Road Tripping With Ford #comeoutandplay

You know when you get back from a holiday somewhere and immediately start planning a way to get back there? Yeah – that. I made a video of our glorious week away – snowboarding, eating toasties, driving a swanky car and hanging with our babies. Basically just living the dream.

You know when you get back from a holiday somewhere and immediately start planning a way to get back there?

Yeah – that's where I'm at right now. We just had a glorious week away – snowboarding, eating toasties, hanging with our babies. Basically just living the dream.

The trip has been in the works for a while now, but only a few days before we left, Ford got in touch and asked if we wanted to take their Ford Escape along for the ride. And we were like, hmmm let us think about it… YES!

So we bundled the kids up in their warmest clothes, packed the car and headed off.

So how was it?

Well – the week was awesome. We started off in Canberra, checked out the city, went to the National Dinosaur Museum and Patissez which were both AMAZING! Then we stayed in a caravan in Jindy and headed up the mountain for three days of snow play.

I dusted off my boots and snowboarded for the first time since having kids, and I'm please to say it is just like riding a bike – it was like I had never stopped. God it was fun.

The kids got on the cutest little snowboards I have ever seen, both were awesome, both are now addicted. If only it wasn't such an expensive hobby…

We love Jindabyne, it's such a great little town, if you're heading that way with kids, I recommend Burger Biz for child-friendly eats and ESS Boardstore for your gear rental.

But on to the car

So, I'll start with this disclaimer. I'm not really a car enthusiast. As long as it's reliable, doesn't chew much fuel and can carry a whole lot of chid-related stuff then I'm happy. It takes a lot for me to really appreciate (or even notice) bells and whistles so I was expecting to be underwhelmed.

But I wasn't. Sure the car has lots of cool safety features, parks itself and basically drives itself when you set it to cruise control and that is obviously awesome, but it was all the convenience-related stuff that impressed me.

Easy Keyless Access

It was so easy to get in and out. The key is not really a key at all. You just need to have it in your pocket or bag and the doors automatically unlock when you open them. When you're carrying two snowboards + one kid and wearing a jacket that has approximately 17 pockets in it – it's so convenient. Also, you just need to put your foot under a sensor to open the boot. Hands free baby! Perfect for those who haven't had free hands in six years.

Entertainment and Comfort

The next vey exciting bit for me was all the Apple play, in car navigation technology stuff. We tried it out on three different phones of varying ages and an iPod that we are pretty sure is about eight years old and it just worked. Also, basically the whole roof is a skylight that opens in two different ways, both my kids get carsick and having a way to get a bit of airflow into the car without having to open windows on the freeway is a pretty huge win. And the seat warmers are awesome!

Safety

Because we were driving in pretty icy conditions I was so much more aware of safety than I usually would have been. This car has a 5-Star ANCAP safety rating and it felt good to know that. Because it is an all wheel drive we didn't need snow chains and all of the driver assist technologies meant we were alerted to any risks before they became risky. You can even choose what distance you want it to keep between yourself and the car in front and it will automatically break if you get too close. Cool hey?

The Kids' Vote

But the thing the kids LOVED was the little fold up tray tables in the back. I managed to leave both of the phones that are loaded up with kids movies and apps on the bedside table so it was old school all the way. They drew pictures and played with their toys on the tables. It's so simple but so cool! And I'm sure that the designers of this car are yelling at me right now IT PARKS ITSELF AND YOU ARE BLOGGING ABOUT THE TABLES FOR GOD'S SAKE but they were a really huge hit. They also loved watching the display screen in the dashboard and yelling out when the temp dropped below 0 – and of course the skylight was basically the best thing ever in their books.

Fuel Economy

I picked it up from Parramatta, drove it back to the Central Coast then all the way to Jindy (via Canberra) before we even had to think about filling up. And there's plenty of power too. I was pretty surprised actually. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up right there.

The Verdict?

It's just a nice, comfortable, easy to drive car. The boot was a little too small for what we needed but this was a pretty high-luggage holiday. We had snow boards and snow gear plus bedding (because we stayed at a caravan) as well as all the other kid-related stuff. So it was an unusual amount of luggage to be carrying and we still got it all in. And we actually could have folded down one of the seats to get more space but we thought it was preferable not to have the kids next to each other during a 5 hour trip. You know, so everyone got there alive. In all, it's pretty swanky and driving it around for a week was super fun!