7 Mistakes I Made On My First Road Trip
Last fall, my friend and I decided to plan our first road trip. We had both never planned anything like this before, so it was a pretty daunting task. We originally planned to do a full Canadian East Coast road trip, but our first roadblock came in the form of the biggest hurricane to hit the east coast in years. Last minute, we had to switch it up and chose to explore Quebec.
While the trip was fun and we saw a ton of beautiful sites, it unfortunately got cut short. We both started feeling sick very quickly, and it turns out we had Covid. Even though our trip went from 15 days to 8, we learned plenty of things- including what NOT to do. Here are 7 mistakes I made on my first road trip:
Mistake #1: Forgetting Covid Tests & Extra Medicine
No one goes on vacation and expects to get sick. At least I don’t. This was my hard-earned lesson that being prepared no matter what is actually as important as everyone says it is! Especially when you’re in a province that mainly speaks a different language and you’re camping in the middle of nowhere.
After getting hit with Covid so hard it canceled the remainder of our trip and confined us to a yurt with a fever, I will always and forever pack extra medicine. A lot of it. And now, even with the pandemic being over, I will always bring at least ONE Covid test if I have one. This was especially important when it came to canceling our hotels- most wanted proof of a positive test before giving us our full refund. In the future, who knows? But I’ll have one in my bag just in case.
Mistake #2: Not Calling to Double-Check Campsites
We went on our road trip in the middle of October, which was great for the fun fall colours but not so great when it came to the availability of campsites. We managed to book a few and received confirmation emails, but after calling our first site to double check and having to try to communicate in broken French, we decided we were being too cautious and everything was fine. We got confirmation emails after all!
Well, we were wrong. Mistake number 2 of our road trip was not double-checking everything. One campsite ended up being fully closed for the winter (not what their website said!) and the other was open but had no record of our booking. This mistake was more seasonal, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!
Mistake #3: Forgetting Air Fresheners
Another mistake we made while planning our road trip was underestimating how smelly it would be. We got hit with a storm the first night we camped and it didn’t let up the next morning. That left us packing up our gear in the pouring rain, unable to dry anything out before packing it in the car. And let me tell you, wet camping gear mixed with wet and grumpy campers does not lead to a great-smelling car. By the end of the trip we were happy it got cut short, simply to be away from the smell! Make sure you bring car air fresheners, normal air fresheners, all of it! You’ll be happy you did.
Mistake #4: Overpacking
I am the Queen of over-packing- I could be going away for one night and my duffle bag will be bursting at the seams. This trip was no exception. Especially because we had the bright idea to bring two duffle bags each- one small one to take with us into the hotels with just the essentials, and another for the extra clothes for camping and other activities. Smart right? Nope. It just gave us an extra bag to overpack with!
Narrowing down what you bring not only saves you room in your car, it makes finding what you need easier and gives you less laundry to take care of when you get back!
Mistake #5: Not Downloading Instructions
This one seems like a no-brainer, and we thought we had downloaded everything we needed. We had our itinerary, and our maps and we were ready to go. Until we got to our first campsite and realized our new tent didn’t come with paper instructions! With no service to try to download them, we had to build this tent by guessing- and boy did we guess wrong. In the middle of the night, a storm hit, and our tent collapsed almost immediately because it wasn’t set up properly. We had to race to the car in the rain and try to re-organize an already full car to be able to sleep (sort of) comfortably that night. Lesson? Download EVERYTHING and MORE! Keep a copy of all instructions, from your tent to your folding chairs.
Mistake #6: A Backup Plan for your Backup Plan
There are SO many things that could go wrong on any kind of trip, but especially a road trip. That’s why it’s important to have a backup plan for your backup plan! We would have loved to do everything on our original itinerary, but we had so many different roadblocks from weather to wrong trail markings that we found ourselves with a lot of extra time on our hands at some points. Make sure you very thorough research of the places you’re going to visit and have a list of a BUNCH of extra activities or places you could go if your plan number 1 and 2 go haywire.
Mistake #7: Not Downloading Enough Playlists
The final mistake we ran into on our road trip was repetitive playlists. My friend and I both downloaded what we thought was a ton of playlists, but it turns out you’ll get very sick of the same song even quicker than normal when you’re on a long drive. And make sure they’ve fully downloaded too- you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of no where with no service listening to the same 3 Mumford & Sons songs on repeat. Speaking of playlists, check out my Ultimate Tropical Vacation playlist!
What tips do you have for planning a road trip? Let me know!
