Road Trip Essentials: 5 Things You Need for Your Family Vacation

Road trips may not be as common as they were back in the '50s, but there is still something magical about packing up a car and hitting the open road. Whether you plan on traveling hundreds or thousands of miles, taking a road trip with family can offer you time to bond and an opportunity to visit places you didn't even know existed. Before you finish loading up your car and pulling out of the driveway, pick up these travel essentials for your next trip cross country.

Travel Guides

Whether your group is filled with hikers, bikers, campers or adventure-seekers, keeping a travel guide in the car will help you to find locations worth stopping at during your road trip. Some great titles to look at are: Guide to the National Parks of the United States , Roadside Attractions: Cool Cafes, Souvenir Stands, Route 66 Relics & Other Road Trip Fun; and for those of you with a Smart Phone or IPad at your disposal try Tripcart.com.

Healthy Snacks

Taking a cooler full of snacks will help you to avoid the drive thru during your road trip. Planning for snack breaks can also help to manage symptoms of motion sickness, avoid muscle cramping and keep your family happy over long stretches of empty highway. Some great snack options are dried ginger (deliciously counteracts motion sickness), bananas (to fight muscle cramps) and baby carrots.

Travel Games

Especially when traveling with children, entertainment is a travel essential that you would do well to remember. Keeping your carload of friends and family entertained doesn't have to be all DVD players and handheld gaming devices. Save your money and expand your imagination by playing one of these great road trip games from Edumnds.

Napping Essentials

Especially during long road trips that will span days or weeks, creating a calm and comfortable environment for passengers to nap will go a long way to fighting off crankiness during your road trip. Travel pillows come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges and can make sleeping upright more comfortable, but even just a few pillows from your bed at home and a couple of lightweight blankets can do the trick. For the grown ups in your group, consider purchasing some noise-canceling headphones to block out road noise, conversation and music.

Bathroom Comforts

Although something many people don't think about, road trips are made a little bit more enjoyable when you bring bathroom essentials with you. On a vacation that is bound to be filled with truck stops, port-a-potties and roadside bathroom breaks your group will be much happier when they know that toilet paper, sanitary wipes, antibacterial hand soap and a toothbrush and toothpaste are tucked away in the trunk.

Bringing these key travel essentials with you on your next road trip will help you on the road to making lasting memories. While you and your family explore America 's highways, forgotten landmarks and celebrated sites, you can be sure that the time spent in the car between stops will be as comfortable and entertaining as each of the stops you make along the way.