Traveling with a family can be a complicated endeavor, so I'm always eager to find ways to keep the kids entertained and happy while maintaining my sanity. Watching hours of movies on DVD keeps my kids pacified but also leaves them in zombie-like stupors when we arrive at our destination. To provide something the whole family can enjoy, from any seat in the car, I've started downloading a variety of entertainment options to my iPod. With a little advance planning, we can all enjoy something new and different without having to search through local broadcast stations. So many of my favorite shows from public radio are also available free, and I can download a variety of talk shows, music and educational podcasts, and even audio books, so we're always prepared for entertainment.
Public Radio offers a variety of family-friendly radio shows and other downloads that we enjoy. Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion offers a great mix of music, skits, jokes, and guests with appeal to a broad age range. I'm particularly partial to his running gags about English majors, being one myself, and he has so many excellent musicians as guests.
When my children are older, I hope they will learn to appreciate Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! as much as my husband and I do. The hour-long show quizzes noteworthy guests about news and current events, and it offers a great blend of humor and information. Regular panelists on the show rotate from a list of prominent writers, journalists, and comedians.
I also love downloading podcasts of music as a way to introduce our whole family to new artists and genres. Some of my favorites:
- Tapestry of the Times, which covers a wide variety of old and new music from around the globe
- Classics for Kids
- Alleycast Podcast from FolkAlley.com
- Thistlepod, a sampling from The Thistle and Shamrock
In addition to these options, audio books and stories are an excellent way to pass time on the road. Storynory offers a wide selection of classic and new children's stories that can be downloaded free through the website or iTunes, and Project Gutenberg also offers many titles for children and adults – including Aesop's Fables, Little Women, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, and some of my favorite Jane Austen novels – as free audio files. Many more recent titles can also be purchased online, and you can even burn some of your listening choices to CD to combat dying batteries and limited memory resources.
With all of these choices, my kids should be thoroughly occupied on our next trip! If I'm lucky, I won't hear "Are we there yet?" at all.
Images from Warner Bros. and Storynory.
Robin uses quiet moments during naptime to blog about her children and more at The Driftwood Collector.
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Thank you so much for sharing this terrific list with us. Now, all I need is to get a converter thing for our car, so my iPod can plug into the stereo system.
Hi guys,
I'm delighted to hear that your family is enjoying "Tapestry of the Times"… It makes my day to know that the podcast is adding some tranquility and enjoyment to your family car trips!
Warm regards,
Aaron Henkin (creator and host of "Tapestry of the Times")
We love http://www.boomkids.com/ for our family. Not free, and not on itunes, but still great. We subscribe to the email delivery and then I download and it moves to my ipod. I can not say enough great things about Boomerang!
I was wrong — there is a podcast on itunes. But the audio magazine is a great value so think about subscribing to that as well.