We are entering the road trip preparation phase as we near the end of Dan’s current contract, so I thought it would be fun to talk a bit more about how we prepare for big road trips. This time around will be another doozy as we drive from Arizona to the East coast. At this point, we’re hoping to head straight to New Hampshire and then off to wherever Dan’s next contract will be, but that could change based on his next contract so we have to wait and see. That said, we’re a bit limited in our planning for right now, but here are some of our tips and tricks when it comes to planning and preparing for a cross-country road trip.

Check out part one of Preparing for a Cross-Country Road Trip where I talk about our first three steps in preparing for a road trip. We also have a few other road trip resources that you may find helpful:

• Road Trip Tips
• Cats on the Road
• Travel Nursing Tips – Car Edition
• Road Trip 2022
• Travel Nursing Essentials

packing

Once you have decided on a timeline, planned out your stops, and booked your stays, it’s time to start thinking about packing! When it comes to travel nursing, packing honestly isn’t that difficult and doesn’t take much time because we live and travel so lightly. That said, it’s incredibly helpful to be as organized as possible when making a long road trip so packing smart, not just fast, is preferable.

When we first started travel nursing, we didn’t have much organization and had a suuuuper full car so we just kind of stuffed things in wherever we could. Since then, we’ve been able to cut back a ton on what we bring from contract to contract and we’ve started organizing it all. Dan is the king of totes and organization so he went out (I think sometime during his first contract) and bought a bunch of small clear totes (affiliate link) to organize our things in the car, but also in the homes we rent. This makes packing so much easier because we just leave most of our things in these little totes (bathroom things, office supplies, kitchen items, first aid, etc.).

Make a list and start packing away things maybe a week or two before your move, starting with the things you know you won’t need anytime (or at least not much) before your move. It’s important to be strategic when deciding what to pack together and where in the car certain items should go. You’ll want to keep together everything that you’ll want access to in the car while driving.

When staying places along the way, we like to bring as little as possible into each Airbnb/hotel so we try to pack temperature sensitive electronics together and then we each have a small go bag with everything we’ll need for the whole road trip (clothes, bathroom things, computers, charger, etc.). The cats already have plenty of things we need to bring into each place we stay at, so we try to minimize our things as much as possible to make it easier. This also plays into packing the car, all of these things should be the last items in or at least the most easily accessible so you don’t have to repack the whole car at every stop.

cover your bases

In the month or so preceding your road trip, there are a few housekeeping things you’ll want to make sure you’re keeping track of. One of the most important is your car. Now may be a good time to get an oil change and make sure everything looks good like your lights and windshield washer fluid. When it comes to an oil change, be sure to check your mileage and also factor in the miles you’ll be travelling to figure out if you should get one before you leave rather than while you’re on the road. For our upcoming road trip, we may do our next oil change a bit early because it will be right on the line when we set off on our road trip, but we’ll be adding over 3,000 miles and don’t want to have to do one during our trip.

It may also be a good idea to give your car a good clean (mainly just the inside) before you start a big cross-country road trip. We always keep some wiper fluid, an emergency kit, and jumper cables in the car, but it’s a good time to check all of that and make sure it’s somewhat accessible. We recently had our local Ford dealership offer to check out the car for free before our big trip, so we may take them up on that this time around.

day of

We highly recommend sharing your itinerary with family or a friend so someone always knows where you’re staying and what days you should be arriving where. I also like to check in with our Airbnb hosts before we leave to make sure everything with our reservations is all set. Typically I try to give them something of an arrival time estimate, but I let them know we’re making a long road trip so it could vary greatly depending on weather and traffic.

When it comes to packing the car we’ve done it both ways. We’ve packed the car the day we set off on our road trip and we’ve also packed the car a day or two in advance. Obviously the latter option makes it easier to get an early start, but depending where you’re living that may not feel like the safest option. This time around for us, we will probably pack the car the day we leave since our neighbourhood isn’t the greatest and there have been car break-ins in our condo complex parking lot. That said, if you feel comfortable leaving your things in the car for a day or two before your trip, we definitely prefer that option.

how do you prepare for a cross-country road trip?