3-4 week long road trip/offroading food/exercise ideas

aerochic42

Later this year, the hubby and I are packing up the jeep and heading across the US (MD to CA and back again, through UT and CO) for a 3-4 week road trip/offroading adventure. We will be doing a mix of hotels, KOA cabins, and camping. We'll definitely have a cooler, but might have limited access to ice (only what we bring) or refrigeration for several days in a row when offroading. In an effort to a) not spend a bazillion $ on food and b) not gain 20 pounds in that time frame, we are planning on packing a lot of breakfasts/lunches/snacks. Aside from when we are camping, we'll probably do dinner out, but who knows. I want to be familiar with the foods before I discover it doesn't keep, doesn't hold up (durability) or even more important we don't like it. We have a few smaller trips planned before, so I can use those for test runs.

Any suggestions for food, especially more like meals?

Tacklewasher

12V Portable electric coolers are nice as long as you are actually driving. Just be sure to have them on a switched source as they kill a battery pretty quick (like 2 hours). But you'll need a lot of dried foods. Canned stuff (soup, fruit etc.) works as well but you need a campstove to heat things up.

I used to do this a lot but now I just pull a 300 sq ft condo behind me when I drive, so no more offload or backwoods for me.

spiriteagle99

If you are going to be in the backcountry for several days at a time, think like a backpacker. Bring a small stove. That allows dinners of Knorr/RiceaRoni type pasta or rice or couscous with a protein like tuna, salmon, chicken, ham, spam, etc. added in. Carrots and onions travel well. Dried or canned fruit. Pudding packs also travel well and don't need to be refrigerated. Bring nuts, cookies, gorp for snacks. Some of the Hormel meals like pot roast or pork roast are compact and would work for a first night out of town, with mashed potatoes and a vegetable. Canned chili and stew and some soups are filling enough for dinner.

Machka9

Regarding exercise ...

Bring folding bicycles and ride for an hour or so in the middle of each day. I've done that with full-sized bicycles and folding bicycles.

Bring good quality hiking shoes/boots, and go on lots of hikes at the various land feature tourist attractions you come across. When you're in Utah, for example, you'll want to be hiking Zion and Bryce and Arches and all sorts. When you get up into the mountains, again, there are lots of hiking options.

When you get wherever you're going for the day, park the car. Then walk (or cycle) to find groceries and supplies and dinner and tourist attractions etc.

If the place you stop has a pool or is at a beach, swim laps.

If the place you stop has a mini-gym, use it.

Lots of parks these days have outdoor exercise equipment (google: outdoor exercise equipment usa). For example: http://fitness.playcore.com/ If you come across a park with outdoor exercise equipment, stop and use it.


At the very least, try to stop every 1 to 2 hours to go for a short walk, even just 500 metres or something, to stretching things out and get the blood circulating.

ahoy_m8

It sounds really fun. Have a great time. Ditto on the camp stove. They can be really compact and most grocery stores have the gas canisters. Things that heat/cook quickly will be most practical, e.g precooked sausage, frozen shrimp & pasta for dinner. Hard boiled eggs can be great to have on hand. Love the elec ice chest idea. Also, box wine. There are some pretty good ones out there! Cheers!

aerochic42

Thanks for the ideas. We have been looking at some of the vehicle electric coolers, but man are they expensive. And Camp stove of some sort (haven't decided size yet) was also in the plans. I had been looking at backpacking food ideas, but kind of forgot that we have the jeep and will be camping near it and therefore lugging cans or other bulky food items around is actually not a big idea.

As for exercise, we are planning on making some time to go hiking/wandering at Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Arches for sure. Parts of the trip is planned what we do when, but we are going for flexible plans on the rest. Bikes are not really an option as we'll be pretty loaded down (plus additional expenditure between now and then). The rest of the time, it will be squeezing it into some long 10-12 hour driving time days.

cbelc2

We used the crock pot in the car with an adapter plug. With lots of planning, bringing our planned meals, 2 planned grocery store stops, electric and gas hot plates, and a 'kitchen in a bag', we managed a 19 day road trip with only 2 restaurant meals. One of those was because of burned overnight oatmeal. The other was a nice planned dinner out. It can be done!!!

Duchy82

Just from experience, if you bring some frozen meat/buy some frozen meat, combined with your ice packs the cooler will stay cold for 2-3 days (depending on how hot it is outside of course) so you could have some fresh dairy for a few days at the time, other than that, tins of spam and tuna or any other kinds of tinned meat/fish, tinned soup, quite a bit of veg and fruit lasts fine outside of a fridge, think root veg, apples, pears, oranges, bananas, eggs don't need refrigerating, dried and cured meats would work too. The options are endless, enjoy your trip!