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Hit the road, Dad

You can measure the success of a family road trip by the mileage you get out of it. Not the actual miles on the road, but in terms of how long your kids are still talking about it after you’re back.

You can measure the success of a family road trip by the mileage you get out of it. Not the actual miles on the road, but in terms of how long your kids are still talking about it after you’re back.

For our big trip last year, we planned a simple tour of the northern half of New Zealand’s North Island, going in a clockwise direction. (Covering South Island in the same trip was too much of a stretch. And there’ll be other holidays.) Two months after our return, they’re still raving about the sheep, the swans, the lakes, the sheep, the mountains. Did I mention the sheep?

A lot of my friends couldn’t believe I took our kids — there’s almost-four-year-old Elijah and Erin who’s just turned two — on road trips. Isn’t it dangerous? Don’t they get bored? Won’t they be tired? No, no ... and yes. But tired kids mean happy parents once you’ve tucked them in early.

If you’ve been contemplating a self-drive holiday but haven’t dared to take the jump: Just do it. Believe it or not, your kids will thank you for it. So after having done this for a couple of years and covered a few thousand miles (including a road trip around France, from Brittany to Burgundy), here are some tips to help you plan the perfect road trip.

THE DRIVE TO SUCCEED

With a car at your disposal, you’re free to wake up any time you want, and make any detours to attractions that catch your eye along the way. While at a farmstay in Thames, near the gorgeous Coromandel Peninsula, for example, we heard about Driving Creek Railway, about 60km north of where we were. Try telling a tour bus to take that detour for your kids. We made a U-turn without a second thought.

Same goes for pee breaks, stops to stretch, randomly pulling over to check out a river you’ve just driven past … all of these keep your little ones happy and, as a consequence, keep you sane.

Don’t be overambitious when drawing up your itinerary. We planned for distances of no more than 200km between hotels, so we wouldn’t be on the road for more than two or three hours at a time.

(DON’T) GET LOST

Do yourself a favour and bring a good GPS system along, either a standalone unit — free maps are easily available online — or your smartphone (get a prepaid data SIM card at the airport).

Before you fly, find the locations of all the hotels you’ve booked and save them to your favourites list. It’s a lot easier than navigating by map, or worse, intuition.

The real benefit is in the stored Points-of-Interest. My boy loves his boats and trains, so every time we had a gap to fill, I just searched for “rail” or “beach” for inspiration. And when we got tired of the local food, our GPS set suggested a dim sum restaurant just around the corner from where we were staying.

THINK ON A SMALLER SCALE

We chose New Zealand’s North Island because it’s family-friendly. There are a lot of much younger, fitter people who descend on the two islands annually for an adrenaline blast. But there are also a lot of sensible parents who know that its rolling hills, pleasant beaches and undemanding hikes make the country ideal for kids.

The key is in minimising your expectations. I may have had to pass on that half-day mountain-biking tour but seeing my kids rolling about in laughter as they chased after swans (and were chased by swans in return) was worth it.

So, was it worth it for me? The 10-hour flight, hours on the road, diaper changes at petrol stations? Of course, it was. We measure these things in memories and I fully expect Elijah and Erin to be talking about the sheep for years to come.

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