Road Trip Recap: Planning to Hit the Road

The absolutely most important piece of planning a road trip is that you must have an excellent travel buddy. You will be spending all of your time in close proximity to this person and you will have many hours in the car. Most of your trip you will be quite content and excited about the next destination, munching on trail mix and taking pictures of the beautiful landscapes. There will be periods of silly deliriousness brought on by lack of sleep, frustration with traffic or freaked out by the lack of civilization for miles upon miles. Seriously, how did the pioneers EVER make it to California?! Even with air conditioning blasting, snacks and drinks at the ready AND emergency supplies, there were moments that I thought, "If we breakdown, how will we survive?"

Well, I lucked out and my travel buddy, K, happens to also be my aunt and one of my BFFs. Since we share very similar taste in music, audiobooks, cuisine and can laugh at just about anything together, our trip really couldn't have been smoother. 

How did we plan this nearly 8000 mile trip? Here are some of our planning tools and supplies:

Planning

RoadTrippers.com - This is a great website & app, even if you are taking a weekend trip. You can find points of interest along your route such as Roadside Attractions, Restaurants, Accommodations, Photo Ops, Gas and more. Each point of interest is rated by the users on "Rad-o-meter" and some folks leave reviews. You can then print your directions our or access from the road - just be sure you have service. There are still many rural places that do not or have a very slow connection. 

TripAdvisor.com - Before booking any hotel, we searched through TripAdvisor to see what folks had to say. We wanted to be sure we weren't staying at the Bates Motel. 

Expedia.com & Booking.com were our primary booking websites. One issue - when Expedia sends you an email with your itinerary, there is very little information and when you click through, you must sign in to get the details. When you are tired and road weary, this can be frustrating.

Supplies

• Small Cooler - Keep beverages cold, healthy snacks (carrots, hummus, grapes). Refill ice at hotel.
• Seat cushions - We found these seat cushions at Costco for $19.99 and they were worth it! We both noticed that we weren't as stiff and uncomfortable as we should have been after a full day's drive.
• Snap-top sealing food storage container with small bags for trash 
• Shower caddy - We found this idea online and instead of a traditional 2 compartment caddy, K found 1 compartment somewhat flexible plastic caddies that worked fabulously. More often than not, we would have snacks in the car instead of getting a more formal lunch and could put the trail mix, almonds, and bag of grapes into the caddy and it fit nicely on the center console for easy picking. 
• Audiobooks - We listened to 6 audiobooks during our trip. Most libraries offer digital downloads of audiobooks these days, so can be a cheap option. 
• Extra sheets & blanket - Should you find yourself and your travel buddy in one double bed in a wigwam and want a sheet & blanket of your own, this will come in handy. 
• Beach towel - You never know when you'll get caught in the rain, put your feet in the pacific or step in some mud!
• Drinks, snacks and  a corkscrew - You will get a much better deal on drinks if you buy them in bulk. We picked up some bottled water and Starbucks Frappucino's at Costco to keep in the car and restock the cooler. This worked swimmingly. We never ran out of water and there was always a cold beverage on deck. You will choose healthier snacks in advance. I found that as we neared the end of our trip, I was drawn to more junk food. I'm not sure why exactly. It probably doesn't help walking by chips and candy while searching for the restroom at the gas station. 

Do you have any travel tips? If so, please share! 

Safe travels. xx....m