40 Essential Items for a Three Week Road Trip

The 40 Essential Items to 24 Days on the Road with Your Kids

ie:  The Packing List

9 days from right now, I'll be taking off with four kids (ages 19, 10, 7, and 3, and picking up an 18 year old along the way) on a grand adventure of a road trip.  We'll be visiting 15 states in 21 days and camping in our tent AND in our van!  See the pics below for our setup.  So, here's the conundrum: I have to be able to fit everything from the trunk in the front two seats for sleeping when we aren't tenting it.  Here, I'll show you....

This is the layout of the van.  See the trunk space?  See the front seat space?  Well, the whole list of stuff, minus the air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows need to go from the back.......................

to in between the front seat and the dash.  This includes Annika's car seat.  So I'm posting my list to make sure I didn't forget anything, or maybe even skinny it down!  We've done it for two years running.  Next year, we'll be flying to Alaska and Hawaii, so I'll have a whole NEW set of problems....HAHA!  #camperproblems Please comment and FOLLOW!

1.  Air Mattress
2. Sleeping Bags x4
3. Pillows
4. Cooler with Ice
5. Fresh Food
6. Dehydrated Food
7. WATER
8. 2 pair long pants each
9. 3 pair shorts each
10. 5 pair underwear each
11. 5 t-shirts each
12. 1 sweatshirt/jacket each
13. 1 pair tennis shoes each
14. 1 pair Sandals each
15. 5 pair socks each
16. 1 swim suit each
17. 1 towel each
18. 2 pair jammies each
19. deodorant
20. shampoo
21. conditioner
22. body wash
23. toothbrushes
24. toothpaste
25. face wash
26. moisturizer
27. Sunscreen
28. Bug spray
29. Benadryl/Motrin/tylenol/valium
30. money
31. MOVIES
32. BOOKS
33. Emergency Kit
34. Atlas
35. Computer/Charger
36. Cell phones/charger
37. Tent
38. Tarp
39. Stove
40. Baby Back Pack

Car Camping:

 

Tent Camping:

The Route

So planning is a HUGE part of trips like this.  Just kidding.  Having a general idea of a plan and being ridiculously flexible is the MOST IMPORTANT THING I can tell you about doing a trip like this.
Gannon wants so badly to go to the Pentagon, that we actually booked that in advance.  Yes, I'm taking Gannon to the Pentagon.  I'll post a link for the GoFundMe for my bail money later.  We HAVE to be at the Pentagon on July 14th at 1400.  That's our only MUST.  So here we go....We leave Sunday at 3:00 PM.

Leg 1:  Leave Cibolo and go to Baton Rouge, LA.  Putz around the old capitol for a bit, see some of the history of LA.  Drive to P'Cola, FL!  We'll probably go across to Gulf Breeze and spend some time on the boardwalk, trying to not be eaten by sharks or contract flesh eating bacteria.  Next stop, Noccalula Falls in Gadsden, AL.  This, according to my friend Tammi, is a MUST SEE.  From there, we go to Lithia Springs State Park out side of Atlanta to see confederate ruins where Hunger Games was filmed, and see my awesome cousins Lenny and Sue!  North to Charlotte where there is an abundance of historical stuff to see and do.  We have to fit West Virginia in there somewhere, so Monongahela State Park is where leg one ends.

From West Virginia, things get CRAZY.  We spend a few days in DC, up to Gettysburg, over to Philly, PA, to New York City.  We could easily spend over a week in each place, but we're hitting the highlights.  From NYC, we're going to Plymouth Plantation, MA, then over to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail.  We won't have hit all the states without a stopover in Maine, so lobster dinner, here we come!  This is the end of leg 2 and the northern most point in our adventure.

From Kittery, we have a looooong drive to Niagra Falls State Park!  We were originally hoping to go up to Ontario, but opted to stick to our goal of 50 states before "international" travel.  From Niagra Falls, we head to Cleveland area for fun with Debbie, Thad, and the kids.  VERY excited about that time together.  Up to Detroit for the auto museum, then down down down to Mammoth Cave, KY.  I LOVED Mammoth Caves as a kid.  Back up to Indianapolis for the Children's Museum, then to see mom and dad in Galesburg.  From the 'Burg, we'll take an Amtrak up to Chicago and spend a day in the Windy City.  End Leg 3.

Leg 4 is where total whimsy comes in!  I want to go the Shreveport, LA on the way home to find out information on my great grandparents from Sicily.  Other than that, we can go to St. Louis, Kansas, Oklahoma, Dallas....wherever the wind takes us! (Hopefully the wind and not a tornado...).

So there you have it!  T-3 days and counting!  Now I have to disconnect from the computer so I can start packing.  Ugh.

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