The golden rules of road tripping Veteran road trippers

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The golden rules of road tripping

Veteran road trippers (including a service station food evangelist) share their savviest tips and tricks

By Matt Meltzer

16 October 2024

https://www.cntraveller.com/article/golden-rules-of-road-tripping

Ahhhh, the road trip. A chance to put rubber to pavement along our millions of miles of roads and see the nooks and crannies of countries we’d never otherwise see. Road trips can be truly transformative travel journeys, a meditative way to traverse the countryside, meeting interesting people and exploring unusual sites. They’re also a chance to connect with your fellow road trippers, engaging in hours of conversation you wouldn’t have time for at home.

Along with all that good stuff, road trips have the potential for some big pitfalls, too, and in order to make sure your road trip is more life-changing than life-ruining, there are some basic guidelines first-time and veteran road trippers should follow. So, we talked to the experts (including a service station food evangelist) who shared their savviest road trip tips and tricks – from how to mentally (and physically) prepare for long road ahead to logistical planning recommendations.

Book your hotels ahead of time

When you see a strip of hotels off a motorway exit hundreds of miles from the nearest city, you may wonder how they ever fill all those rooms. That is, until you need a room and find they’re all sold out. Booking hotels in advance might lock you into ending your day in a certain destination, but it also saves you some headaches.

“If you’re okay with a roadside motel or hostel, you might be ok just picking a random spot. But if you want something a little nicer, don’t count on rooms being available,” says Condé Nast Traveller luxury travel specialist Jonathan Alder.

But you don’t always have to sacrifice flexibility and spontaneity for the promise of a place to sleep. “I normally book hotels in advance of the trip, but I like to change my mind on things sometimes,” says Darley Newman, host and producer of PBS’ Travels with Darley. “And if I wanna change the plan to be able to cancel 24 hours in advance, I think it’s really helpful. So I'll pay extra to do that.”

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Roadside diners, food trucks, and yes, even service stations, may surprise you with their tasty regional food. Getty

Search out your roadside meals

It might be tempting to make a motorway exit franchise row your lunch stop. But settling for processed tacos or sub sandwiches can mean missing out on some fantastic regional food.

“Some of the best expressions of regional food flavours and unique culinary styles can be found in service stations,” says Frank Beard, a travelling sales rep who’s become an evangelist for the convenience store industry, and once spent an entire month eating at only gas stations in America. “Just because someone has four walls and a gas pump doesn’t mean they can’t do something different.”

Some of his favourite American service station food stops include Papu’s Café in Kansas City, who has a top-tier chicken shawarma sandwich; Pig Trail Cafe in Arkansas, who puts out one of the best burgers in the South; and Dallas’ Chef Point Café, another gem which has appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

If you're travelling in the UK, your options are much more limited in terms of good quick food. But throughout the rest of Europe, planning ahead can work in your favour. If you're road tripping from Madrid to Valencia, for example, stop by Finca La Estacada where an entire winery is waiting for you to taste-test a few glasses and have a tour of the facilities (there's also a spa, if you fancied stopping off for a treatment or two). In Greece, you can find some excellent stop-and-go street food options, including traditional gyros and souvlaki.

Make sure your tires are filled and your fluids are topped off

Much like drinking enough water and sleeping eight hours a night, car maintenance is something you know you should do, but don’t always practice. But out of all their road trip tips, experts insist this is the biggest factor that’ll help prevent a disaster on the road.

McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty, an auto enthusiasts association that plans road trips for its members, emphasises the importance of making sure your fluids are topped off and the oil is changed. “I also tend to change my batteries out if I’m going on a long drive,” he adds.

Alder concurs: “Check your tires before you go on a long trip to see if anything is too thin,” he says. “You don’t wanna be stuck 500 miles from home and find out one of your tires is getting old and needs to be replaced. Same with coolant and oil. If you’ve got an electric car, you don’t have those but you still need to top off your wiper fluid. You’ve still got bugs stuck to your windshield.”

Bring enough food and water

“The snack situation is key,” says Newman. “You don’t wanna be hungry. That’s the worst. Make sure that everybody is gonna be okay if you’re travelling in a group, because if something goes wrong with the weather or planning you want everyone to be okay for a few hours.”

It’s doubly important for water, she says, because being dehydrated is even worse than being hungry. She suggests packing a case of water in the car, and using reusable bottles to fill up wherever you can to be a little more sustainable. And packing extra water for high-altitude drives.

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“Especially if you’re going into altitude,” she says, “People don’t realise if you’re going through places with varying altitudes, driving up and down, you have to get acclimated. So bring plenty of water.”

Pack a bag for your car too

Your car is as much a part of your road trip crew as the people inside it. So just like you pack a bag with snacks and water for everyone riding along, you should also pack a bag for your car. “Don’t just pack your own bag, pack a bag of a few extras for the car itself," says Hagerty. “Rags, ways to clean the windshield, a jack is always helpful. Most people don’t need to bring a lot of tools along, but I always bring a multi-tool and a flashlight too.”

