There’s an allure on the open road. It’s oft been written of, the romance of driving anonymously through a one horse town, just your ride and your thoughts and the AM radio station arriving faintly. A glimpse of simpler times. Alas, with smart phones and interstate highway systems, the romantic notions of any road trip are a subject put to rest. And that’s okay! If you put in a very small bit of planning, road trips can still be a blast and will be. You don’t need to have a full itinerary, and in fact you shouldn’t, but you will want to make sure a few data is taken care of before you cast caution to the wind and hit the highway, just like Grandad would want.

To start with, you should at the very least come up with a few destinations you need to see. We’ll call them benchmarks. If most of the fun is as you go along, you want benchmarks to give your drive a sense of direction, even. Great benchmarks are things such as National Parks, like the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore. With a few choice benchmarks inside your itinerary, you should use the computer to map out other fun things along the way. You must always maintain your eyes open. For example, if you’re in the 40 heading through the pan handle of Texas, you won’t wish to miss Cadillac Ranch, worth the quick stop for sure. If you have too strict of your itinerary, you might think you don’t have time to stop at the Ranch, but you’ll be missing out on one of the primary purposes of road tripping!

Also, your car or truck has to be reliable. Some might say wearing down in a town you know no-one in might be a fun adventure, but believe me, there are better adventures to be had than the expensive and frustrating experience of wearing down on the highway at 3 every morning, out of water and hungry. So if you are thinking of getting going in a old clunker, maybe think about buying a new or gently used vehicle, say from a Nissan dealer in Los Angeles. Nissans and Japanese cars are known for their comfort and reliability, so they make excellent road tripping cars. You can see how affordable they really are at metronissanredlands.com. Why not start your road trip off right?

Another essential thing before road tripping is remembering to get snacks for the road. Beef jerky and pistachios are fun road trip snacks, and the pistachio shells may be tossed out the window. Also bring a good amount of water. It’s better to be hydrated and have to make more bathroom breaks than to self-torture yourself into thinking you don’t have time to stop. Always stop at the rest stop to relieve yourself, it’ll have the trip significantly more bearable. The trip must be fun and will be fun, so don’t put any moment pressures on yourself. You won’t be open to the adventure should you – so avoid wasting time getting snacks, have those with you, and let yourself have the a chance to stop at vista points and other attractions. Remember, you’re road tripping to find out the country, so see it!