12 Road Trip Essentials for Your Late Summer Getaway

While some stretches of your journey may be filled with awe-inspiring sights, others may involve a lot of endless highway miles with less exciting vistas. When you’re feeling a little bored, pull out a road trip game designed specifically to spark conversation and imagination during your journey.

Between playing your road trip playlists, listening to podcasts and navigating with GPS, your devices are going to run out of juice. A power adapter designed for your car can help charge up any of your devices — just make sure to unplug it when the car is off, or you risk a dead battery.

When it’s not your turn to drive, you may want to rest. Make it more comfortable with a flexible neck pillow that can contort in any shape or form you need to fall asleep.

You might be stopping to camp or heading for a hotel in a different city each night, but either way, you’ll want to keep all your cords and gadgets organized and easy to carry from the vehicle to your accommodations. A tech organizer is essential and can help keep you from leaving something important behind.

If your vehicle doesn’t have a screen to show your digital map, make sure to set up a phone mount so you can easily navigate without needing to look down or fuss with your phone when you need to be paying attention to the road.

Make washing clothes on the go easier by sorting out dirty laundry into some handy bags, rather than tossing them back into the suitcase with your clean clothes.

Driving a long distance in a car can already feel pretty cramped, but this gets so much worse when the car is littered with fast food bags and snack containers. This helpful trash bin has a lid to contain your trash until you reach the next stop.

Eating in the car? Don’t miss this steering wheel food tray to hold your meal and even a drink while you are parked. Passengers can also benefit by adding food trays that connect to the vehicle’s cup holders, like this one.

Make dipping nuggets, fries and other foods easier with these convenient dip clips, which attach to the car vents and hold various fast food dipping sauce containers.

All those greasy french fries and salt-and-vinegar chips are road trip staples, but they can also stink up the inside of the car. This air-purifying bag neutralizes odors and lasts up to two years, meaning your car won’t smell like stale food for days on end.

Picture this: you’ve just picked up a quick meal, and you notice there’s a scenic pull-off or a state park nearby. With this picnic backpack in your car, you can turn a casual lunch break during your road trip into a core memory. It even has a blanket to sit on if you can’t find a good picnic table at your rest stop.

If you want to enjoy a cold soda without needing to stop at a drive-thru, don’t forget to pack a cooler in the backseat! This insulated, leak-proof cooler holds cold beverages and foods in the bottom, plus additional snacks in a top compartment.