How To Plan A Road Trip
Road trips are a cool way to get around your own country and see all sorts of new things. They’re also fantastic for exploring new countries too. You can do a bit of road trip planning, get behind the wheel and get started with your own awesome tour; you’ll see all sorts of things that others won’t because you’re travelling independently.
You don’t want to do too much road trip planning, but a little bit is really important. You should choose your general direction straight away and also consider your final destination and the timeframe you have. Keeping on track will save you from a day or two of hard riving near the end!
It’s important to have snacks in the car, but think carefully about what you want to eat – avoid the big low that comes after a sugar high by eating sweets in moderation. A bag of local fruit is a good alternative to lollies – just make sure you have a rubbish bag handy for peelings and cores. To avoid arguments, it might be worth creating individual snack bags with equal amounts of different snacks in them – this tip is not just for travelling with kids!
Like sugar in sweets, caffeine and sugar in your drinks are a big problem … especially since the caffeine means you need more toilet breaks. Try to get by on water and fruit juice as much as possible. In the long-run it’ll keep you more alert and safer. That said, I always make use of coffee stops to grab a quick shot … I’m too much of an addict not to.
A car full of people is better for the budget; splitting petrol five ways is certainly nicer than paying it all yourself. But five is really too many for a comfortable road trip; I find three or four friends works best. This gives the budget a much needed injection and also means there’s a bit of room to stretch out on the back seat.
The more people you have, the more road trip planning you feel you need to do. This isn’t neccessarily true though. If everyone chooses one key thing they want to see or do, you can plan for all of them and allow the rest of the time for random stops and diversions … that’s the key of any road trip in any case! Ensure you leave time for the random and, most importantly of all, have fun.
Want to find out more about road trip planning, then visit Jonathan Asher’s page for more road trip ideas.
Related posts: