Frugal Eats On Road Trips
I tried to count the number of road trips our family has taken, but I really just can't. I have no idea. And when I talk about road trips, I am talking about trips we have taken of several days duration, sometimes weeks, and, a couple of times, road trips that lasted over a month.
That's because for years our family "vacations" were known by another term- PCS move- that's Permanent Change of Station, or transfer, for you civvies out there. My husband was in the military for 20 years- he was in boot camp on our first anniversary. During his career, we combined our new orders with a road trip and a few visits to sites of historical or personal interest. He saved up his leave for these trips. This is how our family managed to live frugal and still visit places like Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Lliard Hot Springs in Canada, the natural history museum in Regina Canada, campgrounds in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territory of Canada, as well as all along the Al-Can highway, many a natural history museum, Little Big Horn, Chimney Rock, the Grand Canyon, the Painted Dessert, art museums in California, Nebraska, a cowboy museum in Texas, the Olympic Peninsula and so much more. We were moving, and we took a little detour here and a little detour there.
The military pays families who are transferring a per Diem rate for food. That is supposed to be enough to cover eating out a restaurant, but we never found that it was quite enough for our family- our daughters are surprisingly healthy eaters. It was, however, more than enough to cover picnics, and if we did those right we might even have enough left over for part of the museum entrance fee.=)
My husband retired from the Air Force six years ago, and we no longer get a per Diem travel rate, nor do we do as much traveling. (On the plus side, we do make a little more money in the civilian sector, and he doesn't go overseas without us for two months out of every year). Still, what we learned during our military travels still works for us. Here are some of the things we do while traveling with family.
Foods that travel well:
dried fruits and vegetables. Some of us love snacking on sun dried tomatoes (look for sales, or learn to dry your own), some munch on raisins, my husband's dried fruit of choice is prunes.
Granola- make your own.
Nuts
boiled eggs if you have a good ice-chest
summer sausage
jerky
oranges- they come in their own wrapping and don't get squished like bananas. On the other hand, they can be messy.
Cabbage- seriously, my husband loves to munch on wedges of raw cabbage.
Pretzels
bread and muffins- especially if you freeze it first, pack in single layers in a tupperware container, and store in the ice-chest. We're going to be trying these 'main dish' muffins later this month- they are really miniature quiches you can hold and eat one-handed. We know they work for short car trips as we've been doing that for a few weeks now.
snack mixes- like chex mix- made from scratch, of course.=)
bagels
Sometimes I like to pack meals that we can easily eat in the car, and then we use the time we would have ordinarily spent eating visiting a park or a museum.
We might bring brown paper lunch bags and fill up the bags with our snack items- things like carrot sticks, fruit, chopped wedges of cabbage, popcorn, celery sticks, crackers, cheese, slices of sausage, nuts, raisins, home-made cookies, dried tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. The Headmaster likes to eat raw green onions. You can usually pick up dried prunes quite inexpensively at the local dollar store or discount grocery.
We like sandwiches in pita or pocket bread best, because the filling isn't so likely to fall out. One of our favorite fillings is this Chinese Pork, either on its own, or mixed with cream cheese. You can make up a batch of this, put it in pocket bread sandwiches and freeze them. Then pack them frozen and eat in a day or two when they defrost.
Sometimes I make sandwiches at home and freeze them in advance. Other times I just pack the fixings. A favorite lunch to have at a picnic table somewhere is miniature shish-ka-bobs. I set out olives, pickles, cherry tomatoes, cubes of cheese or sausage, mushrooms, and canned pineapple chunks (don't forget your can opener!). We supply toothpicks or pretzel sticks and napkins. Each person makes their own miniature shish-ka-bobs on the toothpicks or pretzel sticks (the pretzel sticks tend to break unless you poke holes in the food first).
We find that breakfast is usually the cheapest meal to eat at a restaurant, so if we are going to eat out, that's the time we choose. If we don't want to eat at a restaurant at all, I pack yogurt and homemade granola, and we eat granola and yogurt while driving. Yogurt keeps better than milk while living from an ice-chest.
The harder cheeses keep better than soft ones.
peanut butter, of course, unless you have allergies. Have the peanut butter in sandwiches, in celery, or mixed with powdered milk and a dab of honey for peanut butter 'play dough cookies' (we roll them into balls and eat them)
"Melba" toast- one of our kids favorite snacks when young was home-made whole wheat bread sliced and toasted at a very low heat in the oven for a long enough time that it was dried all the way through. This kept well while traveling (just store it so it can't be crushed to crumbs) and is delicious with a mixture of cream cheese and grated cheese.
For a couple of trips where we weren't sure of hitting a grocery store, I grew sprouts while we traveled. I soaked a jar of sprouts overnight before we left, topping it off with a square cut off from an old nylon stocking and a rubber band. Three times a day when we stopped somewhere I rinsed and drained them. I prefer drinking fountains and pumps at parks to gas station restrooms.;-) That way we had a fresh vegetable just about the time our other fresh produce was running out.
We have also put snacks in ice cube trays. This is fun, but a bit messy at times. I like the tupperware ice-cube trays that have lids. The fun part about this is that small children like having this smorgasbord of snacks to choose from all divided up into little containers, but they are not overwhelmed by the amounts.
We each get a bottle of water that we refill as needed. I like to put a sprig of mint in mine, and I like to wrap other mint springs in a wet paper towel so I can have more when my first sprig is ready to be tossed (or eaten). The FYG has her water rationed because, while we are not unreasonable about bathroom stops, we do think every hour is a bit much.
Where to Stop
Whenever possible I like to take our driving breaks at museums or sites of historical interest, but it's also good to stop at places where the children can run off their pent up energy.
