Meet the Mom's Making Activity Backpacks to Help Kids Stay Off Screens While Traveling
Summer vacations are right around the corner and families everywhere are ready and raring to go on planes, trains, and automobiles to get to anywhere that isn't the living room. However, after a year of staying home, you may feel a bit out of practice when it comes to packing for your little ones. But fear not — TernPaks is here to take care of that travel task for you.
In 2020, just prior to the pandemic, moms LaToya Allison and Mariana Güereque came together to cure a common parental travel woe: Kids spending way too much time on screens. So, they created ready-to-go backpacks filled with goodies that will keep little ones entertained for hours on end.
"We created [Terkpaks] out of both of us needing it for ourselves," Allison says of the playtime invention that came about after many schoolyard chats between the two mothers.
"We realized that we were both separately packing, making backpacks for plane rides to keep our kids independently entertained without a screen," Güereque adds.
After months of testing, measuring, and lots and lots of playing, the duo is now ready for you (or rather your kids ages 3-10) to enjoy their product, too.
Inside the waterproof neoprene backpacks that retail for $165, parents and kids will find a set of Cubist Innovation Magnetic Cubes, a Spontaneous Creation Magnetic Play Pad (Petite), a Tern Art Folio, a Watercolor Gel Crayons set, ZigZag Challenges, one Dry Erase Mazes & Marker set, and a very special Tern & Friends Journey Journal.
"We wrote a journal that allows kids to reflect on the experience they're having," Allison says. "So the journal also includes crossword puzzles, but also prompts like What is your favorite place in the whole world?' 'What is your favorite memory?' 'Do you like long trips or short trips?' 'Is there any part of this trip that makes you feel nervous?'"
And, as Güereque adds, the duo also wrote a short story for inside the packs that ensure all children see themselves reflected as the world travelers they are.
"LaToya also wrote a story and we worked with an illustrator and it was very important for us that our kids would see themselves reflected, not just in our marketing components, but also, within this story," Güereque says. "And they could see the children of color and that they will travel to have these amazing adventures."
Even the name, TernPaks, is meant to elicit both conversation and excitement for children to travel because the product happens to be named after the arctic tern, the animal with the longest migration pattern on Earth.
"What we're trying to do is make it easier for everybody, so that there's one less thing they have to worry about when they're planning their trip," Güereque says. Allison adds, "We're the ultimate travel companion. What we want to do through each of our products and through this company is to inspire people to continue to wander."
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