Advanced Hotel-Room Fort Making

A desk, a bedspread, and a willingness to improvise goes a looooong way.

One way to make kids happy in a hotel room while on a road trip is to let them jump on the bed. One way to get them to stop jumping on the bed, is to make a fort. Many hotel rooms have large enough desks to simple drape the bed spread over it for a fast fort with plenty of room for sleeping. On a recent trip we checked in to a room with a small desk. Tom wouldn't be able to fit sleeping under and parallel to the desk, he would have to sleep perpendicular to it. And that's not much of an adventure for a seven year old.

The solution? Add a chair. We tucked the bedspread behind the desk (against the wall), and stretched it out to drape it over a chair at the far end. There was still enough room between the bed and the chair to walk by, and with a suitcase acting as ballast, the chair is unlikely to tip over.

Tip: bring an LED headlamp for nightime reading.