#Americana road trip checklist full#
#Americana road trip checklist portable#
#Americana road trip checklist Offline#

Tablets or iPods for passengers (optional). You don’t want to miss out on capturing all that road trip fun! We use our smartphone cameras for most shots. Having a permanent spot to hold and charge our phone while travelling helps keep the clutter down and makes sure it’s always accessible.Ĭamera. Check out our review of the Glocalme here.

It’s especially great for road trips as up to six devices can connect.

#Americana road trip checklist portable#

Our new favorite road trip gadget is our Glocalme portable WiFi device, which lets us stay WiFi connected almost anywhere in the world. We make sure we pre-install maps for every major place we plan on being so we never get caught somewhere having to hunt down free WiFi.

#Americana road trip checklist Offline#

Tip! Google Maps lets you download offline maps in case you don’t have data or WiFi at your location. In those cases, we may have been better off using a dedicated GPS unit like a Garmin Navigator with up to date maps. We also find that Google Maps driving directions aren’t always up to date in some areas of the world, like we found this spring in Quito, Ecuador. Specifically, we find the Google Maps directions aren’t great at giving lane directions. These days we primarily use Google Maps on our smartphone, but it does have some disadvantages. Smartphone apps. We make sure we have Google Maps and Google Translate installed at all times (especially internationally), and really like WhatsApp, FaceTime and Google Hangouts for staying in touch with friends and family. If you’re hiking or walking a lot with your pack, make sure you choose a good travel backpack that’s comfortable to carry. We like backpacks, because they’re easier to pack around in a car trunk, easy to carry into a hotel, and can double as a hiking pack. Even with a GPS navigator or a portable WiFi hotspot, at some point you’ll likely be without service and it’s possible Google Maps doesn’t have the area mapped out.Ī suitcase or backpack. For our driving time, we like clothes that are comfortable for travel, but that also look good during pit stops. Charles does most of his trips in a soft, cotton tee shirt.

#Americana road trip checklist full#

Snacks and drinks (see below for a full list)Ĭlothes for your trip and favorite summer destination.

These are the things that we wouldn’t consider leaving home without. Plus, you don’t need to eat airplane food or in overpriced airport restaurants, so that’s an instant win.įirst, I’ll to start with the absolute essentials, and then move on to detailed hacks for snacks, clothing, safety gear, entertainment, and odds and ends that make road trip travel so much better. That translates directly to being more comfortable, and enjoying your trip more. When you pack for a road trip, you have the luxury of a lot more room than in your carry on. Tip! Want the printable road trip packing checklist? Scroll to the end of this post! Our Essential Road Trip Packing List

In all those miles, we’ve learned the art (and science) of staying comfortable and happy on the road, which we’ve translated into a road trip packing list that we use and love. Since we live in a country that’s a whopping 5514 km (3,426 miles) across, add that to all our international road trips, and you could say that we’ve seen a lot of highway, whether solo, as a couple or, now, as a family of four. You learn early on that, as a Canadian, it’s pretty hard to avoid the long road trip.