Ten Tips for Planning a Cross-Country Road Trip

1. Save up for it. I know this seems painfully obvious to most, but I didn’t realize what the true cost of all the hotels, restaurants, national park fees, etc. would actually add up to until I did the research. As a student who is constantly living on a budget, researching and booking a lot of the spots beforehand definitely saved my ass.

2. Clean your car (or whichever car you will be using) right before your trip. I know there are some of you, and honestly I’m victimizing myself here, who haven’t clean out their cars since their senior year of high school. Since I bought my car in Arizona, I’d only had about five months to trash it, so the damage wasn’t too bad, but still I would recommend fully cleaning out their cars to everyone planning a road trip longer than a day or two.

3. On that note, make sure that your oil is changed, your tires are pumped, and your brakes and sensors are all functional. There is nothing worse than starting out on a long road trip only to find out that, two hours in, your oil life is at 8%. Also be sure that you have jumper cables and extra wiper fluid on hand. Especially if you’re driving through northern states in December – that wiper fluid will be a lifesaver. Otherwise, you’ll have to resort to stopping on the highway every few miles and asking your boyfriend to run outside and throw water on the windshield for you to be able to wipe away all the dirt/snow flying up at you. Don’t be a Roshelle.

4. Always keep your gas tank half full. When we were driving on a 79-mile stretch of highway with absolutely nothing around (not even dustweeds) in northern Arizona, I would’ve killed for even a 7/11 at that point. My biggest fear was running out of gas in the middle of the night on a highway that we barely saw anyone else on and had no cellphone service on.

5. Always keep your GPS on, even if you don’t have it set to a specific destination. There were a lot of spotty areas along long highway stretches where we had absolutely zero cellphone reception for hours at a time. I know it’s not that important to be scrolling through Instagram at all times, but in case of any emergencies, your cellphone is a pretty necessary convenience and always having your GPS app on means that you’ll always know where you are.

6. Or, in all honesty, buy an old-fashioned paper map. I know it might seem lame to the other millennials out there (like where’s the traffic detection at, hello?), but in case something does happen to your phone’s GPS, you’ll always have a backup so you can avoid getting lost and driving down to Mexico.

7. Keep your car stocked with water and snacks. This one again might seem obvious, but think about those long overnight drives through rural areas where most restaurants close between 9 and 10 P.M. I honestly just went to Costco and bought family-size packs of turkey jerky, almonds, fruit snacks, and fig bars, but you do you.

9. Download music and entertainment on your phone beforehand. Mainly to save data, but also just to get that headache out of the way. For music, make a custom playlist with minimum 100-200 songs unless you want to hear “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” played on rotation for half of the trip. When the playlist gets old – and it will get old – download some audiobooks and podcasts. My boyfriend and I downloaded the Harry Potter audiobooks and actually made our way through the first and second books on our drive from Utah to Lousiana. For podcasts, I love more informative ones (as opposed to the Barstool Sports “Call Her Daddy” types), like “Stuff You Should Know” and “Ologies.” They also have a bunch of crime podcasts if you’ve watched the Ted Bundy tapes on Netflix recently and are into that.

9. Don’t leave home without either portable chargers or car chargers. Now I know that in 2019, it’s practically illegal to own a car without having a car charger, but in case you pulled a Patrick Star and have been living under a rock, get a portable charger just in case.

10. Plan loosely and know when to call it a night. Try to make a general plan for each day without nailing down all the details because you will, without doubt, get derailed. And when you do, let’s say by a freak snowstorm in Arizona that covers the roads in two inches of snow and causes multiple traffic accidents involving eighteen-wheelers, as happened to us the second night of the trip, don’t be remiss in pulling over for the night and staying at a random hotel in Tuba City (yes, it’s actually a real place). I know it may seem at the time like getting to all of your planned destinations in time may seem like the most important thing, but your safety is always a priority.