Noel and I went on our first "real" road trip in November 2020 and we learnt a few things along the way. Some (or all) of the things on this list might seem obvious, but for us, it was a real learning curve.
With international travel off the cards for what looks like at least another year (boo), more and more people are bringing their grey nomad plans forward a couple of decades and road trips are having a real resurgence in popularity #vanlife. With many people going on a road trip for the first time there are bound to be some surprises along the way.
I have put this post together to try and help anyone who is embarking on their first road trip be a little bit more prepared. I hope you find the tips on this list useful and I hope you have a wonderful time on your adventure.
1. Expect the unexpected
Unexpected things are going to happen along the way, guaranteed. For us, it was hitting a kangaroo on day one of a 14-day trip and causing some damage to the car (not to mention poor Mr Skippy). You need to make sure you are as prepared as possible to handle things when they pop up so they cause as little disruption to your plans as possible.
Here are a few simple things you can do before you leave to help make sure your trip runs as smoothly as possible.
Service your car before you go and do whatever they tell you needs to be done. For us, this involved a new air-con filter, 4 new tyres and a full tune-up by a mechanic. Make sure your spare tyre is ready for action should it be needed.
Check your car insurance. What are you covered for? What about emergency repairs when you are far from home? How much will your excess cost if you do need to make a claim? Once you have this information, consider if the cover that you have is sufficient for your trip and upgrade if need be.
Get an auto club membership that can help if you do happen to breakdown. For us, we had RACQ ultra care which covered us anywhere in Queensland and provided heaps of extra benefits if we were more than 100km from home. We didn't have to use it but it was very reassuring to know that we were covered should we have an issue.
Pack a basic emergency kit, so you are capable of doing a quick roadside repair if the need arises. Make sure you include strong tape (like duct tape), zip ties, decent scissors or a sharp knife and a pair of gardening gloves (for handling hot car bits) as a very bare minimum.
2. There is way less phone coverage than you expect
We were genuinely very surprised by how little phone coverage we had once we were out of Brisbane. Luckily, Noel had thought to download Google Maps for all the places we were going and these could be used offline. These saved us on several occasions, as we were relying on using Waze or Google Maps most days to get us where we were going.
A friend of ours also leant us a handheld CB radio in case we got ourselves into trouble in an area without phone reception and preset this to the channel most truckies use (channel 40). I never imagined we would have a use for the radio, but when we hit that kangaroo on a remote road with no reception I was so glad our friend had the foresight to give us this. You can pick these up fairly cheaply and if you do find yourself in a pickle you will be super glad that you have a way to get yourself some help.
You will also want to download some playlists on your music app of choice so you can crank the tunes and get the good vibes going when you are without reception/coverage.
3. Everything takes longer than you think it will
When I was planning our trip, I checked all of the driving distances to make sure we wouldn't go over about 6 hours of driving on our longest travel days. All of this looked really good in theory. However, there was a surprisingly large amount of road works being done on several of the roads we were travelling on and a few times there had been quite serious accidents happen ahead of us that slowed the roads down significantly. If you are travelling in the wet season, there are also times that roads are completely cut due to flooding and you will need to go the long way around.
When you are making your plans, assume for every 60 minutes of driving you will experience a 15-minute delay and plan your travel days with this in mind.
4. It's all about the detour
It doesn't matter how much research you do before you leave, you will find things you want to see along the way that you didn't know existed. You might spot an interesting sign on the road pointing you to a lookout or a lake, or maybe you'll arrive in a town and discover than is way more to see and do there than you initially thought.
Make sure your itinerary is flexible enough to allow these detours, as road trips are really all about discovering unexpected things and sometimes about making it up as you go! I would suggest that 4-5 hours is the maximum amount of driving you will be comfortable doing in one day, while still giving yourself enough time to enjoy each destination and its unexpected treasures.
I used Booking.com to organise most of our accommodation and made sure to book places that offered free cancellation, usually up to 24 hours before arrival. This offered us ultimate flexibility and a couple of times I changed either the dates we would be arriving or completely cancelled the original hotel and booked in another town altogether.
5. Attitude is everything
Like I said at the beginning of the post, something is definitely not going to go according to plan. Maybe you'll breakdown on the side of a remote road, or maybe bad weather will cancel a part of your trip you were really looking forward to, or maybe like us you'll have the true Aussie experience of hitting a kangaroo and causing some damage to your car.
How you respond to something unexpected happening is the only thing you can control. Remember that you are on an adventure and the best stories often come from things you didn't expect and could have been an absolute disaster.
Take a deep breath, count to 10 and know that you've got this!
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