Road Trip: How to Prepare for a Successful Vacation

Car preparation

Common sense dictates that a modern car will cause fewer problems, will be more comfortable and will not break down on the road. If you have a choice, it is worth driving a less worn car, but if you have no choice, it does not matter. The problem of old cars is exaggerated by those who do not drive them.

The vehicle must go through the following stages of preparation:

maintenance of the engine and chassis, troubleshooting;
checking the level of fluids and adding them, changing the oil in the engine and gearbox, if necessary;
spare wheel check;
equipment with a set of tools, spare oil, brake and coolants, timing belts and generator, first aid kit, tow rope, jack, flashlight, pump or compressor, fire extinguisher, reflective vest and emergency stop sign.

To travel, you need an up-to-date set of car documents, insurance and, if you are traveling abroad, a green card. In order to validate your driving license in countries that have acceded to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, you only need to have your national driving license with you. This list includes most of the countries of Europe and the former USSR, about 80 states in total (see Wikipedia).

Household rider

It may seem like there is enough room in the car for all the things you want to take with you. This is an illusion: with a large amount of junk, it will become more difficult to find the right thing and there is always a risk that you will want to buy a large item on a trip, but do not put it in the trunk.

Each traveler will need one set of outerwear and three sets of underwear. In addition to a car first aid kit, you must have a personal one with aspirin, paracetamol, smecta or other remedy for digestive problems, medicines for allergies and against blood-sucking insects. Put the usual products in the cosmetic bag, without which not a single day is complete, in most cases they do not take up much space.

For spending the night outdoors, you will need a sleeping bag, a camping mat and a tent; for self-catering, you will need a gas stove with one burner. These are optional attributes, but they hedge if something goes wrong.

Keep a spare credit card and some cash in your luggage, separate from your main wallets.

Do the same with copies of all documents (preferably in color).

Luggage should be packed and positioned in the car so that full unloading requires a minimum of shifting and a minimum of time.

Route planning

We will proceed from the assumption that a typical car trip is not a march, not a marathon or a trophy expedition, but a comfortable car ride during an average vacation, which can take from four days to two weeks.

Soberly assess the possibilities. A driver with long-distance driving experience will travel 1,000 kilometers in a day, or more on an expressway two lanes in one direction. But such a pace is tiresome and requires a fasting day or a second driver.

To determine how much you need to drive a day, mark the anchor points of the route on the map - cities, historical places or natural objects where you plan to stay overnight. Then determine the distance and route between these points.

It is undesirable to stay at one point for less than a day.

Moving over 500 kilometers is a small test for the driver. It is also better to see less on the road in order to see more at the destination.

I'll tell you about my experience. The desire to make the trip as rich as possible blurred the impressions: we visited many cities, but saw little.

We arrived in Yaroslavl at 16 o'clock. After a day of driving, spending the night in the field and a cursory visit to Uglich and Rostov the Great, I wanted to take a shower, eat hot and just relax. We did not go out for a walk until eight in the evening, and after four hours we returned to sleep.

The next half day we examined the city, and towards evening we went to Vologda, but not along the main road, but through Rybinsk and Poshekhonye: I wanted to see these cities with at least one eye. There was not enough time to get to Vologda before dark. We drove along a very bad road and at some point had to return to the previous fork.

We got to Vologda the next day, when it was time to return home, which is 700 kilometers. Three hours in a historic city of 300 thousand is too short to feel its atmosphere.

Financial question

The more travelers in one car, the cheaper the trip is for everyone. True, it becomes more difficult to plan a route, but if you agree before the start, then there will be no omissions and surprises.

Calculate how much money you need to buy gas and charge a third more. When calculating, proceed from your own experience, not technical consumption figures. Online calculators simplify this process, but do not take into account the wrong turn and subsequent wanderings, and the deposit in case of excessive fuel consumption will take this moment into account.

Build a refueling fund before the trip so that you don't get confused about who pays during it. Divide the remainder equally at the end of the journey.

Determine in advance where you will be located. There are several acceptable ways for friendly companies: a motel, a hostel, an apartment (can be rented through Avito, Airbnb and their analogues), a guarded paid camping or an overnight stay in nature in a wild way. Accommodation at a hotel is most often beneficial only to married couples. Couchsurfing is suitable for a solo traveler or a couple in which at least one has a pumped account on the Couchsurfing.com website.

Use metasearch engines like Booking.com or Trivago to find all types of paid placements. On them you can find promotions, discounts and promotional codes provided by both the hotel and the service itself.

Before crossing the state border, make sure that you have some currency of the host country on hand, even if you prefer to pay by card.

Psychological aspect

It's great if every traveler knows what to expect from a fellow traveler. Living together on a trip requires trust, mutual understanding and a search for compromises.

Konstantin Perfilyev, founder of the Dream Roads expedition project, claims that every joint trip should have a leader. There may be several organizers, but one person should coordinate the actions - an experienced traveler, to whom the rest listen to in matters of technology and tactics. Even if the driver drives everyone in his car, he will have to accept that someone else will probably be in charge of the process.

The company should not have a weak link that suddenly wants to go home or rest, contrary to the plans outlined in advance. If the trip is spontaneous, this is also not a reason to relax, lying on the couch in the hostel or playing volleyball after breakfast at the campsite when it's time to leave.

Outcome

The car does not have to be new. The main thing is that it is reliable and undergoes maintenance.
Just in case, check the possibility of using a Russian driver's license in the host country, keep the documents in order and make copies of them.
Do not overload the trunk. Imagine that you are driving without a car.
If the trip plan is very busy, it is better to generalize it: remove unnecessary intermediate points in order to leave more time for the main and interesting.
Take money for gasoline more than you need, and in advance take care of the presence of the currency of the host country if you are traveling abroad.
To avoid conflicts, agree on everything in advance and choose a travel leader.