Exciting Road Trip Tips You Didn’t Know You Needed

You know that one of the most important things that you can do in your life at least once is to go on a road trip with your family or with your friends. Getting behind the wheel of a car and taking yourself off to New Horizons is part of the fun, but you need to be prepared for it. And we mean prepared.

That means making sure that you have your GPS and you have everything packed correctly, but also making sure that you are insured with breakdown cover. Getting to know your options when it comes to having a tow truck if you break down on your road trip is important, but you can also avoid breaking down entirely before you go by having your truck or your car looked at. Let’s take a look at some exciting road trip tips you didn’t know that you needed until now.

• Plan your budget and stick to it. Before you go on your road trip, you need to plan your budget so that you can figure out how much you will need for every single thing of the trip. You should work out what you would need and then add money to that total so that you are not under budget. This way you are covered if you need extra food or there is an unforeseen expense or an emergency. What if there are toll gates that you haven’t considered? That’s just one of the things that you have to think about. Yes, you can plan, but that doesn’t mean you can plan everything.
• Don’t just slam the coffee. It’s a widely accepted choice for the road tripper, but coffee is only going to keep you alert if you are also drinking water. Coffee is a diuretic, which means that you will need to stop to go to the bathroom more often on your road trip if all you are doing is slamming the coffee down. Making sure you are drinking more water is important and you can bring water filters with you that you can attach to your bottles so that you can drink filtered water if you are nervous about drinking from any faucets. Caffeine is great and all, but you don’t want to have just caffeine to stay alert. 
• Make sure you give your car a health check before you get on the road. Taking your car to a mechanic to get it looked over before you go on your trip is important.You need to check the tire pressure for any signs of a potential flat, fill up the car with enough gas for a full tank, and make sure that you have spare tires and spare gas in the car. This way, if you need anything while you are on the road, you’re not going to get stuck somewhere that you don’t know too far away from any civilization to get help.
• Make sure that you inform somebody about where you are headed. A great trip for a successful road trip is to make sure that somebody else knows your itinerary. This should be a roommate or a family member or even your doctor if you need to tell somebody.If you’re going to be traveling to unfamiliar places then you need to ensure that you are going to be careful with your money and safe as you go. If your road trip is taking you abroad, for example, you might want to inform your bank so that they know that the transactions made in foreign places are from you.
• Put together a rough itinerary. Sometimes it’s nice to be spontaneous on a road trip, but you don’t want to rely solely on spontaneity when you are trying to get to a specific destination. Putting together a rough itinerary of what you’d like to see and where you’d like to go can help you to include the right pit stops, plan the right places to visit, and ensure that you can hit those restaurants you’ve been looking at. Making a list of all the rough things you want to do on the trip gives you something to look forward to, but it also gives you some wiggle room for a little flexibility if you want it.
• Make sure that you carry cash. It’s a good idea to have money in your hand on your bank card, but being able to carry cash is important. You may just need cash or places that don’t accept certain card payments, but also you might want to have some seed money on you in case your card gets stolen on the trip. Some places like street food trucks or stalls don’t have card payment machines either, so having cash on you can help you to get what you want without having to pay through the nose.
• Use a cash back card. If you have a credit card that gives cash back, make sure that you are using it at gas stations when you are fueling up. You can earn points on your trip and that way you’ll be able to be eligible for a cash back later. Ask your road trip buddy to do the same thing, or to use their cards to pay for fuel as you go.

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Road Trip Tips

• Get gas at every stop. Even if you have more than half a tank of gas, always top it up with another quarter tank at every full stop. You never know when you may not be able to find a gas station, or whether it’s going to be a few hours in between gas station stops. And while you may have a tank of gas in the back of the car ready to load your car up, it’s always a good idea to keep your fuel topped up as you go. You want to be safe, not sorry, especially if you’ve used up half or more of your tank.
• Plan your rest areas. Wherever you are on your road trip. Make sure that you are planning in your rest areas as much as you can. If you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before, the best thing to do is to make sure that you are opting for truck stops instead of secluded pit stops. This tip is very useful if you’re traveling with people and you want to be cautious wherever you are. Truck stops have adequate lighting, facilities, food and often a small crowd, which means it can be much better to stop in one of those than in a remote area where you don’t know anybody or there’s no proper bathroom.
• Make sure you’re getting out of the car. You should be scheduling breaks so that you can get out and stretch your legs, especially if you’re the one driving. You don’t want to feel cramped up while you’re in the car, so being sat down for too long can do that. Ensuring that you are booking time in to just get out of the car and stretch your legs is important and you shouldn’t skip out on that one.

It’s exciting to go on a road trip, but you need to be prepared and you need to have your cash and your fuel with you. If you know where your stops will be, and you know where the ATMs will be, you can ensure that you are going to be on the road feeling confident and calm about the trip that you have ahead of you.

What do you think? What would you add?

Contributed post, featured image from Pexels.