Ten Essentials We Never Road Trip Without
You’ve set your destination for the big, upcoming road trip. You know what lies ahead is a whole lot of open land, tons of novel landmarks to behold, and, let’s face it, a bunch of decisions to be made. Along the way, you’ll have to decide what to eat, where to stop for gas, where to sleep - this is part of the fun of a road trip, extended or spanning just a few short days. In our estimation, it’s ten times more enjoyable to leave these items unplanned when starting off on a long journey on the open road. We, humans, are an adaptable bunch and the good news is that the more we have to adapt, the more adaptable we become. Road tripping without every detail planned out to the minutiae becomes a bountifully rewarding way of traveling and experiencing life by yourself or with loved ones.
While we recommend leaving the smaller travel details out of your plannings, we couldn’t suggest highly enough the need for developing a packing routine full of the essential items you’ll need to face any detour along the way. Certainly, you’ll find that you don’t quite know which of the items you already own will help you along the way. The beauty of traveling by car is that you can, in theory, pack as much (or as little) as you want with your first few go-arounds. We’d suggest overpacking for at least your first one or two significant roadies. This will allow you the ability to ease yourself out of the comfort zone of home life without diving into the deep end of the pool on try #1. Once you’ve gathered all the belongings you think you’ll need for your journey in a pile on your bed or on the living room floor, that’s where we come in!
Allow us the privilege of helping you whittle that down a bit (or beef it up, depending on your travel experience levels). We’ve done quite a bit of road tripping in our time together and prior and have come to find that packing light on the right things and heavy on the other right things can make a massive difference in the overall road trip experience. In this process, we’ve come up with a list of items we think it’s absolutely crucial for us (and we think eventually for you) to pack into the trunk before anything else gets stacked neatly in there.
In no particular order and without further ado, here is our list of 10 Absolutely Essential Items We Never Road Trip Without:
Thule Tepui Explorer Kukenam 3 Rooftop Tent ($1500)
Our Total-package Thule Tepui Tent. Top of our packing list, every time.
If you’re a long time reader of ours at M+J Away, you’ll know that this is our most crucial travel item - our sleeping quarters! If you’ve seen Molly driving around town, you’ll instantly recognize her blue Subaru with the grey rooftop tent cover. The Thule Tepui Explorer Kukenam 3 (whew, that’s mouthful, isn’t it?) is without a doubt our favorite purchase as a couple together. While we aren’t quite able to splurge and go for the Sprinter van to support our travels just yet, the rooftop tent has been a cost-effective and simplistic solution for all of our road tripping needs. We can pull over and set up camp pretty much anywhere that’s secluded, out of visibility of main roads, and legal, and know we’ll get a really solid night of sleep. For anyone who’s slept in their trunk or tried to set up a traditional tent on pavement during the black of night, this is a gamechanger purchase.
The tent folds out effortlessly in under 3 minutes at our fastest time, and fits three adults relatively comfortably, meaning that James and his giant limbs have no problem stretching out. The bottom holds a nice mattress-like sleeping pad, the outer lining is weather resistant and even comes with a rain cover for keeping dry on those torrential downpour nights. You don’t need to worry about parking on perfectly level surfaces, either, as the ladder attachment acts as not only a support for half of the weight, but as a leveler for the entire tent. We couldn’t be happier with this masterful piece of Swedish technology from Thule.
KIZEN Solar Lantern ($15)
Something you probably didn’t think you’d need because, well, we all have flashlights in our pockets in the form of our smartphones, is a lantern! When you’re setting up camp, enjoying dinner, or curling up with a good book as the sun begins to disappear, however, you’ll love the ease of lantern by your side, instead. As climate-conscious consumers we especially appreciate the ability to harness the power of the sun when lighting up our campsite and charging our phones. That’s right! The KIZEN Solar Lantern not only holds hours and hours of charge for lighting, it can fully charge our phones in as little as four hours. That’s impressive for something with a small photovoltaic grid on the top of it and compresses into the size of a hockey puck. Carry it outside your backpack on a hike or keep it in direct sun while you’re driving to top it up. Having this offers tons of off-grid flexibility for us in case we need an extra charge or light source away from the car.
Wise Owl Outfitters Portable Camping Hammock ($25)
While we don’t always trip through places with the required pair of tree trunks, we enjoy having the ability to set up our Wise Owl Camping Hammock when we can. One of the signifiers of comfortability with road tripping in general is one’s ability to relax and unwind in a time and place. A common mistake for many is to always seek the next place, getting there by a certain time “or else”. Stopping to take it all in makes road trips exponentially more memorable, and one of the best ways we’ve found is to get horizontal and look up at the clouds, through the trees you’re tethered to, in a comfy two-person hammock. The more you use a hammock, the better your life is. It’s one of life’s simple mathematics equations.
Our ‘Carter Move’ mugs from Fellow are tailored to our exact specifications. Let ‘em KNOW M.
