We’ve spent a lot of time in cars and airplanes the past few weeks. Nothing is nearby in Arizona, or even California for that matter. For every trip, we’d pack up Bean’s backpack with an assortment of beloved small toys, hoping one of them would give us a few minutes from the nonstop train of preschooler questions, songs, and commentary.

Our favorite from this trip? Melissa & Doug’s Puffy Sticker Cool Careers Activity Book.

The stickers are both puffy and reusable, so they’re easy for her to peel off by herself and position and we’ll basically have it until she goes off to college. (The last set of Melissa & Doug reusable stickers eventually started creasing and lost their stickiness. Being flat, they were also always slightly too difficult for her to peel out by herself the first time.)

The stickers are an update on traditional paper dolls. These men and women can be dressed up as firefighters, police officers, chefs, pilots, teachers, construction workers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, or surgeons, with all the accessories each career requires. (Yay, gender neutrality!) The stickers also include full-formed male and female stickers too, so any gender can be anything.

From the back seat, we could hear Bean coming up with funny scenarios and conversations, her dolls trotting across the page. Sometimes, she’d be silent, just setting up each scene to look just so. And all this silence came in the form of something the width of a manila folder, that cost $7. YES, PLEASE.

There are several other sets, depending on what your kids are into: pet shops, horse stables, safari, farms, and a chipmunk house.

Have you had any luck with travel toys this summer? Please share in the comments!