Prepping for Your Road Trip
We’re all pretty cooped up and ready to travel. Most of us are planning road trips over the next few months. Here at Visit Modesto we look forward to seeing travelers arriving starting in Mid-February through early March for the Almond Blossom Cruise. We want visitors to get here safely and with everything they need to have a experience. So here’s some tips our team put together to prep everyone for that next Great Road Trip!
Make the car comfy; Whether you hear your echoes of your Dad saying it or take advice from Frommer’s Travel Guide…clean your car in advance. Not just the outside but the inside too. We all have too much stuff hanging out inside our car from old food or snack packages to two umbrellas, three gloves and a five golf-balls in the cup holder that keep rolling around. Who knows if you’ll find a banana peel under the passenger seat or not. Just clean up, maybe a quick vacuum too… you’ll just feel better and make room for the stuff you’ll be accumulating on this trip! Be sure to make sure your registration and insurance cards up to date and easy to find.
When was your last check-up? Not on you but for your car. Every car should be checked out once a year if you drive more than 8,000 miles or so. If you’ve done that you still want to make sure you have topped off your oil, checked the air in your tires (hint: the pressure for your tires is on a sticker on the inside of the driver’s door – most auto shops will do it for free!), make sure you have good windshield wipers and fill up on fluid. And be sure to check your tires for wear and tear. Here’s a LINK with a great way to check your tire tread with a penny (remember those?). Getting here and back safe is the key to a successful trip!
Pack a PPE bag with enough for a round trip; have some hand wipes, sanitizer, couple of masks and a band aid or three. Add to this an few bottles of water and some energy or fig bars just in case you have a long way between stops. It’s not always about you with these items since almost every place you go requires them these days.
Think about your gas mileage; You might be surprised to learn that if you are taking a long road trip it might be less expensive to book a round trip rental using a car that gets great mileage. That doesn’t even count the wear and tear on your car. Plus, you don’t have to clean the car when you get home, it’s part of the rental service!
Most importantly have a plan. That’s from the podcasts and music you download to the places you’ll be going. That doesn’t mean plan every second, just have a general idea so that when you are traveling everyone has pretty much the same expectation. Planning includes checking with your insurance company or roadside assistance partner if you are covered in case of flats, towing or other service needs.
Just about all of that should take about an hour or so to prep whether it’s the day before or the morning of your trip. Why? Because after being cooped up for the last 10 months you want nothing more than a safe and comfortable drive so your actual trip experiences are awesome!
See you soon!
-Todd Aaronson
