The Seven Road Trip Accessories you never knew you needed
When you’re road tripping as a family, you’ll find you have different needs from when you’re just driving around town. Of course, there are the typical power needs if you spend a lot of time in your car anyway. But when you’re traveling with multiple teens, you may literally have more than one device per person needing charged all at once. Here, you’ll find a list of the tools we never leave town without, and links for you to find them online and compare features for yourself.
- Power Inverter with USB
- Electric Cooler
- Power Adapter Splitter
- Travel Lap Desk
- Deep Tissue Massager
- Car Vacuum Cleaner
- Heated Electric Blanket
If you’ve ever traveled more than a few miles with a passel of teenagers, I’m sure you’ve discovered how messy things can get from perpetual snacking. I’ve got the perfect tool to combat the crumbs and scraps of straw papers! Wishing you had packed more cheese sticks and yogurt, so they didn’t keep eating potato chips and beef jerky? Keep reading for the perfect solution to keeping your snacks at a safe temperature! Tired of holding your book up at the perfect angle to avoid the sun’s glare, while still being able to read it? Yep… been there, done that, and found the fix! Worried that your GPS will kill the battery on your phone while your teen’s tablet is charging on the only available outlet? Fear no more! Freezing in the front seat while the back seat complains of heatstroke? There is a perfect answer to your problem. These seven tools have stood the test of our family’s road trips, and I’m sure your travel life will be transformed, if you give them a chance!
- Power Inverter – In our experience, even when we can’t think of a need for it, this is one of those tools that we always end up using during our trip. If you’ve run out of cigarette lighter adapters, or if someone needs to charge an electric razor or a laptop, it’s nice to have an alternative means of charging. This product plugs into your cigarette lighter and offers multiple 110 volt outlets, and even a few USB outlets. I’ve used an earlier version of this to power a breast pump while nursing, and can swear by them wholeheartedly! The version we use now is this one. Buy it. I’ll be shocked if you don’t find a time to use it on your very next road trip!
- Electric Cooler – in the category of “I didn’t know that was a thing” is this convenient device. For literally decades, I’ve frozen water bottles to use as ice packs around my coffee creamer and road snacks, then for drinking as we travel. Inevitably, I end up arriving at my destination with lukewarm items in the cooler and no cold water remaining. When I started to drive for Uber in 2018, I purchased this electric cooler on Amazon. I often keep it in the car even around town, and it has saved me so much money over the years, not having to purchase snacks or sodas as often on a road trip.
- Cigarette lighter adapter splitter – As I said earlier, the name of the game when traveling with teens is to be able to charge multiple devices simultaneously. Whether they’re using their phones and tablets to watch Netflix or to play video games, those devices seem to drain at the most inopportune times. And of course, your teen’s tablet will be dead just about the time you realize the GPS is draining the driver’s phone, as well! If you have an older car with fewer outlets, this splitter will be worth its weight in gold! You can find splitters with as many as four USB outlets to power all of your entertainment at once.
- Lap Desk – If you’re someone who likes to read in the car, whether it’s light reading or studying, you may be surprised at what a game changer this lap desk is. I don’t always have space in the front passenger seat to use it on my lap. I’ve found that it works well to prop the lap desk sideways between my lap and the dash, then prop my book on it that way. I like this particular lap desk because it has a handle for carrying. It also has a single pad on the bottom, which works better for me than some of the other pads, since my lap is too small for separate pads. If you ever use a laptop in the car, this is a good option for you to work during your travel days.
- Deep Tissue Massager – This is my newest travel toy. The biggest disadvantage of traveling as much as I do is being away from my chiropractor for months at a time. On my last few trips, I’ve taken this deep-tissue massager along and been very grateful for it! You can use this headed electric massager by plugging it into the wall in your home or by plugging it into the cigarette lighter in your vehicle! Woohoo!!! It comes in its own convenient faux leather carrying case, and your friends will be fighting you for it! Trust me… you NEED this Shiatsu Deep Tissue Heated Electric Full Body Massager.
- Car Vacuum Cleaner – When I was driving for Uber and Lyft in 2018, it became very important to me to keep my car super clean. With this handy-dandy vacuum cleaner, I could ten minutes at a gas station to clean up crumbled goldfish crackers (yep, grandkids!), dropped sunflower seed shells (ahem… teenagers!), and a winter’s worth of road salt. Because it plugs directly into my vehicle’s cigarette lighter and has a nine-foot cord, I can reach every part of the largest passenger vehicles from any outlet. If you like that fresh-from-the-detailer’s look, you’ve got to try this tool!
- Heated Electric Blanket – Are you as cold-blooded as I am? It seems as though every trip quickly devolves into me turning the thermostat on my car higher and higher until I’m getting straight heat and the rest of the family is getting straight A/C. Add to this the fact that no one likes to put a seatbelt on over a coat on a road trip, and you have the perfect opportunity to use this Fleece Heated Electric Blanket. It plugs directly into your car’s cigarette lighter, and can be wrapped just around your legs, or draped over your whole body. With its extra-long cord, it can even be used by those in the back or middle row of your vehicle, if needed. It can also be wiped clean easily between uses. I generally keep a plastic grocery sack handy to stuff it into between uses, so it does not get as much road salt on it. After all, I’m most likely to use it when the weather is cold and the roads are grimy with melting snow.
As you can see from the above list, I do a looot of traveling by road trip. About 95% of our travels for the past 18 years have included teenagers, and we have learned so much from these experiences. Now that we are semi-retired and traveling so much more, you can expect many more lists like this from me. It seems there is always one more tool or accessory to make life that much simpler on the road. And until we get our RV so we can travel with all the comforts of home, I’ll just keep searching for that perfect piece of equipment!
What do you think of this list? Do you already own any of these products? What would you add to a list of unsung hero products for your road trip? I would love to hear from you, and add your suggestions to my next road trip!