Building Family Culture through Road Trips

Several times a year, we strap the rooftop carrier and bike rack onto our SUV and haul our family of seven clear across the country. From the outside, our car rivals The Beverly Hillbillies’ for most “Ridiculous Looking Vehicle.” Appearances and inconveniences aside, in our experience, we’ve found much hidden treasure for the family willing to go far together. And it has a lot to do with the gift of culture. 

As we drive across the United States, it’s fun to catch glimpses of the changing cultural landscape. Accents, food, festivals, and even common religious symbols vary from region to region. In a similar way, every family culture is unique. Any sentence that starts with, “Hey, remember that time when we were riding in the car and . . . ?”—followed by laughter and hoots and hollers—communicates to a young person that they have a home base. And that gives a deep sense of freedom from which to explore this grand and sometimes terrifying world. 

Road trips are fertile ground for producing hilarious, crazy, and unplanned stories that will live on as lore, told and retold around the dinner table for years to come. While it may be a temptation for us as moms to over-plan so that we might avoid unforeseen challenges, the truth is the best stories often start with difficulty. 

On one trip, a child in our family became car sick in the third row, prompting her brother to get sick in the second row. Another time, we only had 2WD when an unexpected snowstorm settled over us in the mountains. We’ve had a motel room with a heater that sounded like someone was beating on it with a stick. Once, a bobcat approached our canvas tent in the night with its customary repeated squeal. On another occasion, our children wouldn’t stop bickering. So, as punishment, they were given the opportunity to sit quietly and listen along with mom and dad to a rather lengthy sermon on Christian marriage, which they hated in the moment but recall with cackles to this day.

In spite of these stories, or maybe because of them, road trips become a great opportunity to create small family habits or rituals that cut meaningful grooves over the course of many years. Deuteronomy 6:7 calls parents to talk with our children about loving the Lord as we “walk by the way.” In our modern culture, this could include “as you merge onto the expressway in the minivan!” Road trips have the power to play a big role in weaving the important and lovely fabric of our family relationships and building a discipleship culture that can anchor our kids for years to come. 

Habit #1: Prayer

Praying in response to key moments in the car can create habits that a child will recall into adulthood. I have one friend whose family prays a specific “Traveler’s Prayer” when they leave home for vacation. In our family, sirens of any sort prompt us to pray. We keep it short: “Lord, in that situation, would you please bring anyone to yourself that doesn’t know you? Would you please heal the hurting and show the helpers what to do? In your name, Amen.” Any number of unpredictable situations can happen on a road trip, but every one is an opportunity for calling upon the Lord. My kids often imitate my saying, “LORD, HELP ME!” from Psalm 71:12: “O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!” I have adopted this as my prayer in moments when no other words will do. As they witness us meeting many unforeseen challenges on the road with prayers like these, our children learn reflexively to cry out to God in their own trials and struggles—a valuable habit that can stay with them deep into old age.

Habit #2: Soundtracks & Stories

We make a point to listen to specific songs when we hit various landmarks on our journeys—crossing the Mid-Bay Bridge, driving through the Texas panhandle in the dark of night, or glimpsing the snow of the Rocky Mountains. Those familiar songs feel like old friends waiting to greet us along the way. On the surface, road trip soundtracks like these might seem meaningless or almost silly. But they are yet another fiber in the fabric of family culture that works together to communicate a sense of belonging, understanding, and healthy nostalgia. Audio books or read-alouds can do the same thing—connecting us together and giving us meaningful points of conversation through the power of story.

Habit #3: Creativity

When I asked my own children what their favorite part of a road trip is, my 15-year-old daughter said, “I like making up games with everybody.” Full disclosure: we do allow our kids to use screens in the car on long trips. And it’s not all bad; this offers my husband and me a coffee date in the middle of the journey! But, after a while, we announce, “Screens down!” and everyone moans for a minute. In no time, however, they are coming up with goofy ways to pass the time. Letter games, number games, “Name that Tune,” and so on. The tight boundaries of the car work the same way the edges of a canvas do: they mark off a space for kids to feel free to be creative. And left to themselves, children will often image their Maker, and they will create. 

Habit #4: Worship

On one of our road trips out west, my husband asked what I thought about visiting a local church for worship on a Sunday morning. The thought had never occurred to me, but I was game. We did our research and found a Bible-believing church. We do that quite often now, and all seven of us benefit from meeting fellow Christ followers in far-off places. Philippians 3:20 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” We are reminded that we are fellow citizens of heaven with these Christians in other places. They are awaiting the same Savior we are; God is just using them in a different town. As our kids grow, we continue to see these Sunday visits open up rich and lively conversations about the broader Church and where we fit into it.

As children grow and develop, they will rightly need to think on their own, claim their faith as their own, and use the gifts and experiences God has given them to be who he made them to be. Road trips offer the makings of great family stories, and great family stories help weave a strong family culture from which that individual growth takes root. That is worth hours upon hours on the wide open road, even if your car looks ridiculous along the way.