The Best Road Trip Tips

Road tripping can be so much fun, but stressful at the same time. These tips will hopefully help take the stress away.

Hi friends! I got back from a week long trip out to Wyoming to visit Vince’s family. We spent a lot of time in the car traveling through the beautiful U.S. It was such a wonderful trip and I am going to write about it more next week :) However, this week’s post is a travel tip and I thought it would be perfect to write about the best road trip tips since I just got back from a 14 hour trip each way! My family used to go on road tips all the time when I was younger as well; to Oklahoma, Florida, New York, you name it, we would travel by car. These road trips are some of my favorite travel memories ever!

1. Bring Things To Pass Time

Some points of a road trip can be a little boring if there isn't anything to look at, so try bringing things to keep you from getting bored. Vince and I were just joking the other day how both our families brought a TV (the big ones from the early 2000’s) that would connect to the power adapter, along with our PlayStation 2. I am sure many other people’s families did the same exact thing!! We would play the whole way to wherever we were going and it made the trip go a lot faster. For our trip last week, I brought a few things to do. I brought along a book (I get carsick sometimes when I read so this usually doesn’t last very long), I am a nerd and love Sudoku so some of those came along with me, and I planned on writing a few blog posts for the future as well. Anything that you find enjoyable that you can bring along with may make the ride go faster!

2. Find Games to Play

My parents and I road tripped out to South Dakota a few years back and we always joke about the ABC game we played. It goes: “Today I went to the store and bought an” and then you would say an ‘A’ word, and then the next person would have to repeat yours and then say a ‘B’ word and so on and so forth. Another game I always enjoy playing in the car is the alphabet game where you try to find letters on road signs in order before the other people in the car. Lastly, I thought something fun to try on this long road trip was looking for plates from other states. As we went along we would check license plates and we tried to get all 50.. As you can see from the picture above, we were 3 short!!

3. Bring Car Snacks/Food for Meals

You may have seen a recent story of mine if you follow me on Instagram about what is your favorite car snack? I thought this was fun to see everyone’s and gave me some ideas to bring! I think packing a cooler full of drinks and food is the ideal way to go on a road trip. On this trip, we brought lunch meat and other items to make wraps. I was able to make them for us right in the car while Vince drove. This overall is less stressful because it saves time looking up something to eat and time spent stopping. It also is a cheaper option when traveling!

4. Be Aware of Your Gas Level

Traveling out west made me realize gas stations can be few and far between. There aren’t as many towns to stop in along the way because there a lot of farmland. A good rule we made was that if we were close to ¼ tank left of gas and we saw a gas station we were going to stop. I think the worst thing about traveling would be to ever have to stress about running out of gas in a place there might not be a town for miles.

5. Clean Out Your Car Along the Way

One thing I really learned on this trip was keeping the car clean. I am a person that can get claustrophobic in certain situations, and this doesn't help when I get car sick. I did my best whenever we stopped for gas to throw away any garbage we had since the last time we stopped. This really helped with clutter and not feeling so claustrophobic. Also, at the end of the trip, when you just want to get home and inside, you don't have to do so much cleaning!

6. Enjoy The Views

The most important thing about a road trip is just sitting back and enjoying the views. There is so much to see that you can never see from flying in an airplane. I just love to look out the window and letting the land go past me while I take in the views. Being in the car for so long can get tiring, but making sure you take in the views helps you appreciate the trip so much more.

Road trips can be so much fun if you have planned correctly. Having things to do or to keep yourself from getting bored is so important. Also, there is so much to see when you are traveling and this is the best part about it all. Take time to enjoy these memories, because that may be the only time you get to take a road trip through that place! :)