My husband and I are busy planning our Road Trip! for later this summer and a fun part of that is considering what we need (“need”) to buy to make the Road Trip! as fun as possible.  This is going to be a LONG road trip, taking place over the course of ten days. So it’s not your normal drive to Grandma’s house. Well, in our case, it IS a drive to Grandma’s house but Grandma’s house is on the other side of the country so it will take quite some time to get there and get home.

So far, here’s what we have bought:

A little backseat organizer for Carla. She can use it to set up her iPad, so she can watch without straining her neck (My current plan is to enforce the two-hours-of-screen-time-per-day restriction we have, even though she will be in the car. We’ll see how long this lasts. But I grew up with a father who continually asked me to look at the scenery while we were driving, and – despite the fact that I found it very irritating at the time – I seem to have absorbed that philosophy to a cellular level.) (Also, when I was a kid, I read books and played with a Gameboy on a teensy screen and never suffered from “neck strain,” so Carla doesn’t really NEED a specific organizer to address this non-problem.) Right. We are talking about the organizer, not about my inherited road trip ascetism. She can use it to store… things. Colored pencils? A stuffed animal? Masks? Snacks? I don’t really know WHAT things, but she does tend to accumulate a lot of stuff, and my husband cannot stand a messy car (I resigned myself to a messy car long ago), so the entire organizer is really for my husband’s sanity.  My husband really wanted to get one of the organizers that had a little fold down tray, but ***MORBID THOUGHTS ALERT*** my mind instantly went to decapitation in case of a car accident because that is how my brain works, and I managed to persuade him to find something else.

A foldable, waterproof trash can that can hang off the back of one of the front seats. Again, this is mainly for my husband’s sanity. My whole life, I have been perfectly fine using a plastic bag from a gas station to collect snack wrappers and soda cans, and tossing it at the next gas station where you inevitably pick up a new one. But my husband enjoys having the exact right thing for every situation, and if it is helping him feel excited about the trip, and if it helps reduce his stress/irritation during the trip, then I am all for it. 

Road trip journal. This is also for Carla. One thing that I do NOT have trouble spending money on is Fun Travel Treats. One thing I remember with such fond joy about trips with my parents is that my mom always made these little kits full of fun surprises that we could open during the trip. Usually they would include things like a fresh tablet of drawing paper and a brand-new package of colored pencils or markers, maybe a new Barbie, a new book, a workbook of some sort, or maybe a book of paper dolls. OMG – do paper dolls still exist? I don’t think Carla has ever encountered a paper doll, and I wonder if she would like them? Wow. I have gotten really off topic. Anyway: I LOVED these little treats, and they made the travel part of trips so much more fun, and so I like to get Carla little treats as well. My husband doesn’t really get this, though, so I have to wheedle a bit. Like, he would disapprove of a new pack of colored pencils because Carla already has a million colored pencils. He just doesn’t understand that part of the cache is that the pencils are NEW. ANYWAY I keep trying to redirect myself and it is like pulling a jumbo jet with a jump rope tied to its nose. We got this road trip journal for Carla as a Fun Travel Treat. She likes journals (at least, she likes the idea of journals; she is my daughter through and through) and I am hoping this will help her feel engaged with the trip. 

A family card game for the car. Admittedly, I may be the only one of the three of us who has any interest in this Loaded Questions game. But it sounds fun, to me, and I like the idea of being able to play a game together that doesn’t involve a screen. 

An audiobook. I think we have settled on A Wrinkle in Time or the fifth Harry Potter book. 

A fun snack. I chanced upon a display of vegan peanut butter caramel coated popcorn the last time I was at Trader Joe’s and grabbed a bag. I may end up kicking myself for not grabbing multiple bags. But we will SAVE IT for our Road Trip! and I am anticipating that at the very least it will be fun to try.

Things we are still considering, but haven’t yet purchased:

A fresh tablet of drawing paper. Carla loves to draw, and I know how absolutely wonderful it is to have a FRESH tablet of drawing paper, ready to be filled with creations. 

A travel atlas. I think this would be fun, but am not 100% sure Carla would read most of it. Plus, how many giant books do we need rattling around in the car with us?

A cooler. My husband is CONVINCED that we need a cooler. Again, I direct you to my childhood, during which we never needed a cooler. Now, maybe a cooler would be nice, but in that case, I petition for a VERY CHEAP cooler. My husband, on the other hand, wants a Yeti cooler that costs – I SHIT YOU NOT – $350. My very blunt response to that was, “I will never be okay with spending $350 on a cooler.” I told him that my upper range for cooler expenditure is $50. It does not matter if the Yeti cooler keeps ice from melting for three weeks. We do not need that kind of cooling duration.  Now, I can fully imagine people for whom the $350 Yeti cooler is practical or a necessity. If you make your living as an ice fisherperson, perhaps; or if you live in the Australian Outback. And other situations, surely. But for me, it is a Startling Expense ^{TM Swistle} and I cannot do it. My husband has done extensive research – which involved us going to a sporting goods store and looking at physical coolers, so we could see which size would work best for our very limited needs – and I think we have landed on this one. It is within my $50 threshold, and I DO think having a cooler will be useful for other situations I have yet to consider. 

Another family game. Carla and her friends love playing Would You Rather? and it might be a fun way for the three of us to interact while we drive… but then again, it’s fairly easy to come up with questions on your own. I don’t know. Still debating. 

A travel pillow. I tend to fall asleep immediately in the car, but then my head continually sags forward onto my chest and then snaps up and then sags forward and then snaps up ad infinitum. I would LOVE to find a travel pillow that keeps my head from doing this, but I feel like I have tried ALL the travel pillows and I have yet to find one that works, so I am not terribly hopeful. 

A set of paper dolls. They DO still make paper dolls! I am not sure if Carla would like them – but at least she would find them briefly diverting. Now, do I go for the Anne of Green Gables version? The Little Women version? The Nancy Drew version? Carla might like this “fashions of Edith Head” version best – she is very into fashion design lately. Ah, but it looks like it requires scissors (rather than the pieces being perforated), and Carla isn’t going to know who any of the subjects are (Audrey Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland). So maybe we won’t do paper dolls after all. At least not for this trip. 

What are some of the Utmost Necessities you’ve found useful on a Road Trip!?