Who loves a good long road trip?

Sun shinning, music bumping, window down with the breeze in your face. It’s amazing, right?!

It can also be super stressful. The planning, packing, and trying to stay on schedule.

We have some experience with road trips.

My family and I have taken many road trips from Pennsylvania to Florida and back. We almost know the route by heart now. While it is a longer trip, it seems short compared to our other road trips.

In 2022, we drove from Pennsylvania to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Easy stuff. Then we went from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Pacific coast! Meeting up with the other ocean at La Jolla Cove in San Diego, California. Driving Mostly on I-40 on the way over and then I-80 & I-70 on the way back. We were on the road for 30 days. I did burpees from coast to coast. So much fun!

In 2023, we drove from Pennsylvania up to Acadia National Park in Maine and then drove the east coast, south, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Not as far in mileage as our East Coast to West Coast trip but still pretty lengthy. We were on the road for 33 days.

In 2024, we decided, again, to drive to the west coast but this time we went from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California, up to Seattle, Washington, took I-90 over to the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, with a last stop in Chicago, Illinois before making our way back home. This trip is our longest one to date with 44 days on the road.

Somewhere near 16,700 miles traveled, just in those 3 adventures.

Each journey was a little different and we are working on optimizing our packing and planning. It will never be perfect, but that is part of the fun.

Here are my tips for Planning and Packing for long road trips.

Best Long Road Trip Planning Tips: The Planning

Flexible Schedule

Unless you are on a short road trip and have a hard return time (we do this with our down and back Florida trips all the time), my best advice for a long road trip schedule is to not have one.

Hear me out. You need to be able to pivot.

Have an idea of what you would like to see and do, have a destination in mind, but only pencil MOST plans in your calendar.

A long road trip, two or more weeks, you will probably run into problems. We’ve had to adjust due to car issues, food poisoning, weather, and major traffic. We give ourselves plenty of time to get to a destination. During the 2024 trip, we knew we were going to Disneyland. Had our dated tickets purchased months in advance. This was the only thing that had a dedicated schedule for this entire 44 day trip.

From experience, we knew we would be okay driving about 12 hours a day, including rest stops, and we wanted to get across the country as fast as possible so there was going to be little sight seeing on the way out west.

We made great time in the first couple days, so much so we ended up stopping to see the Colorado River and then in Moab to explore for a few hours before visiting the Arches National Park. It was great experiences that we didn’t have planned.

After Disneyland we toured a lot of L.A. made our way up to San Francisco, the Redwood Forest – we spent a lot of time in California. Then on our way to Crater National Park in Oregon, the AC broke in our car, in 100 degree weather. We had to dilly dally for a couple days before we could get the car into the shop to be fixed. We made the best of it by getting some work done, doing laundry at the hotel, and just resting after weeks of go-go-go. We bought a deck of cards and played a lot of card games in the hotel room too.

We made it up to Seattle, then over to Deadwood, South Dakota where our son ended up getting food poisoning. Spent another day in a hotel letting him rest and recover, which he did with gusto.

All this to say, that if we had concrete plans, the trip would have felt overwhelming and disappointing somedays. Without having a schedule, we were able to roll with it for the good and bad.

Trusted Sources for Sightseeing and Rest Stops

Each trip we had a hit list of where we wanted to sightsee and sometimes knew what those things were going to be. In 2023, we knew we wanted to stop at the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory in Vermont. And knew we wanted to stop in Boston but didn’t have much of an idea of what to do. Surprisingly, as soon as we got to our hotel, we came across a tour bus that did a ghost story tour around the city of Boston – that was so cool! Highly recommend!

Hot Tip: we love a good touristy bus tour. You can see a lot of and learn about each city pretty quickly. We like doing those and then exploring the city from there.

To do our planning, from home, I used Google and trip advisor to find some fun things to do for some stops. I bought road trip books from Barnes and Noble and Amazon for ideas. (Also, having an atlas in the car as a back up makes me feel more prepared.)

Kid-Friendly books to get them involved before and during the trip

Once we were out on the road we used a lot of websites and apps.

