Top five sanity saving tips for travel with three young boys

We made it back to Camp Daddy base camp after two tremendous weeks in Hawaii. I am drastically behind on our vacation blog posts but they will be coming soon. Travel to and from Hawaii required two 5+ hour flights in each direction, plus time spent waiting in the airport. On our return trip we boarded a 10 p.m. flight from Honolulu for the first leg home, and soon after, the boys (and Grace) basically passed out from exhaustion and I had a bit of time to think about what worked best for our vacation.

1. Audio books

We do a lot of driving to see friends and relatives, take trips along the East Coast, etc, so our kids are well accustomed to entertaining themselves in the car for hours on end. But sometimes entertaining themselves comes from harassing their brothers. When the arguments and bickering get out of hand, an audio book always calms them down.

They have two pretty consistent favorites: Magic Tree House and Harry Potter. We listen to them on RB Digital, a free Navy library that is pretty easy to use but has limited selections. Most libraries have audio books that you can download (our library also has CDs but who even has a CD player anymore!?!) If you are willing to pay for audio books, Amazon Audible has an extensive library for only 9.99 a month and right now they have a 30-day free trial -- perfect for your summer vacation entertainment!

* Bonus: You can give someone a 6-month long or 12-month long audible subscription here.

2. Ipad/tablet

Like every parent, we try to limit screen time for our kids. I think we are usually very successful at keeping their screen time to the bare minimum possible. But when you are traveling for multiple 5-hour long flights, all bets are off!

In addition to the audio books mentioned above, we downloaded some of their favorite movies and TV shows onto our family Ipad. We also borrowed a second Ipad since we knew we would be sitting in two rows for every flight, with the kids split between us.

3. Head phones and multiplier

You might be able to get away with letting your kids use your standard apple earbuds but with three kids, that just doesn't work. We got these over the ear headphones for our three boys and they have proved to be extremely durable so far.

Then we picked up this handy, dandy 5-way audio splitter, so all three of them (and us if we wanted) can crowd around one Ipad. Genius!

4. Wet wipes

We were SO excited to be finished with diapers last year, that we didn't think about this one. Having wet wipes on vacation is an absolute must! Sure, hand sanitizer works well to keep hands clean, but you will look crazy wiping down arms, faces, tables, and other surfaces with hand sanitizer! Keep wet wipes handy to help keep the vacation germs at bay.

5. First aid kits (Yes, multiple)

I don't know about you, but we go through a LOT of bandaids in our house. So there was no way that we were making it through a two-week vacation incident free. Especially with all of the hiking adventures we had planned. So we packed small bandaid packs in each of the kids' backpacks, and a larger kit in my carry-on (one that could pass TSA's scrutiny). Then we packed our large first aid kit in our checked baggage. Fortunately, we only needed a few bandaids, but our experience at Camp Daddy is better safe than sorry!