It won’t come as a surprise to hear that a good third of your travel budget (at least half if you like fine dining) will be consumed by food. Heck, a good third of your normal “live at home” budget is consumed by food so it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but for some, they get quite surprised when they realise that “eating out” isn’t quite as cheap as you might think.
I was reflecting back to many of my long term sojourns today and thinking about what a god send it was to be able to do much of my own cooking when on tour. It is nice to have a cooked breakfast or a nice meal once in a while but having them everyday soon wears thin. Clearly, if you are traveling in a motorhome then you already have a kitchen on wheels, but for those of us who are also traveling long term, but aren’t all bunked into a moving house then you should consider taking along a few essentials for your long term car trip.
Food, its a given.. Some obvious (but I still manage to forget them) basics that you should have in your kit that aren’t so easily proffered include; cooking oil, coffee/ tea. Many other “basics” are easily obtainable at the first fast food outlet you run into- sauce sachets, pepper and salt sachets, sugar sachets. If you are out for a long time though (more than a couple of weeks) it might be worthwhile spending the couple of $ to have larger stashes on hand– it does get tedious trying to find little sachets (especially challenging if you’re out in the middle of nowhere).
Travel mugs are generally a given- they double as sock storage when in your suitcase and are a must for this coffee fiend for the “on the go” coffee stop.
Cutlery is another must.. Sure you can choose to buy a packet of plastic throw away spoons/ knives etc but what I’ve worked out is my handy pencil case. My crappy $1 pencil case has now travelled half the world with me and I pretty much don’t go on a trip without it anymore. Housed inside is 2x desert spoon, teaspoon fork and knives. 1x sharp knife (plastic handled that has a cover for easy storage), a couple of plastic pegs for closing packets of rice/ pasta/ cereal etc and the most important item– a bottle opener.. You wouldn’t believe how often the bottle opener gets used, from the obvious (opening up my bottles of wine/ beer) through to opening up any sort of tin can. I also travel with a plastic spatula (it can double as a wooden spoon at a pinch) and a flat grater.. Might seem like a strange implement but I really like my spaghetti to include grated vegetables so a flat grater joins all trips! 🙂
My other “essential” travel item is a small freezer bag that becomes my “fridge on wheels”. I’ve been through a few different versions over the years, my current “fridge” is the type that has built in chilly compartments so you put the whole thing in the freezer to chill before adding your cold items. Add a couple of small slim line chilly bricks and you’ve got a makeshift fridge that more than gets you by milk/ butter storage.
Then there are the bigger items.. These I normally purchase when I arrive in an area that I’m going to be traveling in for quite awhile.. For our six month voyage around the States/ Canada we bought ourselves a little camping stove/ bbq, 1 pot and 1 fry pan, plastic plates/ bowls, a plastic bucket for washing up/ dirty dishes and for my Dad, a cheap table cloth that we used when were using picnic tables in local parks! 🙂
My latest addition to the kit is my eco-pot. I only discovered the wonders of the eco-pot last year when I borrowed my Mum’s when we spent four months traveling around SE Australia. Outside is one big thermos, inside a normal cooking pot. Basically, you cook your food in the normal pot and then put that pot into the big thermos. Keeps your food piping hot, so that come dinner time your dinner is already made. Quick prep in the morning at breakfast, bring the pot to the boil and then dinner is done! Fantastic way to cook soups, stews and curries and saves loads of time and gas later in the evening at dinner time!!
With this little kit and our daily shopping expeditions to the local supermarket I’ve easily saved thousands of dollars on dining out. Once you get in the habit of having your main meal in the middle of the day (in a park somewhere) and a light snack at dinner time its really quite easy to save loads of money and still enjoy healthy, tasty meals…. which can be hard to come by in the USA!