Usually each city has a chamber of commerce website. Makes for a reliable resource for finding fun and safe things to do. They will even post about local festivals, fairs, and markets which helps us feel like a native to that city for a bit.
i-Exit App: shows you what is at each exit you are near. To help you pick and choose when to stop for bathroom breaks, gas stops, food, and hotels.
National Park Service and recreation.gov Apps: a great resource for when you want to visit a national park. It gives you all the information for each and for some of them, like Arches National Park, there was a timed entry and a nominal payment to use a car on property. Super helpful when exploring our beautiful parks.
Marriott Bonvoy App: we use our Marriott app to find and book hotels wherever we are. Most of the time we didn’t have a hotel booked until a couple hours before we arrived. Especially when we just needed to sleep for a night to then get right up and continue driving. We also do this for our down and back Florida trips. We drive as far as we can after work/school on a Friday night. We will start deciding at about 8 or 9 pm when and where we want to stop from looking at the map in the Marriott app, and then book an available room. We trust Marriotts. Springhill Suites are our favorite quick overnight hotels.

Best Long Road Trip Planning Tips: The Packing

Depending on where you are going, what your activities you have in mind, the time of year, and for how long, will depend on what clothes and personal hygiene things you need to bring. For these long road trips, we pack enough clothes for about 14 days. We bring our normal hygiene things and stop at Targets or other grocery stores when we run out of consumables. I go through a can of hair mousse in about 8-10 days. I bring only one from home, knowing that we will need to stop at a store in about a week. We try not to over pack but it enviably happens.

Must Haves

Luggage – we each bring a large suitcase, an overnight bag, and a book bag. The majority of our things are in the large suitcases with our packing cubes and we only take those into hotels when we are staying two or more nights or every few single nighters to repack our overnight bags. When we are staying just one night, the overnight bags come in with the essentials. Pj’s, hygiene bags, grounding sheet, etc. The book bags contain our tech and toys that come in the hotels every time.
Grounding Sheet – I love this sheet. Helps us sleep so much better.
Travel Essential Oil Diffuser – we use this in the car and in the hotels at night. Not only do essential oils have health benefits, sometimes hotels have an odor that doesn’t sit well with us and this has come in clutch!
First Aid kit and “Pharmacy Bag” – I want to be prepared for as much as I can. And when your kid wakes in the middle of the night in a weird city with some ailment, definitely want to be able to give him something to help ease his discomfort. I carry things from bandaids and mole skin to pain relievers and cold medicine. The pharmacy bag goes in to every hotel with us and I have a second first aid kit that stays in the car where I can grab it quickly. I also keep laundry detergent pods, shout wipes, and a small travel lint roller in the pharmacy bag too.

Food and Storage

Cooler – we have a hard sided cooler that is our main cooler. I freeze individual water bottles before we leave and those are our ice for the first few days. If we stay at any hotel that has a freezer I will freeze more water bottles overnight too. That way the cooler stays cold but dry. Along with water and some low sugar energy drinks we also like to pack fruits and veggies, baby bell cheeses, and sometimes greek yogurts and deli meats. These food items vary depending on where we are at in the road trip, what the plans are looking like in the next few days. And we restock when we stop at a grocery store.
Cooler Bag – we use the cooler bag to take foods and drinks into a hotel for overnights. We drink a lot of water before bed, but don’t necessarily want to take the big cooler in for single nights.
Snack Bag – Bag of snacks. We bring snacks like pretzels and trail mix to packets of tuna and Chomps sticks. I also take hydration packets like LMNT or Liquid IV and packets of greens from 1st Phorm. We have also brought bread and peanut butter. Popcorn for when the hotel has a microwave, too. These things vary depending on where we are at in the road trips. And always restock when we stop at a store.
Reusable baggies – not only are these useful for leftovers but I mainly use these for ice. I have a bunch of gallon sized reusable bags that I fill with hotel ice machine ice in the mornings before we leave to put in the cooler. Then when the ice melts, I just dump out the water and nothing in the cooler gets wet.
Plates, cups, bowls, silverware – you never know when you will need or want an actual plate, or non plastic silverware. We end up using foldable silverware a lot! Especially on travel sprints when we are mostly eating in the car.
Plastic Trays – like the kind you use in a cafeteria. These come in handy when we eat in the car. When my kid needs a table to play on in the back seat. Or to contain the mess when my husband makes a peanut butter sandwich. Many uses for the trays. They fit nicely between seats or under the seats for easy access and storage.
Car organization – depending on your vehicle layout, make sure you have some sort of organization in place so you know where all your things are even when it is dark and you’re tired. This makes things so much easier when your patients has run low after a long day. We have used both a plastic 3 drawer tower and a foldable car organizer box. I keep tissues, paper towels, an actual towel, sanitizing wipes, and the plates, cups, etc. in there. Along with any extra charging cords and toys, my kid may need. And by the end of the long road trips, it also becomes souvenir storage.

