I am a huge checklist fan, coming from both the GTD mindset and the philosophy for the Checklist Manifesto and would highly recommend taking the Checklist approach when it comes to planning for the curveballs during road trips.
Road Trip Emergency Checklist
• Download local maps for your destination – I use Google Maps Download offline feature for the same. The cell reception could be patchy especially if you are going for camping/wilderness resorts.
• For outdoor parks, check the local guidance using nps.gov or similar websites. There could be local emergencies and urgent announcements.
• Keep extra food, water and warm clothes in the car.
• For nature trails, try to download the offline maps, by using AllTrails or similar applications. Losing your way during a trail could be very harrowing/frustrating experience. I have been using AllTrails Plus (which gives you ability to download offline maps) for many years now and would call it an indispensable tool. It helped me immensely in places such as the Endless Wall trail in WV, Cherokee Falls trail in TN, Lover’s Leap trail in AR, Wanatee Park trail in IA, Trail of the old Oaks in IL when I was looking for directions and there was no one to ask.
• Keep extra cash. Once when we were coming back from Pictured Rock, one of our friend’s car got pulled over by a cop and we had to shell out ~200$ cash for the ticket, otherwise we would have needed to make a court appearance in a remote county precinct. Luckily, we had extra cash.
• Keep extra supplies in the car – warm clothes, water, food; in that order.
• As for the best all season outdoor back-pack essentials, see the dedicated post here.
That’s it, hope this helps you breeze-through all the road trip emergencies!
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