3 Step Road Trip Tips: DIY Ice Packs Cooler Prep

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Road trips are the best way to stay socially distant in this very wild and weird 2020 times! Here are the best road trip tips if you are heading out this year with your family including how to make DIY ice packs for cooler prep. 

road trip pit stops: key is in the road trip snacks!

Road Trip Tips To Live By

It’s time to take off again!

The annual summer road trip begins on Saturday as we load up and head out to Florida. Road trips are great, in my opinion; here is my favorite road trip tip.

Much to my kids’ chagrin, we are a road-tripping family.

When there are 6 of you, finances just say, nah, girl, you gotta drive…planes cost way too much!

If we can make it under 16 hours, we’ll drive it. Florida is only 12ish hours away, so off we go!

(and of course, it’s to Disney and Universal because: duh!)

Why do I like the road?

Well, it’s a bit of an adventure, isn’t it? And the new scenery is always interesting to me. For example, the sunsets in California are different than the ones in Texas or New Mexico.

And I do love a good sunset!

Road Trip! It's worth the drive, with a song in your heart and a cold Coke in your hand. Share a song on your next vacation. Keep them cool with homemade ice packs. Travel | On the Road | Music

Snacks Are The Way

The biggest takeaway from my time on the road is this: road trip success relies on the snack bag.

Sure, directions are important.

And so is entertainment. Our (tone-deaf) family sing-alongs are hilarious, that’s for sure!

Don’t forget to coordinate the pit stops too.

But something always goes wrong. And when it does, trust me, folks: the snacks will save you.

Here are my steps for packing the perfect road trip cooler.

Road Trip! It's worth the drive, with a song in your heart and a cold Coke in your hand. Share a song on your next vacation. Keep them cool with homemade ice packs. Travel | On the Road | Music

3 Step Road Trip Tips: DIY Ice Packs Cooler Prep

1. Road Trip Tip- Plan Ahead

Think about what will keep you filled, happy, and motivated while on the road.

And, more importantly, what will keep the kids from whining I’m hunnnngryy from the back seat. Because no matter how fast you drive, you’ll never get away from that!

Right now, my body wants all the sugar. Being a fat kid is hard, y’all!

But I know it actually loves protein, fruit, and veggies.

Things like grapes, apples, hard-boiled eggs, almonds, jerky, and veggies with peanut butter go on the road with us.

I packed all this along with some goldfish crackers, hummus, and pretzels for the kids as well.

Road Trip! It's worth the drive, especially if you bring the road trip snacks! Here are my road trip tip for keeping them cool with homemade ice packs. Travel | On the Road | road trip tips

Everything is cut up and portioned out to make sharing easy.

If you make individual bags or boxes for each kid, you’ll be the queen of the road and be singing a happy tune when they start asking for snacks!

Snack-sized bags or reusable plastic totes are worth buying for your trip.

2. Keep Things Cool on The Road Trip With DIY Ice Packs

Since you’ve got so many goodies coming with you, be sure you keep it all cold while you travel.

I like to make my ice packs for this part of the cooler prep.

Spoiler alert: ice melts. That leaves you with a cooler of nasty water that your food is floating around in.

Gross.

Plus, with kids digging around in there while you are driving, it’s highly likely you’ll end up with a mess.

Especially if the car is in motion if you follow me!

These ice bags are the perfect solution to keep things cold, but also save a bit of your sanity with no water sloshing around in there.

And they don’t freeze completely, so they are flexible and can be molded around the food or drinks as needed.

Road Trip! It's worth the drive, especially if you bring the road trip snacks! Here are my road trip tip for keeping them cool with homemade ice packs.

DIY Ice Bag Ingredients

  • Plastic freezer storage bags. Any size will work. I used gallon-sized bags.
  • Rubbing alcohol
  • Water
  • Food coloring if you want to be fancy

DIY Ice Bag Creation Steps

Making the bags is pretty simple. The magic formula is two parts water and one part alcohol.

Add the food coloring, seal the bag tightly, and shake it up to distribute the colors.

Carefully press as much air out as you can to avoid air bubbles.

I double bag them, with the seals ending up at opposite ends. This is added protection against spillage.

Put the bags in the freezer overnight.

3. Road Trip Tips: Load ‘Em Up!

You’ve got the snack plan, you’ve got the ice made, now it’s time to load it all up and hit the road.

I start with a couple of packs in the bottom of the cooler to make sure all levels are being addressed.

Then I start adding in the food and drinks, layering in ice packs as I go.

Road Trip! It's worth the drive, with a song in your heart and a cold Coke in your hand. Share a song on your next vacation. Keep them cool with homemade ice packs. Travel | On the Road | Music

Zip it up, load it up, and off we go!

Protip: leave the cooler packing as the last item on your to-do list to ensure everything stays refrigerator cold for as long as possible. Hope these road trip tips help! 

What does your summer, summer, summertime road trip look like this year? Where will you be going?

This post was originally shared as part of a Collective Bias sponsored post.

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6 Comments

  1. Great road trip tips! I love to snacks during my road trips too. Love the idea of keeping things cool. Hope you have a nice trip, Patty.

  2. Great advice – as a 40 year road-tripper I love all advice to make things easier. One additional tip for summer – if your coolers are stored in the garage, bring them into the air conditioning the day before so your ice packs aren’t trying go cool down the container(s) also. Even better – if you have room in your fridge or freezer, store them in there overnight. The soft-sided ones are easy to collapse and stuff in the fridge the night before.

  3. Wow !
    Awesome road trip tips!
    Thanks a lot for sharing this amazing trip tips with us !
    I am sharing this amazing post with my finders right now !

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