Screen-free long hours travel with toddler

You must be wondering how long it could be? let me tell you all about my 16 hours screen free travel journey with my almost 3yrs(at that time ) daughter,Sia.

Let me start like this, I was travelling alone with Sia. My trip started with 6hrs car drive from Memphis to Atlanta (overnight halt) and then Atlanta -Istanbul (5hrs layover) – India. And remember this post is only about my flight journey. We almost traveled in all means of transport in India and most of them was screen free.

How did I do this?

• I prepared a thoughtful Travel Binder ? (which I will elaborate in this post)
• Lot of other planning ( coming soon in next blogs)

This is how my planner looked, I got this binder from amazon. Link below:

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B01649NX7W&asins=B01649NX7W&linkId=a00500dbdc5eeb098adf5540ea549296&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

My Travel binder included around 10 Zipper Pouches (waterproof and with strong zipper). Link for Zipper:

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B071J3PS3S&asins=B071J3PS3S&linkId=8e0fdf8b8d4df12ffd0deaf552ef3370&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

In each of the bags I will carefully place activities and toys which she is into and easy to carry,quick to pack and does not take lot of space.

We punched zipper bags and tucked it to binder. Link to 3 hole punch

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B01GIJLSGG&asins=B01GIJLSGG&linkId=4a75949867b388c3b4743f3964ecd83c&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

Now,when My Travel binder is in Place. Here is the list of activities I planned for Sia.

Art and coloring ( all time favorite) (got this one at Dollar Store near me)

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At that time Sia was learning Alphabet and Numbers ,hence I DIY this activity for her. Here I color coded numbers and Alphabet and she had to match them by applying labels.

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Color coding labels I bought from Amazon ,link :–

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B001HQ6AJG&asins=B001HQ6AJG&linkId=70b3ff796ae46e97c2c185932c83dbfb&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

We as family partially follow Montessori, hence I gave her some interesting article for quiet time (Which is a very difficult task for my otherwise chatterbox).Through this binocular she looked out clouds, our fellow passengers and my face 😛

Binocular was a again a good find from amazon. Link:

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B07M6XNZ62&asins=B07M6XNZ62&linkId=c4dcf6c5e1fe70cc3871f85c78eb085f&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

Scavenger hunt at Airport and in Plane ( comment if you need one ) Which kept her busy for almost 30 mins ( tweaked activity to find maximum numbers)

To my surprise, where i was just trying to make this journey interesting and screen free, Sia also learnt about plants (which was a bonus for me..yippeee)

We had almost 5 hours Halt at Istanbul Airport, I was overly conscious of 2 reasons ,

A) this was my first visit at this airport.

B) by my research this airport seemed to be an never ending huge airport.

we had a connecting flight but fortunately we made well in time at our gate. And few hours left after eating and refreshing and changing. we exercised a gross motor activity.

Link for travel Size magnet:-

https://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=amazon0dd06-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B082GSJGT8&asins=B082GSJGT8&linkId=426d796b1dc045680b1ef179cc0c98d7&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff

And ,Finally our 16 hours journey comes to an end and We reach IGI Airport in Delhi. Happy , Healthy and Delighted.

On Side note:- I kept my Ipad loaded with Rhymes and Llama-2 episodes, just in case my travel binder fails.But happy to announce that I pad was intact in cover and we made our trip successful.

From here we will travel in Car and Train, and those journey is again going to be long like 12 hrs in train, 5-6 hours in car as we will be covering multiple states. Hope to be screen free and loaded with Fun.

Eager to share my experience, se y’all Super Soon……….

Love ‘n Light

AsthanaMama 🙂