Road Trip Essentials: The Ultimate Road Trip Packing List

Even before stepping into the car, look for your license and car registration documents. Without these papers, you might not be even able to reach your destination or even leave your city. Make sure you keep:

• Multiple copies of your original documents so that if there comes a moment when you have to submit a copy, you will have an extra copy with you.
• Your driving licence both original and photocopy
• Your car’s pollution certificate
• Car license and registration copies
• Car Insurance copies
• Any other identity proof for yourself

Just be prepared for a bad day, don’t have one, just be prepared for one. A spare tyre can help you save your time and you can reach your destination without any further delays. Keep the following things with you while travelling:

• Car jack
• Spare tyre
• Flares and reflective triangles
• Wheel wedges
• Flat tyre repair kit

Watch some good tutorials on youtube which help you learn how to change the tyres.

An emergency kit is another bad day preparation or more like precaution that is a necessity when you hit the road. Make sure your emergency kit is filled with all the necessary things that will make your journey easy and comfortable. Things like a warning triangle, whistle, tyre pressure gauge, window breaker, first-aid, etc.

On a road trip, you might not get water at every stop so keep one or two water bottles with you and refill them whenever you do get access to drinking water. Keeping yourself hydrated during travel is important.

But also keep an extra water bottle or two (need not be drinking water) in the boot.

This will also help you in case of emergencies like overheating or when you require to refill your windshield water, clean up something, etc.

Keep every possible aid with you. You never know what you will need at which point in time. From necessary medicines to bandages to antiseptic creams and solutions, keep everything ready with you. This is a priority when it comes to road trip essentials. And it’s not just important that you keep it, read up a little bit about first-aid so that you know what to use when, where, and how. A few things you would want to carry are:

• Diarrhoea medicine
• Vomit medicine
• Bandages, band-aids, and gauze
• Cotton
• A pair of Scissors
• Doctor’s tape
• Antiseptics
• Thermometer
• Sunburn treatment
• Paracetamol/aspirin
• Glucose
• Any other medicine that you need for any pre-existing medical condition

Heading for a road trip is knowing there will be times when you won’t have any availability of resources you might need. Flashlights are one of those things you won’t find in the middle of the road. If the car battery crashes in the middle of the road, you will have to use a flashlight to reach to help. Keep extra of them with you, and extras of their batteries are also essentials for road trips and must make into your road trip packing list. Try to get solar or auto-powered torches, as they can last longer (in the case of the former) or can be self-powered (like the latter).

This is a non-negotiable entity without which any trip isn’t possible anywhere. Carry this with you whether you are going on a trip or not. Keep some good songs on your USB and listen to them and sing along.

Also, keep a power bank just in case you lose your charger or USB.

For any spillage that happens, wet wipes or tissues will be an easy solution for you, there will not be water available 24*7. Keep an alternate option with you ready.

You can also keep old rags as handy wipes for your car.

You never know where you will have to stop your car in the middle of the road and spend the night there in the car because of the visibility. This is one reason, there will be plenty of such reasons. Always keep a blanket in your luggage or handy so that if something like this happens, you are ready with a solution.

In the same case as the blanket, make yourself comfortable as much as you can on the road trip. A pillow and a blanket will help you sleep properly and be ready for the next day. Make your life easy when on the wheels, travel can tire your spine. Add this to your list of road trip essentials.

Keep your hands clean, you will have to eat with those hands and maybe without washing. Keep a sanitizer handy with you. It has alcohol content in it that will help kill the bacteria on your hand. Washing your hands won’t be possible every time on the road trip.

Sun can be harsh the day you travel. Wear or keep sunglasses with you. It will save your eyes from the UV rays and it’ll become easy for you to drive. Sun striking in your eyes is not good for your retinas and your journey. These should definitely be added to the road trip packing list.

Apply sunscreen with a higher SPF to avoid sunburns or any inflammation on your skin. L’Oreal UV Perfect is perfect for all types of skin. Don’t let the sun spoil your pictures and mood.

Toothbrush, toothpaste, face wash, and wipes are a few necessary items that you need to keep as your toiletries. Keep them available to you. It will be helpful for you when you’ll have to crash somewhere on the road. A towel to clean yourself up will be great. It will help if your hotel or resort doesn’t provide you with toiletries.

Keep mouthwash handy in case you do not have access to water tobrush your teeth

Refresh yourself with cool drinks throughout the journey. For that, you will need a Rubbermaid cooler. Preferably buy a rubber cooler. Drinks stay cool and fresh for a longer time in this cooler. Mark this in your road trip essentials list.

Let’s make the world a better place and not throw garbage on the roads. Keep a trash bag with you in the car, throw the waste in it, and throw the bag when you find a dustbin. Throwing trash on the roads doesn’t make you a better person. These bags can also come in handy if someone gets carsick are isn’t time or place to pull over (although it is always best to not use plastic, and instead throw up in the soil where it can be absorbed into the earth).

Also, segregate the waste.

If the waste is organic, such as banana peels or other fruit or vegetable waste, you can dispose of it where there are soil and vegetation. They will serve as a source of nutrients for trees and plants. But dumping any other waste indiscriminately is a big no-no. Be better, do better.

Food is the only thing that can make you feel happy about the tiring journey. Keep snacks in the cooler to eat them fresh. And if you are on a long journey, keep a lot of it with you.  And if you are a foodie, then leave everything aside and take just the food along with you. Ready to eat food or spend some time in the snack-making, your choice! Take it along with you to make your stomach happy and growing.

If you don’t have or want a cooler, carry snacks like energy bars and fruit. Or even things like chips and other packaged snacks if that is your choice.

Since we don’t live in the age anymore where paper maps and the pole star are used to reach a destination, move to technology. Use GPRS for directions. It not just shows you the directions but also shows you the way where there is less traffic to tackle.

However, if you are using GPRS on your phone it is sometimes subject to a good network connection. So download or save your destination’s route offline as a precaution. You can also invest in a GPRS system like Garmin or TomTom for your car.

Money can buy you anything, quite literally. Cash, credit cards, debit cards, food cards, carry all of it with you. And keep some extra cash ready to use in case your cards don’t help you – for example at certain toll booths. There are places where cards might not work, so you would want to keep cash with you.

Don’t just make memories, capture them too to look at them years later and remind yourself of the time you spent on the wheels and how that trip changed your life in many ways.

This will be a life-changing adventure, make the most of it and make memories.

And don’t forget to fill up your fuel tank, check your tyre pressure and give a basic once-over of your vehicle before starting off. Happy road tripping!

Hope you like the blog and that it helped you in your road travel planning. Comment below if you have other essentials for a road trip in mind and let us know.

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Also read: Amazing road trips you can make from India’s major cities