Planning food for road trips can be exhausting and time-consuming. Lucky for you, road trips have been a passion of ours for the last 10+ years. We have a lot of experience packing meals & snacks for our trips. Whether you’re going on a weekend getaway or an extended road trip, our list covers meals and snack ideas the whole family will love.
Why You Should Pack Your Food For Road Trips
- Eating out can be costly, especially for 3 meals a day.
- Packing your food can be healthier.
- Packing your food for road trips saves time.
- It guarantees access to food even in remote areas.
- Having easily accessible road trip snacks ensures your little kids will be full between meals. This will help prevent any tantrums that could occur due to hunger.
- It limits the number of road trip stops.
Things To Consider When Planning Food
Things to Consider When Planning Food For Road Trips
1- The size of your cooler & number of days you’ll be gone.
If you’re headed on a long road trip you may not have enough room in your cooler to fit everything you’ll need for your entire trip. That’s ok. Buy what will fit and then plan a stop at a grocery store when you’ll have more room.
2- How long your cooler keeps things cool
If your cooler only keeps things cold for a few days, plan to get more ice at gas stations when you stop for gas. If you are staying at a hotel, you can grab some ice from their ice machine for free.
Tip- Freeze water bottles to use in place of or with ice & ice packs. Frozen water bottles last a long time and they don’t leave your food in a pool of water. Packing frozen food works too but it doesn’t stay frozen as long as water bottles. We always use water bottles & uncrustables.
Pre-chill your cooler & beverages the day before filling your cooler. This will help the cooler stay colder longer.
*We love our Orca cooler. It’s expensive but keeps our food cold for a long time (about 5-7 days), even in heatwaves. A cheaper alternative is RTIC coolers.
3- Keep in mind the foods your family actually likes to eat.
When planning food for your road trips, I highly recommend sticking to the foods your family has tried and loves. If nobody likes the food you pack, it will be wasted and you will end up eating out instead.
4- Eat fresh foods that will perish the fastest first.
5- Keep snacks easily accessible in the car.
We don’t limit our kid’s snacks when on road trips. We just want them to be happy and if that means they get a couple of extra snacks during the day, it’s worth it.
Tip- Store snacks in a clear storage bin. This keeps all your snacks in one place and makes it easier to see what road trip snacks are still available.
6- Buy snacks & drinks from Sam’s Club or another bulk food store.
This saves us so much money. Most of the snacks are individually packaged which makes things easier.
7- Any dishes or utensils that you’ll need for your meals.
Food For Road Trips – Snacks
Road trip snacks are not only essential for keeping the hangry-ness at bay but also to help boost your mood & energy levels. You’ll want to pack a variety of snacks so that you don’t get bored of eating the same thing over and over.
When choosing snacks to take on a road trip with you, it is helpful to keep in mind the activities that you’ll be doing on your trip. If you’ll be doing plenty of hiking you’ll want to pack some snacks that can hold up on the trails.
The best road trip snacks are those that can be eaten in the car mess free & don’t take up a lot of space.
Refrigerated Healthy Snacks
Fresh Fruit-
Cuties (easy-to-peel oranges), grapes (pulled off the stem), bananas, apples, & berries. You can pretty much bring any fruit but you’ll want to prep it beforehand. Something like canteloupe will be hard to cut up while on the road.
String Cheese/Cheese Sticks
GoGurt (or any yogurt in tubes)-
This style of yogurt doesn’t take up much room and can be frozen which will help keep your cooler cold without ice.
Fresh Vegetables-
Cucumbers, baby carrots, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers… Like the fresh fruit, you’ll want to prep the vegetables first.
Bottled Smoothies
Protein Drinks
Hard-Boiled Eggs
Summer Sausage
Pepperoni
Hummus
Guacamole
Non-Refrigerated Healthy Road Trip Snacks
Granola Bars –
We love these homemade granola bars & these pre-packaged ones.
Prepackaged fruit-
GoGo Squeeze (Did you know you can buy containers to make your own?), Dried fruit (raisins, prunes, apple chips, banana chips…), fruit cups
Beef Jerky
Trail Mix
Nuts/Seeds-
We love almonds & pistachios but you could also bring sunflower seeds, walnuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds…
Tuna Kits
Protein Bars
Fruit Bars- That’s It bars are made from only fruit.
Kale Chips
Best Road Trip Snacks (Not so healthy)
Potato Chips
Popcorn
Dark Chocolate Chips
Candy Bars
Pretzels
Goldfish Crackers
Crackers
Fruity Candy
Our favorite road trip snacks that we never leave the house without are- trail mix, fruit snacks, chips, squeezable applesauce & beef jerky.
Road Trip Meals
It is important to plan out your meals for a road trip. Doing so will ensure that you will have enough food for the duration of your road trip. Whether you’re planning to go on a long trip or a short trip, meal planning will prevent you from grabbing fast food and save you money.
Where to eat your meals while on the road?
