Road Trip Planning: The Definitive Guide for A Great Road Trip

Whether you want to hit the country-side with your gal pals or have a boys weekend, taking a road trip is the rite of passage. The lure of traveling slowly on a straight road with no care of time is ideal for many of us. Road trips are a feasible option for many considering the pathetic airline service in the region.

Why Take A Road Trip?

Road trips are a great way to refresh yourself. You can take a road trip to see family, sacred places or popular tourist destinations like Los Angeles.

Sometimes road trips become an essential way to break from the city’s toxic routine. Road trips can become an outlet for you to relax. Road trips are a way to walk out of your comfort zone and explore the world around you. They help you explore and appreciate the aesthetics of places that were previously unknown to you. Road trips can be an excellent exploring experience.

Why road trip? Road trips tell you a lot about yourself, how you react in places with no stress and limited space and privacy. A road trip with a group of friends can help you learn a lot about yourself. You also get a chance to surround yourself with what's important, your family, and your friends.

What car should you use for a road trip?

It may sound obvious, but whatever car you take on your road trip, it should be in its prime condition. A maintained vehicle is vital for you and your passengers' safety, and it also won’t break down in the middle of a deserted highway. Automobiles that are well maintained also use a lot less energy.

It is best if you

·      Get an oil change (unless you’ve gotten one done pretty recently)

·      Top off all the fluids, from power steering to the window washing fluid.

·      Inspect your tires and make sure they’re in great shape.

·      Keep a fully inflated spare tire.

If you don’t know what all of this means, you can go to a service station where they’ll take care of all of this for you.

How often should you stop on a road trip? Road trips can be tiring, and to take care of you and your car, you should make stops every five hours.

A note to the wise: A car with a limited amount of weight in the form of baggage glides for longer.

Best Weather for a Road trip?

The weather all around plays a significant part in road trips; weather can turn a perfect trip into a total nightmare. Before planning anything around a road trip, it is best to check out the weather beforehand use the weather checking apps available.

There are a lot of weather apps available that you can check, and these apps are advanced enough to give you estimates on your predicted travel time, chances of rain, hail, tornadoes, and some even have the option to book your hotels.

Best Apps To Help You With Your Road Trip

There are a lot of apps readily available that you can check out. One such app is Weather on wheels, which was developed by students at Texas A&M University. The app has features to figure out the weather for road trip display estimated travel time, chances of rain, air temperature and forecasted winds. It even has a calendar that you can use to schedule your road trip.

Another useful app that you can use is Gas Buddy, which updates you on the gas prices and give you real-time data on fuel prices from over 140 different gas stations. Gas buddy will help you find the most cost-effective gas stations and help you save some dollars and use them on important things like roadside cafes and cocktails by the pool. You can also use this app regularly to save some money.

If you want an exclusive road trip app, then road tripper is an excellent app through which you can plan epic adventures on the go. Road tripper notifies you when you’re five minutes away from something amazing or cool. This app helps you find a lot of weird places and scenic spots that can help you capture beautiful pictures for your Instagram.

For hotels, you can download a road trip planner app like the app hotel tonight, which will help you sort out the accommodation for you. Hotel tonight enables hotel owners to give discounts on their empty rooms, which means that you can get a last-minute place pretty easy and cheap. The app also has a pre-booking option, which you can use to book your rooms beforehand. Or you could camp in your car.

Road Tripping Rules

Be flexible

The point of taking a road trip is to be able to break free of your regular monotonous schedule. Road tripping means, no timetables, no plans and no deadlines. You can do whatever and whenever you want.

Be spontaneous

You can make plans on the go, play road trip games, be open to road trip ideas, and visit and go to sites that you didn’t plan for. You can play all your favourite songs on the road and have everyone sing along to it and have fun.

You get to catch up

Remember that in our everyday hustle, we often lose track of our friends and become engrossed in that. Use your road trip to its full potential and make it an opportunity for you to catch up with your friends.

What Do You Pack?

There is a wide variety of road trip packing lists available, just one search away. Use those lists to help figure out the things you need, remember that it is essential not to overpack because then you’ll only be lugging luggage around you throughout your road trip. I’ve put together a list of road trip essentials that you should not skip.

·      Water bottles

·      Road trip healthy Snacks!

