Fun Travel Crafts Kids Will Love

by Audrey Lee

It’s no secret kids love to be creative and make something with their own two hands. Creating crafts with your children can excite them for a future trip or can be a fun way to remember the adventure when you come home. Try these fun craft ideas with your kids for your next travel experience.

Shadow Boxes

A fun way to display the memories from a previous trip is by putting together a shadow box. Let your kids collect items as you venture through your itinerary. This could be a mix of maps, pressed pennies, unique candy wrappers, menus, admission tickets, small figurines, key chains and foreign currency. Try to find items that have location names on them so you know where they came from. Make sure to take plenty of photos so you have options to display in your shadow box.

Sand and Sea Glass

If traveling to a destination with sandy beaches, take a stroll down the water to search for sea glass. These colorful pieces of broken bottles turn into beautiful matte pebbles as they roll around in the waves. Searching for sea glass can take awhile, but is a fun way to get some exercise while enjoying the ocean view. Depending on where you visit, sand can be a unique item to bring home. Places like Bermuda and the Bahamas have pink sand from the coral reefs, while in Hawai’i you can find black sand from the volcanic minerals. When you return home, pick up unfinished wooden picture frames to decorate with the sea glass and sand you collected. This craft is inexpensive and uses natural materials from the locations you visit.

Kids crafting © Anutr Yossundara | Dreamstime.com

Stamp Passports

Before embarking on your adventure, pick up some small notebooks and travel-themed crafting supplies. Set out a day to explain to your kids where you will visit and let them decorate their own stamp passport that includes the names of the destinations. When you arrive to the attractions, stamp their booklets like a normal passport. If the attraction has a person who stamps your hand before entry, ask if they would stamp the booklet as well. This craft will keep kids in the know about the daily activities while making them feel responsible to keep track of their passports.

Pressed Penny Bracelets

At almost every family-friendly attraction, gift shop or rest area there is a pressed penny machine. Usually for $1.01 apiece, kids can crank the machine and collect pressed pennies with the name of the location and a little image that represents it. Upon arrival home, punch holes in the pressed pennies collected throughout the trip and attach it to a bracelet for their own, one-of-a-kind pressed penny charm bracelet. Kids can wear these and tell their friends about the cool places they visited.