 Our last article was all about packing tips and tricks. If you are looking for what and and how to pack, just scroll down for all the deets! This article is concentrated on essentials required for a Road Trip. What are the safety equipments? How to quickly load and unload etc.
What to carry Me and Rit are carrying one big suitcase each. Whatever we can stuff in this suitcase is all we can carry. You can buy any suitcase, but based on our experience, it should have a few important features like:
Then we carry one backpack each with houses our Mac, camera, and charging cables. Road Trip Essentials We initially thought that we should have additional headlights on the car but figured from car mechanics and experts that any type of additional accessory is an added weight on the car. One should avoid, any new wires and connections as they would only add to complexity. We just replaced our headlights with high intensity ones and that’s it. We did a lot of research to come to this list. We spoke to rally drivers, automobile engineers, car mechanics and cab drivers to reach must-have tools, one must have (yeah, read must-must-have) on a road trip. Just one month into the trip, we can vouch that these are completely indispensable. It saved us from gritty situations and helped us settle back on the road.
1 Comment
 This post has all the packing Tips and Tricks. You would find these useful irrespective of the duration and the kind of trip you are going on.
How to pack? What are the essential emergency tools? How to travel light for a trip which goes from snowy mountains to barren deserts etc. Rit has some experience in packing for a road trip. He has done many in the US. With his experience, learnings from our past trips and a bit of research, here we compile the perfect list to pack for long term travels. We will post a a 'Road Trip Essentials' section separately, which will be in addition to these packing tips. This list is perfect for any short to long term travel. It covers all weathers and is relevant for both genders. To make it super simple, I have also added online links from where I have procured the mentioned stuff. Clothes Can you wear an outfit 10 times each in 6 months? 10 times is not bad, right? The math says 10*18= 180 days. All you need is 18 outfits. They key is to make sure, they are comfortable. Let your outfits be a combination of jeans, pants, shorts dresses and skirts. Make sure the dresses you carry are long and comfortable, something that you can wear during a visit to the museum, a walk around the city, and even during the night at the bar. The next set of clothes should be the lounge and workout wear. 2 pairs of comfort wear and 2 pairs of workout wear should be good. Let one pair be a warm nightwear, if you are always cold like me. Weather Related Gear Once the basic clothes are sorted, it's time to stock up the weather related gear. By this I mean the stuff from snow jackets to the swimsuits. I have a tip for snow laden locations, you can only wear as many woollens, the trick is to make sure that the outermost layer is waterproof and windproof. With that in place, a thermal and a fleece, you are good to go. For snow laden locations: (Links are clickable) A waterproof snow jacket or puffer jacket A waterproof lower Fleece set Thermal set (from Marks and Spencer) 2 light jackets like sweatshirt and denim jacket 2 medium warmers like a leather jacket and a chunky sweater For rainy locations: Thin waterproof jacket You can borrow the waterproof pants from snowy locations or slip into shorts instead. Undergarments & more One can repeat their outfits but not undergarments! I hope, everyone agrees with that. Carry 10 pairs of undergarments, so you wash once in a week. Not all places are conducive for on-the-go washing. Some Homestays in Leh prohibit washing of clothes as water is scarce. Even if you have the facility, the weather god may choose to play a spoilsport, making it impossible to dry in hilly areas and during monsoon season. Not all places will have towels, specially if you are staying at home-stays. Carry a thin cotton body towel and one hand towel. We especially recommend travel towels from Decathlon, they dry quickly and get bundled into one-fourth the space One swim shorts set for the beaches. Shoes Six pairs of shoes is all your need for a trip across different regions and climates:
Accessories
Cosmetics & Toiletries Kit
Medicine & Emergency Kit A medicine kit with not just the regular medicines we use but,
Our last minute additions to the emergency box include:
Electronic Kit While going on a long term road trip make sure you have sim cards of all the important networks of that region. If one won't then the other will catch network. We are carrying 3 sim cards, one each of Airtel, Jio and BSNL. Trust me, it helped us a lot. Jio has great network and internet in most regions of Himachal Pradesh, whereas Airtel was awesome in Ladakh. On the other hand, in most remote locations of North India, only a postpaid BSNL works.
Don’t forget to pop in:
Hope this list helps you, as for us, this is all we need for a 6 month trip. Lookout for the Road Trip essentials list. It’s shall be live soon. Until then do leave us a comment and let us know, if there is anything else you would like us to talk about. |