·      Road trip food

·      First aid kit

·      Travel pillow

·      Travel Mug

·      Sunscreen!

Be sure to pack for the weather for wherever you’re going and keep no more than two spare pairs of clothes, don’t carry on unnecessary weight. So here’s all that i have to say about road trip planning! Happy tripping!

TOP 5 SAFETY TRAVEL APPS

Travelling to another part of the World is exciting. However, it is always important to stay safe and keep in mind your personal security while you are having fun. While you are travelling, situations may arise unexpectedly that may be out of your control and it doesn’t hurt to be prepared just in case. As we all know, summer is fast approaching and we know that a lot of you guys will be travelling this summer. To help you get prepared, we wanted to give you some useful tools to help you stay safe so we listed our top 5 safety travel apps to help you on your journey.  See below. Enjoy! :-)

(1)    ICE

While on vacation a medical situation may arise. They can be unexpected and it is best to be prepared as much as you can. The ICE app is a very useful tool if such situations arise. The app keeps details about your medical conditions, your insurance information and your doctor's direct contact details. It can also be accessed even if your phone is locked. Everyone should have this app all the time. The app also comes in a number of different languages.

(2)   Tripit

This app enables you to track your itinerary. You can also share your itinerary with your family and friends so they are also aware of your plans and be reassured of your safety. This is useful for just in case you forget or can’t pronounce the name of your destination. 

(3)   iTranslate

This is a dictionary and translation app. It can easily translate texts in over 90 languages. It can also translate your voice phrases. Absolutely genius! Not being able to speak the local language can make you very vulnerable so this app is a powerful tool in empowering you as a tourist and gives you a lot more confidence in navigating the country that you are visiting. Also, if you are in a risky situation and cannot speak the local language the app will help a lot in assisting you in the situation.

(4)   Companion

This app acts like a guardian angel. The app lets your friends and family know that you are on your journey. All you have to do is enter your destination and select your contacts to be your Companions. They don’t even have to have the app installed.  These companions anywhere in the World will see a live map of your progress. It alerts your friends and family and lets them know if something happens to you so they can take action. It’s a great app that puts you at ease and also puts your friends and family at ease wherever you are in the World.

(5) Safeture

The app provides real-time status on warnings, alerts and security. The app automatically filters warnings and information to you based on your location or your travel destination. The Safeture app has for a number of years provided international businesses and Government organisations with travel security. The app also provides you with emergency information and updates quickly on events that may affect your travel plans and well-being.

TOP 5 HOTEL HACKS

Here are our top 5 hotel hacks to help you guys get free upgrades, discounted rates and additional perks during your hotel stays abroad. Enjoy! :-)

1.    Twenty Dollar Trick

As far as we know, this only works in selected Hotels in Las Vegas. If you happen to be travelling to Las Vegas definitely try it and see what happens. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t. This is what you do:-

When you arrive at check-in, you provide your debit/credit card and ID and put a $20 bill in between the cards very discreetly and give it to the check-in staff. As you do this, ask if there are any upgrades available. If they find you an upgrade they keep the $20 bill, if not, they will simply decline and give it back to you. If successful, you could get a king size room with an amazing view and indoor Jacuzzi. It’s definitely worth a try.

2. Offer to write a review

It helps to mention that you are on TripAdvisor as you check-in. You can also offer to write a review of your experience. In response, you may get extra special treatment or even an upgrade from the hotel.

3.    Use the Do Not Disturb sign for security

If you are staying in a cheap hotel or hostel and unsure about the safety of your belongings, leave the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door when you go out; this will deter intruding thieves by giving them an indication that you may be in your room (even though you might not). This sign is effective in helping to keep your stuff in your hotel room safe from intruders and will give you some peace of mind while you are out and about exploring the city.

3.     Call the hotel to speak to Hotel Manager or the Front Desk before you arrive

If you have stayed at the hotel before mention it. As an effort to ensure you come back the Hotel Manager may give you a special offer or special perks as a reward for being a regular customer.  If it is your first time staying at a particular hotel do not hesitate to ask for additional perks.  If it is a special occasion, anniversary or a birthday, mention it. If you don’t ask you don’t get. People underestimate how much power hotel staff have, they have the power to upgrade for free or for a good rate to make your stay even more enjoyable..

4.    Be Nice

Being nice and friendly can go a long way in getting extra perks during your stay.