Road trips tend to be love 'em or leave 'em affairs, and personally, I fall into the "love" category. While I've enjoyed most of my excursions, I'll be the first to admit that there has been a serious trial-and-error process with my packing lists. Inevitably, the trips for which I was better prepared were much more pleasurable than others, but it hasn't always been easy to anticipate just what items I'll need. Here's a list that hopefully will help you make the most of your time on the road.
Things to bring:
• Navigation materials: It seems obvious, but sometimes it's the most obvious things that slip our minds. Be sure to have maps, a GPS system, or a smartphone with a trip planner. If there are particular cities on your itinerary, city guides and travel books are a good idea as well.
• Emergency gear: Make sure to check your spare tire, stow a set of jumper cables and a jack, and take note of any phone numbers that you might need for roadside assistance. Consider a service like AAA if you aren't already enrolled in one. It's also a good idea to give a travel buddy a spare set of car keys in case you lock yours in the car or lose them when you're far from home.
• Proper documentation: Make sure you have your license, registration, and proof of insurance, and if you'll be crossing borders, don't forget your passports!
• Sun protection: A road trip without sunglasses is a recipe for disaster, and you should also be sure to slather yourself with sunscreen periodically. I can attest that sunlight streaming through the windows can lead to a horrific sunburn if you aren't prepared.
• First aid supplies and spare toiletries: Bringing along some basics like ibuprofen, antacids, bug repellent, bandages, cortisone for bug bites, an ointment for cuts and scrapes (like Neosporin), and hand sanitizer will make your life easier if some unforeseen ailment occurs. If anyone in the car is prone to motion sickness, some dramamine or a similar medicine could come in handy. If you take any medications or vitamins regularly, it's also a good idea to keep them with the first aid gear so everything is easily to find.
• Paper products: You can never have enough tissue, napkins, or paper towels. And yes, bring along a roll of toilet paper as well, because you never know when understocked rest areas will thwart your plans. Road trips can be messy affairs, and it's best to be prepared for spills, sneezes, or calls of nature. And be sure to bring along a few spare plastic bags to wrangle all those used paper products and the rest of the trash that will get created along the way.
• Food: If you want to avoid all the greasy fast food that tends to come along with stints on the road, be sure to pack some snacks like fruit, pretzels, granola bars, and crackers beforehand. It can also be a good idea to pack sandwiches or a picnic lunch for your first day on the road. (Check out the Valborgpicknick post for more of the stylish picnic shown above) Bring along a small cooler with a few water bottles that you can refill along the way. It's better to use icepacks than ice, since they will cause less mess and can be refrozen in mini-fridges if need be. Also bring along a chip clip to reseal partially empty snack bags. For those who are more adventurous with on-the-road-eating, it is possible to use your car to cook food while you travel. Although all the attendant warnings about safety apply, see these Wikihow tutorials for information about how to cook food on your car's engine and how to bake cookies on the hood of your car.
• Activity gear: Bring along some items like a frisbee, a ball, or cards to play at road stops or in evenings when you're stopped in places with few entertainment options. You'll also want some in-car activity gear, especially if you're traveling with kids. Coloring books, a portable DVD player, laptop, or iPad for movies, and travel versions of board games are good options. Everyone should also be sure to bring plenty of good reading material for those long stretches on the road.
• Music: Have everyone make a mix CD or an iPod mix before the trip, so that everyone in the car has something in the music rotation to suit his/her taste.
• Comfort items: Obviously, you should wear comfortable clothes for time in the car, but you should also consider bringing along blankets or a sweater in case you and your travel companions disagree about a desirable air-conditioning level or in case you're traveling through the desert or mountains at night. I also find that shoes that can be easily slipped on and off are a great idea. And in case you find yourself sleeping in the car at some point, bring along pillows and blankets or sleeping bags. Also, be sure to plan for rain; bring along umbrellas or ponchos in case you get caught in a downpour.
• Tech gear: Aside from the navigation and entertainment items mentioned above, you're going to want your phone charger (and perhaps even one that plugs into the cigarette lighter), your camera, a spare camera battery, a travel alarm clock (a phone alarm will also do), and extra batteries for any gear that might need it.
