We are two weeks away from heading out on a short road trip. We’ll be doing a test run of traveling on Route 66 to help us over the next year as we plan for our big cross country trek on the famous roadway. From all my reading and research so far, it’s a little complicated to follow and stay on the route, so we want to get a couple hundred miles under our belts.
So over the next two weeks, I’ll be getting us ready to road trip! It’s important to be prepared before heading out. Here’s my top tips for getting ready to hit the road!
- Pack light. Seriously, pack less than you think you need for a road trip. I’m opposite on a plane. If we are flying, I pack two of everything. If I’m going to be without a car at the destination, I know I’m going to be stuck paying double and triple prices at a vacation destination. And nope, I’m not doing that. But if you are road tripping, you are always going to be driving distance from a Walmart or a Target or a grocery store and you have a car to get there. So pack light!
- Load up on snacks. Personally, I watch the grocery sales and when there’s a 10 for $10 sale, it always includes great road trip snacks, so I load up. Then I hide them on the top shelf of my closet until the day we leave–otherwise the kids will eat them all before we ever start traveling. And, well, maybe I will too. Our favorite travel snacks are things like Cheez-its and Pringles–things we don’t eat in our every day lives that aren’t super messy and come in packaging that doesn’t crush easily.
- Help your kids choose their entertainment. At this point, my kids are road trip warriors and they know what to bring along to make the journey fun. I usually limit them each to a cinch sack type backpack. Whatever they can fit in that bag is what they can take. Younger kids may need help choosing toys and books appropriate for a road trip. Wipe off books with a dry erase marker are a great option. Older kids do well with fun games like Mad Libs & road trip Bingo.
- Decide if DVDs or tablets are going to be a part of your trip. On some trips, I just want the kids to be quiet and I’ll give them unlimited tablet time. But on our Route 66 trip, I want them looking out the window! That’s the whole point, after all. If you decide on no screens in the car, make that clear to your kids ahead of time so there’s no pouting when you hit the road!
- Make sure your car is ready for the trip. That’s not really my area of expertise but I know that before a road trip that Hubby checks the oil, washes the windows (on the inside and outside), double checks that everything is running properly, checks the tire inflation and all that good stuff. There’s nothing worse than breaking down on a road trip so make sure you are truly ready!
- Get your music ready. The right soundtrack for your trip makes all the difference. Does your library offer a free subscription to FreeGal? You can use it to download five free songs a week plus you can stream unlimited music. The downside is that FreeGal doesn’t contract with every artist so the choices are limited. Another GREAT, fantastic, amazing option is Amazon Music Unlimited.Literally every song you can ever imagine is on there. On our trip to Silver Beach last summer, we played a game of thinking of random songs from our childhoods and finding them on Amazon Music Unlimited and singing at the top of our lungs. It was so much fun and that drive FLEW BY! It’s my favorite music app by far. I used to like Pandora but you don’t get to control what songs you get with Pandora and with Amazon, you can choose every song. Give it a try for free by clicking on the box below! You’ll get a 30 day trial and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be hooked!
- Do a trial run of loading up the car. You might THINK you have plenty of room for everything you are packing but realizing at the time you should be backing out of the driveway that you don’t have room for your cooler or the stroller… well, it’s not a good feeling. I’ve been there and it stinks. So do a trial run at the beginning of the week–you don’t have to actually be packed to do this. Empty suitcases and an empty cooler work just as well! You just want to make sure everything is going to fit.
- If you are heading out with your spouse, make sure you have an agreed upon plan before you go. How often will you switch drivers? How far will you drive between stops? Are you packing a lunch or stopping? Are you going to take many short stops or one long one? Who is in charge of mapping it all out? Is the person in the passenger seat playing navigator or is that person allowed to nap? Who is in charge of music, the driver or the passenger? I speak from experience that not having this type of game plan before you start your trip can lead to anger, frustration, hurt feelings, annoyance, and googling divorce lawyers (kidding!).
- Know how far you plan to drive per day. Your kids WILL sing out a lovely chorus of “are we there yet?” and you need to be able to answer them for your own sanity as well as theirs!
- Enjoy the journey. Honestly it’s just as much a part of the vacation as the destination is. We have so many stories from our road trips that have nothing to do with where we went. We laugh about the weird bathroom at that one gas station in Pennsylvania. We talk about the time we discovered the best pizza in the world at a random gas station in New York (ok, we have a lot of gas station stories!). There was the time we didn’t realize we set the GPS to “avoid traffic” and managed to end up in the wrong STATE! Always an adventure and those memories are just as important as anything that happens in Boston or Atlanta or Disney World.