I’ve created a checklist for our road trip essentials that we have compiled that make the long drives a little more fun! We hope our list will help you with your next road trip, whether it be for pleasure with friends or onto your next travel assignment we hope these tips make it successful and a fun adventure! Also, tell us what might be missing form our road trip essentials, we’d love to hear any suggestions you have for us!

Car preparation.

  • Get a fresh oil change (this helps with the car’s efficiency and gas mileage)
  • Full tank of gas (of course)
  • Rain-x those windows! (Our drive from Jacksonville, FL to Marlborough, MA we encountered a torrential downpour in VA. We literally couldn’t see out of any windows because of how hard it was coming down. So we had to stop and buy some Rain-x to get a clearer view. Of course it didn’t rain again the rest of the drive, haha)
  • Check the tread on your tires. (We replaced ours this past drive since it was such an ambitious drive from Philadelphia, PA to Austin, TX and we didn’t want anything hindering our journey, not to mention the incredible gas mileage increase as well!)
  • Ensure all gear and roof racks are properly working and secure. Safety is key! When we used to travel with a trailer, hooking up to our hitch safely was incredibly important after all the horror stories you see of cars fishtailing and getting turned over on highways from not being installed properly.
  • Car battery jump-starter  (This can really help you out of a jam and with new Lithium Ion batteries these are getting smaller and more powerful – ours fits in our glove box!)

Travel Snacks – When on road trips it is so difficult to stay healthy, so we usually keep lots of fruit handy.

  • Snacks are a must for us on these long drives as they keep us going!
  • Cashews and almonds
  • Bananas (They don’t travel well so we try to make it our first snack)
  • Apples (We love dipping in peanut butter)
  • Carrots and celery with hummus (Roasted red pepper is the best!)
  • Yogurt covered pretzels and raisins (Our most recent favorite!)
  • Chex Mix (we personally love the Bold flavor)
  • Naked – Green Machine Juice (Kollin swears by this stuff)
  • Kind Granola Bars (any flavor – they’re all awesome)

Games.

  • Trivia (This is always Kollin’s go-to when he starts getting sleepy; unfortunately it has the opposite effect for me!)
  • A-Z (We usually just pick any type of category and go through the alphabet until one of us can’t think of something. (Example: Category is fruit… A for apple, B for Banana, C for cantaloupe… you get the picture.)
  • Famous People (My friends and I used to play this on our road trips so it has been one of our favorites as it is essentially never ending. So start with a famous person and to continue the game, the next famous person must start with the letter that the previous one ended with. (Example: Samuel Jackson starts. Then someone follows with Neil Diamond, next could be Dave Chappelle.)

Tunes – Here are our top fun songs to get us going while driving.

  • “If I Ever Feel Better” by Pheonix
  • “Electric Love” by Borns
  • “10,000 Emerald Pools” by Borns
  • “Time and Place” by Lee Moses
  • “Lower The Heavens” by The Donkeys
  • “I Need Never Get Old” by Nathaniel Rateliff
  • “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5
  • “Fish in The Sea” by Fat Freddy’s Drop
  • “Super Bowl Sunday” by Ozo Matli
  • “Midnight City” by M83
  • “Punky Reggae Party” by Bob Marley and The Whalers
  • “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon
  • “The Life” by Gary Clark Jr.
  • “What you know” by Two Door Cinema Club