If you are anything like the Kings Cross crew, you’ll likely attempt to take every opportunity to enjoy this summer to its fullest. With the exciting return of summer comes outings, adventures, camping, and a whole lot of road trips. We, personally, love doing all of those things! With all of that in mind, we hope to help you prepare for all of your adventures. In this article, we’re going to let you in on all of our must-pack road trip items.
Before you even leave for your excursion, however, we want to give you a friendly reminder to have an inspection performed on your vehicle in order to make sure there aren’t any safety concern items. Why not resolve issues before they have the opportunity to become road trip spoilers?
If you have your inspection done with Kings Cross Automotive, we’ll check your fluids, inspect your vehicle for repair concerns, look over the condition of your tires and can even check the tire pressure of all of your tires for you- don’t forget the spare. 😉
There are 3 categories to consider when packing road trip necessities: the life items, the tool items, the easy-button items.
BONUS: read until the end of the article to learn how you can win our Summer Road Trip Giveaway!
The LIFE ITEMS
These items do exactly what it sounds like; keep you happy, healthy, and give you the energy you need. These include: water, food, and heat. It’s a good idea to pack these if you plan on driving through an expansive area that doesn’t have many, or even any, towns or stores anywhere close by. Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas trips anyone? Though, even the towns on the eastern side of our own states can be quite far and few between.
Water
First up, the most important substance for life- water. Gotta love that good ‘ole H₂O! Keeping a gallon of water in the back of your vehicle while traveling is a great idea. It’ll give you peace of mind knowing that you’ll have water to drink in the event that you break down. Getting stuck on the side of the road during a hot summer day is hard enough; you don’t want to be thirsty too!
Moreover, there’s an additional benefit to keeping a gallon of water in your vehicle! If your vehicle runs low on coolant and you aren’t in a position to stop for more, you can actually use water to keep your vehicle from overheating until you can stop for coolant at the nearest retail store. While water is a very temporary fix and you don’t want to use it in freezing temperatures, it can really help you out of the hot seat when you just need to get a little bit further.
Snacks
Who doesn’t like to snack a bit? It’s always good to keep a few snack items with you in the car. Bring along protein bars, trail mix, fruit pouch squeezies, or your other go-to snacks for energy on hand. Afterall, no one enjoys dealing with a hangry person; especially, when you’re miles away from the nearest restaurant and crammed in the car.
Heat
Finally, the last on our Life Items list is a source of heat. Not having a source of heat in the event of an emergency may not seem like a huge deal during the summer months, however, you may be surprised by how chilly certain places can get at night. Arizona, which many immediately think of as hot, can have temperatures that shoot from 80° during the day to 35° at night. What’s the harm in throwing in a nice blanket and or a jacket for the trip? Plus, neither would take up much space.
The TOOL ITEMS
It’s never fun to have vehicle troubles. And it’s even less fun when you’re hundreds of miles away from your trusted auto repair shop. Thankfully, with the right tools tucked away in your car, you shouldn’t be totally out of luck if you were to break down on your adventure.
Tire pressure gauge
This small, yet mighty, item can give you peace of mind and help you foresee a possible issue before it becomes a big problem. While on a long distance drive, checking your tire pressure every time you stop for gas is a great precaution to take. Your tires work really hard for you whenever they’re driven for hours at a time, over hundreds of miles, over different road conditions. By using a tire pressure gauge throughout the course of your journey, you’re giving yourself a chance at catching a slow air leak with enough time to have it checked out.
Vehicle jack & tool kit
Many vehicles have a jack and tool kit that came with the vehicle, tucked away in a compartment somewhere. However, double check that your vehicle is equipped with one and that you know where it’s located BEFORE. YOU. LEAVE. Folks, let us just say that too many of us have assumed our jack and toolkit were in a compartment only to find out that they aren’t actually there when we need them. These will all be necessary items to have should you need to swap out a flat tire with your spare.
Jumper Cables or Jump Starter
Jumper cables and vehicle jump starters have come a long way over the last decade or so. You can get the no frills, classic jumper cables; or you can get a jump starter with all kinds of bells and whistles starting at around $150. There are jump packs that come with the ability to charge your USB accessories, some with 12V outlets, built-in flashlights, and even a 150 psi air compressor for inflating your tires. Pretty cool if you ask us.
The EASY-BUTTON ITEMS
Items that make our lives easier are great to have around. They aren’t exactly, 100%, completely necessary, however they can help make your road trip run so much smoother. These items, listed below, are items that have come in handy for us on road trips; even becoming permanent staple items.
Flashlight
You might be thinking to yourself, “Why would I need a flashlight when I have a smartphone that has one?” Too many of us have found ourselves in bind; only to find out that our phone is dead. Phone dead- no phone flashlight. Not to mention, small flashlights can fit in spaces that a smartphone just can’t.
Pre-charged portable charging pack
If you don’t have one or don’t want one of the jump starters with the accessory chargers, then these are a really great, low cost way to charge your phone on-the-go. These portable charging packs cost as little as $10, are small in size, and are able to store an impressive amount of battery life for your phones, tablets, and other electronics. We highly recommend these portable charging packs.
Road Trip Ready… Or You Could Be After Winning Our Giveaway
Now that you have your list of items to take with you this summer, we hope you feel confident to drive away to your next adventure. Maybe you have all of these items at home just waiting to be packed up for the trip. Maybe you’ve been taking notes and are about to hop over to the store to pick these items up. Or maybe you had a feeling that you could get all of these items for free, and you’ve been waiting and waiting for Kings Cross Automotive to host a giveaway. Well, good news to all of you patient people out there.
Kings Cross Automotive is excited to announce that we are running our Summer Road Trip Giveaway with all of our must-have items from this list (plus, a few extras)!
How to Enter:
- Follow us on Instagram and/or Facebook (if you aren’t already)
- Tag 3 friends on one of our social media posts that we publish between June 18th, 2021 and 7 P.M. PST on June 29th, 2021
- Share our giveaway in your stories and tag us.
You may complete the steps listed above more than once in order to receive multiple entries.
Winner will be announced on June 30th!