agree. If it didn’t work, and they needed more adult intervention, then Arizona it would be (120 in the shade).

Would they agree? Would it work? Our son had just turned 12, and our girls were 10, 8, and barely 2. The 2 year-old definitely didn’t understand the delayed gratification aspect. I’m not sure I do. 😜 She was going to feel confined and ignored by her parents. So the other kids would have to take responsibility for her.

They did agree. Of course the 8 year-old said, “once they get us there, they still have to get us home”. She was right, but we’d have a week-and-a-half to get home, not half-a-week.

So we set them up with coloring and books, and some toys for her. And away we go!

Plans Change

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you know that a lot of advance planning goes into our trips. I had to mourn the fact that all the great stuff I had planned for my kids wasn’t going to happen. But, there was no time for that. I had to sleep so I could drive (so my husband could sleep). I had to re-plan the first week. I f we made it to NJ by Friday, we would be back on track for week two on Sunday morning.

Multi-Week Road Trip Planning Hack

So, we only had to look at what we needed to cut-out and what we could keep to still make it. The first to go was sleep (or at least sleeping while stationary). The first place we stopped to sleep was Wednesday night in Kentucky. Also out was the Grand Canyon, cable car in Albuquerque, National Stockyards cattle auction, dinner with cousins Memphis, Lookout Mountain, and so much more!

The Big Rocks of Route Planning

Our “big rock” was making to to NJ by Friday, so everything else was going to fit around that.

Some Plans Stay The Same

At some point you have to stretch your legs and get out. But you can’t veer too much off the road. Lucky for us, Cadillac Ranch, is literally on the highway. So, about 1100 miles from home, we pulled over on the side of the I-40 and walked…all of 200 yards! The kids ran around, did a little spray painting, took a couple pictures, and got right back in the RV.

At some point we just needed a place to sleep for the night and have everyone shower (I don’t recommend showering in a moving RV). So, for our first ever RV park, we used one of our RV apps and found a great place outside Knoxville, TN. Yes, it was another 1200 miles from Cadillac Ranch. By now we had done close to 2500 miles in about 48 hours (we also tried to go to Lookout Mountain to see 7 states at once, but turned back) and had an amazing sleep on an old dairy farm turned RV park. The kids really loved the silos. They’re real city kids.

When we continued on Thursday morning, we “only” had another 700 miles to go in about the next 30 hours. Talk about taking it easy! So, now we could actually take our time and do a couple things–relatively speaking.

We had planned to take the kids elephant riding (Natural Bridge Zoo) and on a horse and buggy tour of the Amish. No problem! Elephant riding on Thursday afternoon, Amish on Friday morning and cousins in New Jersey Friday afternoon!

What We Learned

I’m exhausted just reading this!! It is completely doable. However, we went to these cousins again a few years later. This time we did it in three-and-a-half weeks instead of three-and-a-half days. Definitely more doable. However, that time we had seven weeks to be away instead of two.

Would I recommend this to you? Maybe. What are your goals? What do you want to do? How much time do you have? Will you do this again? Are you concerned that this pace may turn your family off from doing it again?

As a small child I (fondly) remember a two-week RV trip from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh and back. No cell phones, no GPS, no re-routing around real time traffic, and a couple days in Pittsburgh before heading home. So, I wasn’t concerned the pace would lead to negative (long-term) memories for my kids. But the adults? We decided to go ahead after speaking to my parents who had equally fond memories 35 years later.

Amazing Lasting Family Memories Game

Would we do it  again? Probably not. But, we are glad we did it and have no regrets. We know that we can do it (even if we shouldn’t), and we have lots of great memories.

We might do it again for the right reason. And we wouldn’t talk anybody out of doing it if they had good reasons (you know who you are 😉).

All things being equal, cross country in 3 days in an RV with kids is doable. But, a week-and-half is more realistic.

I’d love for you to share your itinerary with me. How did you cross the country?

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