Road Trip Tip: Shoe Pockets!

I came across this in one of those posts people share on Facebook -- you know, the "50 Hacks Every Mom Should Know" kind of thing. And this is definitely a hack every traveling mom should know. I love this idea! Buy a small shoe organizer and hang it on the back of your car's seat. Brilliant.

I've tried other car organizers for my kids -- from caddies between their seats to individual "fun bags" packed with their activities. But my biggest gripe is they can't reach them very well (such as when the "fun bag" falls on the floor and they are strapped into their booster so they can't retrieve it -- and it becomes the not-so-fun bag because now they are screaming....) or it's not ultimately that easy to get stuff in and out of them. But I envision this solving both of those problems. It doesn't fall on the floor out of reach (if installed correctly) and it seems easy enough to get stuff out and put stuff back. One drawback I can see is it clearly won't fit picture books or coloring books. Not everyone can read in the car, but so far (knock on wood), my kids don't get car sick and do read in the car. So that might be a problem. The other thing I would consider when purchasing the shoe organizer is make sure the pockets are not so wide that stuff just falls out of them. I would think they would need to be a little on the "compact" side to make this hack truly work.

But I think it just might work! I'm going to try this on our first road trip of the summer. We'll see how it goes.