My parents love to drive places. I absolutely love airports and would choose to fly in a heartbeat, but there is some charm to road trips – one being that my habits for overpacking aren’t that much of an issue because I stuff my suitcase full and bring another bag if I want to. Also, my mom always packs the best snack collection in the game. Our trip to Louisiana over holidays to visit both sides of the family is by far the longest trip we make. A whopping 14 hours can be super intimidating to a newbie road-tripper, but my dad and I can do this trip in a day if we needed to. I wrote this post a couple years ago for spring break, but I thought I would update it and talk about how I survived the latest saga in the Whiten family road trip.
1. A Good Book
So, I am one of the few people out there that can read, watch movies, listen to music, etc. without getting sick in a moving vehicle. If you too are like me, please don’t forget any of the above items.I’m currently viciously turning the pages of The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins. I read over 200 pages during the 14 hour trip and it’s so good and I kind of want to binge read it all tonight. Next on my list is Big Little Lies. I’ll probably grab that to read on the way back to Virginia.
2. Headphones
This is another instance where I am so glad that I invested in a quality pair of Beats headphones. Whether someone has a cough or you want to block out some noise to get some sleep during your break from driving, you’ll want to carry along some headphones. I’d also slip in some earbuds so that you can listen to music when you hit up the hotel gym just in case they don’t supply any. Headphones are a definite must.
3. A Fruity Candy
While I love my assortment of Skinny Pop and Granola Bars, there’s no better road trip snack than a good fruit candy to suck on or chew. My personal favorites have to be Starbursts or Jolly Ranchers. They are also perfect for the winter months if someone has a sore throat or a cough because let’s be honest, those cough drops probably aren’t working. The nice thing is you can pick them up from the gas station if you forget them.
4. A Car Charger
I listen to a ton of music and check Instagram during the entire ride which can kill my battery if I’m browsing Spotify for music that I don’t have downloaded. It’s really nice to be able to keep my phone charged up so I don’t lose any methods to preoccupy myself during the hours of countryside and swamp. My dad picked up a car charger that also has a USB port so there won’t be any fighting if multiple people need to charge simultaneously.
5. A Comfy Jacket
Although my bomber jacket was my actual jacket for the trip that I wore into restaurants and shops, I rode in the car with my Sherpa pullover that I technically received as a Christmas gift. It’s literally so comfortable. My mom picked up the dark grey color from the brand Thread & Supply from a local surf shop, but you can still pick up the pink and red/black plaid colors from Nordstrom for $78 which is half the price of the one that I asked for in my Christmas wish list! It’s pretty oversized and you could go a size down and still have a pretty loose fit. This pullover was so soft that it also doubled as my blanket.
I definitely love a good road trip, but only if I have my essentials. You can check out more of my tips here from this older post. 10/10 would also recommend downloading any of my Spotify playlists from my profile here. When I travel, I tend to get the best Instagram content so be sure to be following along with the @theswirlblog and @gabbywhiten accounts to stay up to date with all my adventures in NOLA. Are you traveling this holiday season? Driving perhaps? What are your must-have essentials for road trips?
keep on keepin’ on,
