K.B.
We have a regular van and our family of 6 fits fine in it. I wouldn't spend the money on a passendger van. That's a bit too spread out for me. Kids will start yelling so others will be able to hear them and it'll be very loud in the end.
We don't stop for specific things when we're on road trips. We do stop at official rest areas during the day where there's plenty of bathrooms, snack area and grass for the kids to run around. You can bring balls or something to play with while you're at a rest area. At night we always stop at big gas stations that are lit up, no rest areas as there's no attendants at most of them at night.
Every time we stop everyone gets out to use the toilet and stretch their legs, whether they say they're fine or not.
Depending on how long we are on the road, we sometimes leave during the night so the kids can sleep during the bulk of the trip.
We have the kids bring a backpack each. They put in their learning video games and extra cartridges, rechargable batteries and the charger, reader books, and a specific number of small toys like tiny dolls or cars or something. If each child is allowed 5 or 10 small toys then we remember when we pack up how many they're suppose to have and can tell if someone is missing something. We don't allow noise makers, lol. Video games are on low, mute or they can use headsets. Crayons and a coloring book is allowed if the crayons are washable. We used to bring the marker sets that only work on the special paper.
We have specific times for snack breaks, usually when we pull over for gas or toilet breaks. Kills two birds with one stone. We keep trash bags in the car and keep things picked up as we go.
We used to use our portable DVD player before the triplets came along but now we can't afford a DVD for each child, lol. We don't have the built in kind in the van. Our teen will use it though when he's not using his iPod.
Other tha all of that, we don't stop for sight seeing but we do point out things while on the road, take pictures and talk inbetween the kids playing.
K. B
mom to 5 including triplets