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Packing your bags – and the car itself – in an organised fashion can save you future frustration on long drives. Mixetto/Getty

Pack the car the same way every time

One of the biggest headaches on any road trip is tossing the entire contents of your car onto the as you frantically search for a phone charger you packed somewhere. Though it might sound over the top, packing your car the exact same way, every day, solves this problem, and everyone in the car will know exactly where their stuff is. It also keeps you from having to reimagine how to creatively stuff nine suitcases in the trunk of a Prius every morning.

“I pack the same pieces of luggage every time and load them in the same order, in the same spots so I'm not playing Tetris every time we get in and out of the car,” says Elizabeth Narins, who works for the Hotel Lilien in the Catskills and makes regular family road trips to Boston, New York City, and Washington DC. She says the practice is especially helpful for families. “The stroller always goes on top so it's easy to make impromptu stops and lug the kids and their stuff. I hate clutter but can't tell you how many times all of this stuff came in handy and made impromptu park stops so much more fun for my kids.”

Don’t depend entirely on your phone’s maps

Our over-reliance on technology never becomes more obvious than when your phone signal goes out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden you’re stuck navigating remote mountain roads without a helpful voice telling you when to turn. This is why going old school and learning how to read a paper map can be a valuable backup, as can downloading directions offline.

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“When you’re off the beaten path, you don’t know what you’ll find in terms of cell coverage,” says Beard. “It’s helpful to download offline maps to your phone (you can click to download it). Your GPS will always work but if you get into an area where towers aren’t good or you can’t get data, you don’t want to have to navigate out.”

Open yourself to spontaneity

There is a fine line between effective planning and overplanning, but nearly all the experts agreed that you always want to leave room for spontaneous side trips. “Leave enough time to have those moments of randomness,” says Hagerty. “You really can’t do that if you’ve mapped out every minute of every day.”

Even if you do your research and plan out roadside attractions to visit, you may discover there’s even more to see along your route. So leaving time to explore them is important.

“Several times I thought I’d researched everything, then you see something on the side of the road that’s quirky or interesting,” says Beard. “I was on a road trip and thought I’d found all the best service station food, then I see this plume of smoke coming up from the side of the road in Missouri. And it was this truck stop where they had a homemade, chain-drive smoker, and it was some of the best barbecue of my life.”

Use the bathroom whenever you have the chance

In a larger group, nothing will throw you off schedule faster than an unsynchronised bathroom schedule. So Newman says to make sure everyone goes when you take a bathroom break, regardless of whether they think they have to. “I travelled in the desert of Jordan with the Bedouin and they have an expression‎: If you see shade, use the shade. It’s the same thing: Find the bathroom, use the bathroom, “ she says. “So if you are hitting a rest stop and someone in your group is like, ‘Oh, I don't really have to go right now,’ and they're drinking plenty of water, you need to be like, ‘Hey, you need to use the bathroom, please. Let's just be on the same page about it.’”

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Good music and good conversation are two of our favourite parts about a long road trip – so be sure to leave room for both. Michele Rossetti/Getty

Make some playlists, but don’t fill every minute of the ride

The music you listen to can be as much a part of the road trip experience as the food you eat and the scenery outside. Listening to curated road trip playlists don’t just ensure you have good music, they can expose you to other people’s musical tastes as well. “Having good music can make for a better road trip,” says Newman. “I love that sometimes, I'm listening to other people's music, and then I'm putting it on my own Spotify on that trip. So I think it can be a fun way to get a trip going.”

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But filling every minute of the drive with music can also cheat you out of quality conversation time – a rarity in today’s busy world. So Hagerty suggests turning the music off for a while and seeing where the talking takes you. “You get to have long conversations you don’t get to have with people at home,” he says. “Deep stuff. And you can connect thoughts to completion, which is so rare in life, so my wife and I plan conversations for these 100-mile drives.”

Limit driving to four to six hours per day

If you’re just trying to get from A to B as fast as possible, four to six hours of driving isn’t going to cut it. But if your road trip is equal parts journey and destination, Alder says your road time should top off somewhere in this range. “If you plan more than [4 to 6 hours], you're just gonna be spending all your daylight hours driving versus getting out and going shopping at some cute little country store, or stopping for a great lunch, or experiencing something that's just amazing you've never heard of in your life,” he says. “And getting that opportunity also means not burning yourself out.”

If you’re driving electric, plan meals with your charging stops

Alder, an avid Tesla driver, insists you can make long distance road trips in electric cars, especially with Tesla opening its vast network of supercharging ports to all electric cars by next year. Still, charging your car will take longer than filling a tank, so using that time wisely can help make the most of your road trip. Tesla’s app, as well as several other EV apps like PlugShare, will show you where charging ports are located all along your route.

“I'll sit before I go on a road trip and look at not only where the chargers are, but at what restaurants are next to the chargers,” he says. “So if I don't like anything at one charger, I can look and see there's another one three miles down the road that has something perfect. That way not only am I using that time for a nice lunch and enjoying myself, but I won’t have to do a separate charging stop.”

Let stuff go

Even the best laid road trip plans can get thrown to the wayside, whether because of road closures, weather, car issues, or any of the other litany of things that can arise along the way. Newman says the most important thing you can do is maintain a good attitude, and accept the hiccups as part of the experience.

“You really have to just roll with it,” she says. “You're gonna hit traffic, there's gonna be issues. So if you can just be a little more relaxed about it, that is probably my number one rule. Just don't get too upset about anything because it's really just not worth it.”