The options are endless. Our kids are older and really good on long road trips. We always plate our food at the gas station and then eat it in the car while we drive. However, when our kids were younger stopping to let them run was very important for their moods. So we would look up fun parks along our route (the park had to have a bathroom). This allowed the kids to fill their bellies, play & hopefully get tired. If we couldn’t find a park we would just stop at a rest stop to eat and play or run races.
To keep our kids happy on road trips we allow them to eat any meal at anytime during the day. Meaning if they want to eat another breakfast at dinner, they can. We just ask that they consume a fruit and vegetable with all meals.
Food For Road Trips- Breakfast Ideas
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so make it good. We often stay at hotels with free breakfast so we rarely have to pack breakfast. But when we do, these are the options that we choose from.
Muffins-
Bakery muffins are always a great idea. Save money by making your own.
Banana Bread
Bagels with Cream Cheese or Peanut Butter
Pop-Tarts
Yogurt Tubes
Breakfast Sandwich-
Pre-cook all of your favorite breakfast sandwich components. Store in individual containers & assemble as needed.
Yogurt Parfaits-
Yogurt, granola & berries
Bacon-
Cook the bacon beforehand. It’s always a good idea to add bacon to all sandwiches.
Sausage–
Cook the sausage before you leave. My kids don’t mind eating it cold with a muffin or bagel.
Dry Cereal
Instant Oatmeal
Croissants
Eggo Cinnamon Toast Frozen Waffles-
My kids prefer to eat these waffles cold & without syrup. They are so easy to toss in the cooler and eat as they unthaw.
Protein Bar
Hard-Boiled Eggs
Breakfast Cookies-
This breakfast cookie recipe is so good.
Bottled Smoothie
Protein Drink
Food For Road Trips- Lunch Ideas
Simple meals are better as they are easier to prepare & assemble. For lunches, we always pack ingredients for simple sandwiches. An easy way to prevent sandwich boredom on a longer trip is to swap out the type of bread or meat. Instead of using a typical loaf of bread opt for buns, croissants, sub buns, bagels & wraps.
Meat & Cheese Sandwich-
Prevent the sandwiches from getting soggy by assembling them when you are ready to eat.
Uncrustables-
Save money by making and freezing your own. Fun combinations can include peanut butter & jelly, peanut butter & honey, Nutella, Nutella & peanut butter…
Salads-
Bagged salads are so convenient for road trips. They don’t take up a lot of room & if you need to you can assemble the salad right in the bag.
Lunchables-
For a healthier, tastier option make your own. Crackers, Meat & Cheese!
Tuna Salad
Chicken Salad
Food For Road Trips- Dinner Ideas
While packing all your food can save you a lot of money, it can be a good idea to allow yourself to eat local a few times.
Dinner ideas can be kind of tricky. At dinner time some people may still be in their car, some may stay at a hotel with a microwave or a full kitchen, while others may choose to camp or pull off to sleep for a few hours in a parking lot. We typically choose to stay at hotels, so we opt to buy frozen meals, hot pockets, individual mac & cheese cups, and make our food in the hotel’s microwave. But because this is a list for road trip food, I feel it necessary to list dinner ideas as if people are on the open road.
Diced Rotisserie Chicken
Chicken Salad
Tuna Salad
BBQ Chicken Sandwich-
Rotisserie chicken, BBQ sauce, sliced cheese, bun
Walking Tacos-
Taco meat (made ahead of time), favorite taco toppings, and an individual serving bag of chips. Add taco meat and toppings to a chip bag & voila, walking tacos!
Salad Topped w/ Rotisserie Chicken
Soup at Hand
Charcuterie Board-
Place a little of everything on your plate. Calling it a charcuterie board makes it a little fancier.
Make-Ahead Meals-
Making some of your family’s favorite dinners beforehand can be a great option as long as you don’t mind eating them chilled.
Road Trip Drinks
Food For Road Trips- Drinks
Water
Body Armour
Bottled Smoothies
Protein Drinks
Soda
Juice Boxes
Gatorade
Drink Mix-ins we love
These mix-ins are a great option if you don’t have room for a variety of beverages. They take up almost no room and can be added to water.
Protein Powder-
This unflavored powder can be mixed with anything to give an extra boost of protein.
Liquid IV-
Liquid IV has electrolytes and is very hydrating. One packet gets mixed with a bottle of water.
Tip- Bring beverages that have a screw-on lid. This will prevent a lot of messes especially if traveling with younger kids.
Essential Non-Food Items
Packing food is very important but so is packing utensils. Without them, life on the road could get very interesting and messy. Here is a list of essential items that will make eating on the road a whole lot easier.
- Dishes (plates, bowls, & cups)
- Water Bottle
- Cutlery (fork, spoon, knives)
- Diaper Wipes (to clean any messes)
- Napkins
- Can Opener (if bringing canned items)
- Small Garbage Bags (to store trash in until you can throw it away)
- ZipLock Bags (in case you need to store something or a packaged food breaks open)
- Hand Sanitizer
There you have it, the ultimate road trip food list complete with good snacks, meal ideas, and beverages. Be sure to bookmark this page so that you can quickly reference it for your next road trip.
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