I’m heading out this morning on a short road trip. Courtesy of the lovely folks at Hershey’s, I am taking a 3 hour jaunt south to visit the Milton Hershey School and Hershey’s Headquarters-to include an overnight stay at the gorgeous Hershey Hotel and a massage at the spa*.
As I planned for the drive, I realized that I’ve never written about frugal road trip tips and tricks!
So here it goes-my 4 basic tips for saving money on a car trip:
#1-Make sure your car is in good shape-services up to date, oil levels correct, tank full, and tires inflated. Correctly inflated tires will improve your gas mileage. Standard preventative maintenance could help prevent breakdowns on the trip. Expensive repairs on the road are not frugal.
#2-Bring your own snacks. Gas station & drive thru food add up fast. Plus snacks for home are likely to be much healthier for ya. Snacks are especially important for keeping the kiddos busy on a long trip-I like to use those small snack sized bags and pack several small portions of 4 or 5 different snacks.
#3-Bring your own drinks. ditto to all the points above. If you need coffee to stay awake, then by all means buy some. Saving a little money isn’t worth falling asleep at the wheel! Then again, it doesn’t cost anything at all to pull over in a rest area and take a quick nap either.
#4-Get books on tape/cd at your library. I’ve found that listening to a novel really makes the time seem to fly. . . I used to do the “buy and return” thing at Cracker Barrel, but borrowing them for free from your library is even better.
Those are my big 4 tips! What are yours?
*They are paying for it, that’s what I call frugal.
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If you’re going on a multi-day car ride, and time isn’t a huge priority, try camping at state parks along the way instead of staying at a hotel. For $15-$30 bucks a night, most campsites will allow up to 6 people at a site; much cheaper than a motel room, and it can also be educational!
Save some little garage sale toys for travel. Nothing like a "new" toy for hours of back-seat entertainment! I keep a secret stash & dispense as needed…
I tend to drive a bit further – 1600kms to get home to see family. My husband & I research gas prices ahead of time because it gets more and more expsive as we drive to Northwestern Ontario. We make sure to tank-up before certain towns that are known to be very high priced.
We also divide our trip into two somewhat awkward driving days so we can stay with family and avoid a hotel or motel.
Tanya
http://www.lessstuffmorefun.blogspot.com
Wow, you’re going to be in my neck of the woods! Can’t wait to hear about what you think of Hershey!
Mmm… a massage sounds heavenly. You deserve it, sis!
You can also download a variety of books (a lot of classics) free from the internet. One site is librivox.org. It also has some kids stories. Another site for kids stories to download is storynory.com.
We have one of those inexpensive adapters that look like cassette tapes that you can use with an ipod or mp3 player. With the ipod or mp3 player you can have LOTS of stories!
I know you are back now but this one works for any trip:
My mom would make us each a manilla envelope full of goodies – comic books, coloring books, a new box of crayons, a notebook – anything that would fit in. And put our names on everything so when we cleaned out the car, you knew whose was whose. She also read aloud to us (I do the books on tape from the library) – but she edited them. I remember one book we read on a trip to Montreal – “Chateau Bon Vivant” – which I later read as an adult. Whew – she’d trimmed all the “sexy ski trip” scenes!
Great ideas everyone. I used to use the toys as distraction when the kids were younger. Now they are happy to watch our portable DVD player, which only goes in the car for long trips. I also like to get movies via redbox for trips-they are old enough now that a new movie holds their attention much better than one they’ve seen a million times. Plus with Redbox I can return it wherever we wind up on our trip and then get out a new one for the return journey.
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