Carter Move Mugs from Fellow ($35)
If you’re an avid latte drinker like the both of us, you might have noticed how much waste is created by all of the coffee cups you’ve used and tossed in your life. If you account for the fact that you have no choice but to purchase your lattes (instead of make them at home in a normal mug) you’ll want even more to invest in a quality travel mug that you’ll hold dear for years. Our favorite has become the sleek and utile Carter Move Mug from Fellow. It’s customizable, too, so you can design something that means a little bit more to you and save the hundreds of plastic lids and paper cups you’d otherwise toss along the way on a road trip. It’s easy to ask baristas if they’ll wash your cup for you before they pour your next latte. They appreciate your conservation efforts as much as we do!
Nidra Contoured Sleep Mask ($18)
If you’re a light sleeper and you pulled into your destination for the night too late, having a sleep mask to allow you a couple of extra hours to sleep in in the morning is a difference maker. If you’re trying to sneak some shuteye in while being in the passenger seat (if you’ve got a travel partner or two), it’ll come in equally handy. The best mask we’ve found and are sticking to is the contoured (a.k.a. doesn’t press against your eyelids during use) Nidra Sleep Mask. Straightforward and inexpensive, this is one of those 10x purchases that will aid your sleep and your days to follow without making a dent in your travel budget.
Mack's Original Soft Foam Earplugs ($11)
Along similar lines of the aforementioned eye mask, ear plugs can be massively beneficial when you’re sleeping in potentially noisy situations. These can include spots near busy highways, in crowded campgrounds, or next to a snoring travel partner. Luckily for us, the last one doesn’t apply - though Molly likes to talk in her sleep when she’s had an especially tiring day prior (don’t tell her I said that). The best type of earplug is undoubtedly the soft foam variety which compress and then expand to the shape of your inner ear, filling every nook and cranny that might allow sound in. For these, our favorite is Mack’s Original Foam Earplugs. One inexpensive jar of these will last you a long, long time and make a world of difference in unfailingly variable sleeping conditions along the way.
If you don’t have matching Away Carry-Ons are you even a #travelcouple?
Away Carry-On Suitcases ($250+)
One of the departments in which we all tend to most often over-pack is with our clothing. Even in the colder months, we end up bringing too much clothing for what a road trip truly requires of our wardrobe. One of the ways we are able to keep ourselves to a humble load of clothing, while doing so fashionably, is by using our *matching* Away Carry-On suitcases. Not only are these the best flight travel suitcases we’ve ever owned because of their durability and pleasing aesthetic, they help us fit all of our clothing needs into a small space. That allows us to keep our car uncluttered and hit the ground running every morning when we wake up or finish a hike and need a quick change of clothes. These suitcases have paid for themselves and then some, especially given how much we fly for our volleyball obligations, as well.
Molly goes everywhere with her Chacos, especially to the top of mountains.
Even more than her Chacos, Molly takes her Canon EOS T7 with her pretty much everywhere she goes.
Speaking of lightweight clothing loads and feathery footprints inside the car’s limited trunk space, you’ll always need trusty adventuring footwear! Hiking boots are necessary in the winter and when you hit snow anywhere along the way. For any other type of terrain you might come across, having a pair of lightweight and supportive hiking sandals is one of the best purchases you can make. If you don’t already own a pair of trekking sandals of the like, Chacos are the widely recommended way to go. As with any durable shoe, it took us a couple days of use to form some foot calluses and attune the strapping to our feet. As they’ve become the comfy clouds they’re purported to be, we’ve never gone on a road trip where we knew we’d be walking more than a few feet from the car without them.
Molly’s Canon EOS T7 Rebel ($479)
One of the best ways to experience a trip and look back fondly on it afterwards is by capturing its wonderful moments through a high-powered lens. Molly recently invested a small sum in her added companion, the Canon EOS T7 Rebel, giving us the ability to play around with light and color in a way we’d not been able to before on our iPhone cameras. While it’s easy to flip out our phones at a moment’s notice to record something unexpected on a road trip, having a higher quality camera allows us to produce even more memorable photographs for ourselves and for this very website. Like most of these purchases, it has already paid for itself many times over in the value it’s created for us in our ability to share the art we so love creating with you on M+J Away.
YETI Tundra 35 Hard Cooler ($275)
You’ll probably want to eat along the way, no? Last but certainly not least, we decidedly pack our cooler tight with perishable snacks prepared at home or from Trader Joe’s. We know fully well that one of the largest expenses on the road tends to be in buying meals, so having a trusty and spacious cooler to aid in saving some precious moolah is an essential for us. The YETI Tundra 35 Hard Cooler is one of our most utilized road trip items, holding its low temperatures for days on end and allowing us to meal prep our salad jars and overnight oats. Having fresh food in the back of your car after a night spent camping is one of the more underrated pluses on a long road trip without a lot of other ‘homey’ essentials.
Having a few essentials packed in a routine way can rid you of a lot of the front end hassle of a road trip. Even more importantly, having these items to keep you running smoothly can make all the difference between a positive or negative experience while out in the wild. While these ten items may not be suited to your exact needs for your travels, they do represent some of the most significant ways we’ve filled the gaps in our travels to date. Either way, road tripping is a trial and error kind of process. Nature has a humbling effect on all of us in one way or another. It’s just a matter of how and when it does, and making sure we’re all prepared to face it is one of the most time-honored ways of ensuring a still-positive experience on the road.
If you especially agree with and appreciate some of the same items we’ve included, or completely disagree with the need for one or two of them, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Chime in below in the comment section and let’s discuss!