85% of Parents will Travel with Kids This Holiday Season

Irvine, Calif.—As the holidays approach, many families across the country are gearing up to travel, and a majority of them will be taking a road trip. A new survey* from Mazda North American Operations found 85 percent of parents or caregivers plan to travel via vehicle this year. For parents with three to four children, the likelihood of traveling by vehicle jumps to 93 percent.

Mazda partners with Dr. Mona Amin, board-certified pediatrician, to help alleviate symptoms of carsickness.

When traveling with children, more than 3 in 5 respondents (61%) say they worry about a child getting carsick. This concern is valid given nearly half (48%) of respondents have experienced a sick kid in their vehicle.

"Parents and kids alike come into my office all the time with questions about how they can treat symptoms of nausea particularly when riding in the second-and-third rows of a vehicle or on longer, bumpy rides," Amin said. "Motion sickness happens when your brain receives conflicting information from the inner ears, eyes and nerves, essentially your body cannot infer whether it is in motion or not, resulting in a queasy feeling."

Dr. Amin's tips for treating and preventing carsickness include:

Increasing airflow: Fresh air and keeping the vehicle at a cooler temperature can help alleviate symptoms of nausea as it counteracts the natural effort to raise the body's temperature.

Look at the horizon or distant, stationary object: Looking straight ahead can reduce the intersensory conflict that causes motion sickness. To encourage children riding in the back to look ahead or play "I Spy" by picking objects in the distance. 76 percent of survey respondents agree that looking ahead helps treat carsickness, while 66 percent respondents claim gaze fixation as a successful remedy.

Avoid reading or looking at screens: Reading or looking at screens can increase confusion between our visual cues and the inner ear's sense of movement. Instead of screen time, consider an audio book or music to keep your backseat passengers entertained. In fact, three quarters of survey respondents said minimizing screen time helps to aid carsickness.

Beyond minimizing carsickness, seating flexibility and convenience are important factors to keep in mind on family road trips. In fact, when it comes to deciding who sits where, the third row is often a point of contention as 40 percent of parents say their children fight over who sits in the last row.

*Survey Methodology

The survey was fielded to 1,000 adults over the age of 25 in the United Stated in collaboration with The Logit Group. Responses were collected over a 2-week period in October 2023, and focused on those adults who currently own or lease a 3-row vehicle.