Updated April 22  /  Marisol Ferrante

Road trip

Three to ten days, your own car or a hire car, at least one night somewhere without a shop.

Road trips fail differently from flights. Nothing is weight-limited, so the packing is easy, and everything is time-limited, because the shops shut and the light goes. This list is organised by that.

The car, a week before

• Tyre pressures, including the spareThe spare is the one nobody checks and the only one that matters when it matters.
• Oil and screenwash
• WipersTen minutes. Do it before, not in a downpour on a mountain road.
• Know where the jack and the wheel brace actually areIn a hire car, find them in the car park before you drive off.
• Breakdown cover valid where you are going

In the car, always

• Paper map of the regionNot nostalgia. Coverage dies in exactly the valleys you want to drive through.
• Phone mount and a charger that works while driving
• Torch with working batteries
• High-vis vest, one per personLegally required in a lot of places and useful in all of them.
• Warning triangle
• Two litres of drinking water beyond what you plan to drink
• A roll of kitchen paperYou will find a use before day two.
• Bin bags
• CoinsBarrier car parks and one bridge in every country still refuse cards.

The cooler

• Freeze two water bottles as the ice blocksThey melt into drinking water instead of a puddle.
• Hard cheese, not softSurvives a warm afternoon. Soft cheese does not, memorably.
• Bread bought on the day, not before
• Something to cut with and something to cut onA small board saves the car boot.
• SaltThe single item that turns roadside food into a meal.
• Fruit that does not bruiseApples and oranges. Not peaches, ever.
• Two mugs and a flask

The route

• Book only the first and last nightsThe middle is the point of a road trip.
• Know the last fuel stop before any long empty stretch
• Set a daily driving cap and stick to itFour and a half hours for me. Past that I stop looking out of the window.
• Plan to arrive in daylightEvery bad road-trip memory I have starts with arriving somewhere at 11pm.
• One thing per day you actually want to seeOne. The rest is the driving, which is the good part.

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Related: documents, which includes the hire-car paperwork block.