Things to consider:
1. How long will we be in the car each day? Depending on the age of kids, you might want to pack some goodies so they get something new every 30-60 minutes.
2. Have you looked at a map and thought about where the possible stops are? How long between stops? (good for everyone to get out of the car every 2 hours to stretch legs and move around a bit)
3. Do you have a beach ball or Frisbee or something else small that can be thrown around at a rest stop to encourage moving around?
4. Choose smaller size cups for preschoolers so you don't have to stop and find bathrooms quite so often. You might also try freezing water bottles 1/2 full so that all of the water isn't available early in the trip either.
5. For extra long trips, you might want to consider getting a portable DVD player and taking some favorite movies. (our rule of thumb was that the kids could pick a movie if we would be in the van for more than 3 hours at a stretch)
6. Older kids might enjoy doing some letterboxing on the way or at your destination city.
7. Car games - to keep dice from rolling around, put the required number of dice into a small clear plastic food storage container. Shake to "roll" the dice and set it upside down so you can see through the container what numbers were rolled.
8. Give the kids a map so they can follow along. If you know ahead of time the stops you will make, you can mark those on the map and the kids can connect the dots at each stop.
9. Contain it! Having lots of activities in the car to keep kids busy is great, but a hundred flying projectiles could be really bad if the car came to a sudden stop. Consider the items you are allowing kids to bring with them and consider a container with a lid so the activities that are not currently being used can be put away and contained.
This blog by Tip Junkie has some great ideas as well.
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