For residents of Southeastern Pennsylvania, out-of-town car trips are practically part of everyday life. Around them lies a mass of places that can be reached in 2–3 hours. Fond of the noisy coastal towns of New Jersey? Welcome to the casinos of Atlantic City or the thrilling amusement rides of Wildwood. Do you feel like an introvert suffocating in a dense human current and gray offices? You can, on Friday evening, having taken off your business suit and put on your favorite trekking gear, set off to enjoy unity with nature in the Pocono Mountains.
But a good journey does not begin when you drive onto the highway with an anticipatory smile. It should be started the day before departure, with thoughtful preparation for the trip, with checking the car, documents, and belongings.
This road trip packing list for drivers will help you gather the essentials without unnecessary junk in the trunk.
Safety and readiness for unforeseen “black swans” should always come first. Before a long road, be sure to check the spare tire — and not simply its presence, but its condition and pressure. A spare that has been lying in the trunk for years, cracked and deflated to the state of a pancake, will save no one. Nearby there should be a jack, a lug wrench, and gloves (even the cheapest work mitts will do — better that than later vainly trying to wipe off oily grime with wet wipes).
The list of car travel essentials must include jumper cables or a portable jump starter. The second option is preferable: you will not have to look for a kind driver in the parking lot at a gas station. A portable tire compressor is also a must-have device. You will 100% appreciate its usefulness if a tire suddenly goes flat, and the nearest service station is still several miles away. Adherents of the old school may take a reliable hand or foot pump instead of a compressor.
Separately assemble a long drive safety kit. It should contain:
In the car there should be registration, valid insurance, driver’s license, and roadside assistance contacts, if such a service is connected. It is better to save the number in your phone and, the old-fashioned way, write it down on paper. According to Murphy’s laws, the phone often discharges at the most inopportune moment.
If you are traveling in a recently purchased used car, add one more point to the preparation: do a free car title check by VIN. Such a check helps you see whether the car has hidden legal problems: an unpaid lien, a salvage mark in the title, or other unpleasant details that may unexpectedly surface far from home. For road trip vehicle preparation, this is not excessive anxiety, but sound foresight.
It is also useful to photograph the essential car documents and save the photos in a protected cloud. Paper originals are still needed, but a digital copy can help out if something gets lost.
The driver’s seat on a long road is your workplace for several hours. It must be comfortable, and all important items must be easily accessible. A lumbar pillow, precise adjustment of the seating position to your anthropometry, clean mirrors, a phone holder — these are small things that make the trip easier and safer.
Offline maps are also needed. In Pennsylvania and neighboring states there are plenty of places where the signal-strength bars suddenly vanish completely. A navigator without the internet at such a moment becomes a carriage turning into a pumpkin. So it is better to download the route and the area map in advance.
Now let us talk about food. Who does not like snacking on chips and sweet soda on the road. But it is better to give preference to something more wholesome and practical. Take water, nuts, crackers, protein bars, fruits that do not turn into mush after an hour.
Today, there is nowhere without gadgets, even if you are going on a trip precisely with the aim of resting from calls and the endless news feed. Take a charger with several ports, cables for different devices, and at least one charged power bank. Download your favorite music, podcasts, or audiobooks in advance. On the highway there is not always stable internet, and listening to the same radio station with ads every ten minutes is a pleasure for an amateur. For a family trip, you can prepare a couple of simple screen-free games: cities, guess the song, road bingo.
Immediately before departure, do a quick five-minute inspection: tires, headlights, wipers, oil and fuel levels, phone charge, documents, water, first-aid kit.
A good emergency car kit checklist should not turn the car into a warehouse. Its task is simpler: so that the driver has everything necessary at hand if the road suddenly does not go according to plan.
May your next trip from North Penn — to the shore, to the mountains, or simply to relatives — be calm, safe, and without unnecessary adventures on the shoulder.
