Food Glorious Food: best travel snacks for kids

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Traveling parents know that packing good and healthy snacks to prevent the hangries is key to ensuring happy traveling kids. Food service on planes and trains can be sporadic at best, so we’re sharing our best tips on the best snack ideas and travel snacks for kids, and for adults too. Happy snacking!

avocado and vegetable sandwich
A delicious veggie sandwich on whole-grain bread is a perfect and easy travel meal.

The Best Travel Snacks for Kids

If you’re traveling during the day and especially over a meal-time, pack snacks that will fill hungry tummies. And be sure to pack a selection of your choice of bite-sized snacks for toddlers and older kids.

We’ve had great success with foods that our kids love: cold pizza, cheese, and fresh fruit. We’ve made sandwiches filled with Nutella, peanut butter and nut butters, as well as mashed avocado sandwiches on firm, whole-grain bread for easy road trips snacks. Home-made cheese quesadillas are big winners too.

bagged snacks of nuts and energy balls
Individually bagged snacks make it easy for everyone to have their own healthy treat bags.

Favorite Healthy Snacks for Kids

Here’s a list of some of our favorite trip snacks for kids – perfect snacks for road trips or to enjoy at 30,000 feet.

  • Granola bars
  • Homemade trail mix
  • Chocolate or energy bars
  • Dried cereal (i.e. cheerios)
  • String cheese
  • Dried fruit
  • Boiled eggs (but not on a plane, please and thank you)
  • Beef jerky or dried pepperoni sticks
  • Yogurt tubes
  • Crackers and cheese snacks
  • Sesame snacks
  • Raw veggies like baby carrots, celery, bell peppers and cucumber slices 
  • Mess-free Fruit leather
  • Real-fruit gummies
  • Hard candy or lollipops
  • Bubble-gum (*this can really help if the kids suffer from ear-pain on descent)

Don’t pack these foods

Soft fruit: mushed pear in the bottom of your backpack? Yuck.

Meat products: Unless they are dried (i.e. jerky). Fresh meat products may be prone to potential spoilage, unless you can keep them well-chilled.

Over-processed pre-packaged snacks: Too artificial, too much sodium, too much fat.

What to do with liquids

Liquid items are out unless you buy them in the airport once you’ve cleared security. Breast milk for babies is the one exception.

We always pack empty refillable water bottles to top up once we’ve cleared security. You can also buy water at an airport kiosk. Most airlines are pretty good with in-flight drinks service, but it never seems frequent enough to keep everyone hydrated.

Pack a picnic

You might wish to divide up some of the food items to lessen the load on you. Individual, reusable Stasher bags are handy and help keep foods in order and inside the bag. Reusable snack containers like washable bento boxes are great too for family road trips. And don’t forget the wet wipes!

Give each family member a small food bag to fit into their backpack or shoulder bag if possible, with the promise that they have to share what’s inside with everyone else of course. (This can be difficult if Skittles or Smarties are involved.)

Tip: Pack some special snack items that you don’t normally have in the house, like hard candies or chocolates, as a special treat for the kids. They pack well and provide some good energy when needed. Giving them as a surprise treat has also been known to prevent travel meltdowns, an extra bonus.

Pin for Later

Tips on packing a good variety of healthy travel snacks for your kids and family. Good eating on the road or in the air is key to happy family travel.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons

What are your favourite healthy travel snacks? Share your recommendations below.

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Claudia Laroye
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