Earlier this summer my family got the opportunity to take a 2013 GM Traverse out for a trip to British Columbia. Travelling two provinces over with 3 kids is not anyone's idea of a great time so we jumped at the chance to have a newer vehicle to make the trip a little more exciting with.

Packed to the Brim

We got off to a bit of a rocky start. With 3 kids under 6 and one still in a playpen/car seat/high chair you've got a lot of stuff to pack when you're travelling for a week. Even with our minivan we're jammed pretty tightly so stepping down in overall cargo space to an SUV was going to be tough.

In the end we managed to get everything in but we were pretty close to calling it off and going back to our minivan. ¹ But the idea of taking a new vehicle and with some nudging from some friends we decided to go for it with the Traverse. ²

Life is a Highway

On the highways and byways to Dawson Creek, BC. the Traverse drove great. During the longer stretches when the cries of "how much longer" grew the loudest we put on a movie and our two oldest loved that they got their own wireless headphones to put on and listen with. My wife and I loved that we didn't have to listen to Crazy Frog or whatever video we had played on the DVD player for them.

Comfortable driver and passenger seats made the long hours on the road very do able.

Sights and Sounds

Hooking up my iPhone to the GM Traverse's sound system worked really well. Connecting via Bluetooth or using the built-in iPhone cable connection port both worked well. And like I said above, with the kids having their own sound and headphones we could have something entirely different playing in the front.

Traversing with a Traverse

The comfortable ride of the Traverse combined with the media options for the kids (and adults) made a long trip go really well.

Next time we'll try it when there's snow flying and get to see how the Traverse handles the mountain roads when they're slick and icy.

Gallery

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Truth be told we flopped back and forth a couple of times. Car seats were moved. Playpens rearranged. Luggage got kicked. ↩
A word of caution to those with 3 younger kids here. We were packing for a week-long trip but weren't camping - we had bedding where we were going and only had to bring minimal food along. If we'd been packing for a camping trip there's no way we could have fit it all in. ↩