Fitness Gear

Sandbag – I take my REP Fitness sandbag with me on every road trip. I have it filled to 25 pounds, gives me a good workout, gives my husband a good workout, and if we end up in a slippery situation, we will have sand to help get us out. (Haha, that is me being an over thinker!)
Jump Rope – Love jump rope! The last couple trips, I’ve had 3 different ones in the car. A beaded rope, a speed rope, and a heavy rope! The heavy rope will not only works legs and cardiovascular system but it gives quite a burn to my arms and shoulders. If we are stopping for 5 minutes, I can bust out a 30 second on/30 sec off workout and I will be sweating within that 5 minute rest stop. My kid likes to use the beaded rope, so extra perks for helping my kid get out some energy too!
Mini Bands – these are great for resistance workouts in the hotel room or when I want to get some strength training in during a rest stop.
Resistance Bands – same reason as the mini bands, but I also use these to help stretch out my legs and upper body.
Yoga Mat – I use this foldable yoga mat at rest stops in the grass or in the empty parking space next to us during a break. For anything that I don’t want to touch the ground like push ups and burpees, or when I need to move through a Yoga flow after a large chunk of time sitting in the car.
Massage Balls – these I use every day. On my glutes, hip flexors, upper back, calves, and feet.
Workout routine – knowing what to do when you have time to do it helps you stay motivated to move. I created a bodyweight and a mini band workouts for a week. 7 days of workouts for each that you can rotate through during your entire trip. No excuses to not get some fitness in at your hotel in the morning or rest stops throughout the day.

Kid Things

Hacky Sack – my kid loves playing catch. And it helps us all get some movement in when we throw a ball around. We like to use a hacky sack because it won’t roll away when someone drops it. Super helpful in parking lots!
Soccer ball and bungee waist belt – my kid enjoyed kicking his soccer ball around in parking lots or open areas at rest stops. But just like the hacky sack, the bungee belt kept the ball in his control.
Blanket – he loves having a blanket to use to get comfy, cover his head when its bright or to hide under and play with a flashlight. I too always bring a car blanket for myself. There have been plenty of times that my husband has the AC up but I am already cold. Keeps us both comfortable.
Books – he will get bored with his tech and want something else to do, so we bring some books and even a cats cradle book and string. Its a quiet activity but keeps him super occupied.
Tech and headphones – this is an absolute must all the time. From playing video games or watching shows, using his headphone so we can listen to our audiobooks while we drive.
National Park Passport – this little passport is so fun to have. We love the National Parks and even better when we get to stamp the passport to remember the visit!
Flashlight or book light – having a flashlight to help him find his lost earbud in the dark, or to read a book at night, or incase of emergencies there is always a reason to have a flashlight in the car.

These are some of the things that help us have the best long road trips. Hopefully they help you have a great road trip too! A lot of patients, a ton of adventurous spirit, and the things that help us keep going.

With careful planning, flexible scheduling, and strategic packing, long road trips can be stress-free and full of memorable adventures. From essential travel gear and fitness routines to kid-friendly entertainment, these tips will help your family enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

Ready, Set, Road Trip—Adventure Awaits!

I would love to hear what your road trip must have’s are for your family!