• Good company: The whole point of a road trip is to have fun with family and friends, so make the most of it and enjoy those hours in the car!
(Image: Livet Hemma)
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My husband and I both listen to a lot of podcasts, so we'll coordinate which ones to save for our annual vacation. It sparks great conversations and is something I really look forward to!
I like to try local restaurants on the way.
Instead of a dedicated cigarette lighter phone charger, get one of the cigarette lighter to USB port ones. That way you can charge other things, and you don't have to buy a whole new charger when you get a new phone.
Love this! My husband and I just took a 12 hour road trip from Kansas City to his families' lake house in Tennessee. We packed our lunch for our on-the-road picnic! Aside from great music and enjoying the rolling scenery, we each got a chance to sit back and read (while the other one drove, of course!). And I'm talking the old fashioned books with paper and hard covers... a great way to unwind along the trip, unplug and get back to the basics.
Two years ago, we drove from Brooklyn to Yellowstone National Park with our then-two-year-old. Since then, we've done a number of shorter, but still fun, road trips, and I'm looking forward to many more!
A few things we found very helpful to have on hand were:
--hard copies of directions--GPS wasn't always reliable driving across wide expanses of prairie, so I was glad I'd printed out directions from the AAA Triptik site
--an almanac for trivia games--though I found our US atlas also had plenty of good bits of random info (like lists of state birds and so on)
--a jar of peanut butter and aseptic boxes of juice and soy milk--not just for the little one; my husband and I made a number of meals from these supplies, too, and they don't need to be kept cool
--lots and lots of wipes--again, not just for the kiddo
--these water bottles, which don't spill if you (or your toddler) drop them:
http://www.amazon.com/Contigo-AUTOSEAL-Water-Bottle-Ounces/dp/B003KZKDRW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342142273&sr=8-1&keywords=contigo+water+bottle
--a "grabber" toy (helpful for retrieving items that have fallen into the back seat; yet another item intended for kids that was actually helpful for adults, too)
http://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-6130-12-Robot-Claw/dp/B000F4G5KK/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1342142345&sr=1-1&keywords=grabber
--lots of podcasts of our favorite shows (Radio Lab, This American Life, etc.), as well as audiobooks that lend themselves to vacillating attention spans (we've listed to Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" and essays by David Sedaris)
--a picnic blanket with a waterproof bottom
--the Roadside America app, which helped us find gems like the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, Minnesota
-- a simple all-in-one roadside emergency kit--we never needed it, thank goodness, but having first-aid supplies, jumper cables, and other emergency materials all in one tidy kit made me feel more secure
And strategies that helped us enjoy the trip:
--finding school play grounds or libraries for run-around rest stops (especially useful when we were supposed to drive for a long stretch)
--ditto state parks, especially nature centers--a free, fun way to give you and your family a break from a long drive
--looking for relatively healthy options at gas stations and rest stops--you can often find cups of fresh fruit, hard boiled eggs, string cheese, and even hummus-and-pretzel-chips packs at lots of rest stops if you look past the Doritos and Twizzlers (which have their place in the road trip snack pantheon)
--seeking out farmer's markets and health food stores, for when gas station fruit wouldn't cut it any more
--getting a National Parks pass and looking for excuses to use it (otherwise, we might have missed Devil's Tower!)
--booking motels and hotels halfway between intended destinations (so we'd spend the night in some random town, then drive to, say, Mount Rushmore the next day, rather than paying a bunch of money to stay in a touristy location, only to wake up two hours before anything opened anyway.)
--scheduling our driving and wandering loosely around our son's naps, without being hostage to his sleep schedule. We usually started with a two- or three-hour drive right after breakfast, stopped at some attraction and had lunch, drove more while he napped, found dinner and another evening activity, then drove into the night while he slept in the car seat. We'd check into the motel with our snoring child in our arms and rest up for the next day's worth of sight-seeing.
Happy travels!
Activities for rest stops. We're traveling next week and bringing a frisbee and bubbles to give the kids a chance to burn off some steam. We're also bringing a picnic blanket and will be picnicking on the ground instead of sitting at a table, when we've already been sitting in the car. Being on the ground gives everyone a chance to stretch out a little.