When the children were younger we would stop at rest stops and have foot races, climb trees, ask the children race to the next tree by hopping on one foot, jumping, hopping backward, skipping, and somersaulting- we could ask them to do these things under a watchful eye while we were getting out the picnic stuff. I pack sidewalk chalk and a jump-rope. We can sketch out a hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk in a moment, and the jump-rope can be used in a covered picnic area or in a ground floor hotel room on a rainy day.
Things to pack:
can opener
tablecloth for rest area picnic tables. I also like a quilt to spread out on the ground
paper towels and home-made wipes
water bottles
plates- this is up to you- you can pack one dessert plate for each person, use foods that won't be too messy, and rinse them off after each meal stop, or you can pack paper plates. Or plan foods that don't need plates, and use napkins- cloth can be rinsed, rung out, and set to dry in a sunny window or on top of the ice-chest, or just relax and use the disposable ones. Consider how frugally green you are being by NOT eating at a restaurant=)
ice chest
cheese slicer
vegetable peeler
paring knife and small cutting board (I have one that is only about 18 square inches, it fits nicely inside a ziplock bag with the paring knife and in the side of our ice-chest.
salt and pepper
Ziplock bags or other food storage containers
Other tips:
Plan regular grocery store stops along the way to replenish a few fresh vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and yogurts. I would buy a package of cream cheese and one of grated cheese and mix them in a ziplock bag, kneading until well combined, for a cheese spread for crackers.
Cottage cheese, dill and garlic make a favorite dip for vegetables.
If you long for a hot meal, go through the drive through of a fast food place and order one hot thing from the dollar menu, supplement with your own fruits and vegetables.
Learn to drink water, make sure your kids are fine with water. You will save SO much money this way.
Do some advance planning and prep- cut up turkey ham and freeze it in cubes, bake and freeze muffins and cookies, mix up some snack mix (we like oyster crackers, peanuts, mixed with dill, garlic powder and buttermilk powder and tossed with a bit of oil), make and freeze sandwiches (spreading them with butter will keep them from getting soggy when defrosted), dehydrate some cherry tomatoes or other products, make granola...
What are some of your favorite meals while traveling? How do you save money on food during road trips?
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8 Responses to “Frugal Eats On Road Trips”
May 7th, 2010 at 6:58 am
I also enjoy to have a small electric water cooker when traveling (and if I am really fortunate, a themos to boot).
This is a great article on how to travel frugally, thanks for sharing!
May 7th, 2010 at 7:56 am
We usually get a bunch of grapes for car snacks — they serve the purpose of quenching thirst, too, so it makes the water bottles last longer. (The grapes are kept in a cooler.)
Also, for running around, we are finding (and taking note of) parks with good playground equipment in the towns between our house and Grandma’s (in another state).
May 7th, 2010 at 10:19 am
We try to have a meal in the car or near it, picnic-style, on Cub Scout nights. That’s once a week for about 9 months of the year. I succeed about half the time, maybe a little less than that. I am so excited to read your ideas for frugal eating on the road because I run out of ideas a LOT. I also run out of time more often than I care to admit.
My kids really enjoy chili outside or in the car, far more than at home for some reason. I have 3 good Thermos bottles (from thrift stores) that I fill with boiling water and close loosely for 10 or 15 minutes before emptying and then refilling with chili. This keeps the food piping hot for several hours of driving and errands before supper (we live 50 miles from town and try to combine trips). I have also cooked hot dogs in a skillet on the stove, then plunked them into boiling water in the widest-mouth Thermos. They were also piping hot at supper time and my kids were thrilled at hot dogs in the car
I tend to slack a little on the health side when we’re eating in the car. I don’t mind buying a bag of chips at Aldi to go with our picnic dinners. We frequently have tortilla wrap sandwiches in the car- easy to make ahead and easy to eat without a mess.
We only this week discovered how tasty carrot sticks are dipped in peanut butter. A real blood sugar saver for this 34 weeks pregnant mama and her brood of starving youngsters.
I have even been known to stop at Aldi for a package of tortillas, bag of sliced ham, bag of baby carrots, tub of ranch dip and a bag of chips. I almost always have packets of leftover fast food mustard in my van and usually a roll of paper towels or a bag of foam plates as well. Maybe not the most frugal or the most healthy, but still about 1/4-1/3 the cost of even a cheap fast food meal. That’s really the only time we do baby carrots, unless they’re on sale for less than whole carrots, of course
Lately I have been trying to keep a bag of supplies in the van all the time- plates, paper towels, wet wipes, utensils so there are half a dozen less things I have to remember when putting together a picnic lunch. Now I just need to get better about stopping and letting my kids play when we eat lunch. Bad mama!
We haven’t done much road-tripping in our 10 years of marriage. I LOVE to travel in the car (my dad retired from the Navy when I was 24 and we drove cross-country at least 5 or 6 times in those 20 years) but we just haven’t ever really gotten around to it. I have seen most of the really cool historical sites along the east coast but my husband grew up in NW Washington and has never seen much of anything out here. I have been trying to talk him into doing some sight-seeing and maybe if I improve my picnicking skills he’ll be more likely to agree
May 7th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
oh yes those military “road trips”! my husband served 26 years with the u.s.m.c. and it was every two years and a new address. hardest road trips of all were the one’s going overseas as a family (accompanied tour). a very long wait after four flight delays in st.louis, the four year old is terrified of the strange looking guys with tatoos, blue mohawks and chains in the los angeles air port…thought the plane was gonna slide off the runway in anchorage alaska and that is a good place to have a bird bath and change of clothes and a little shut-eye..then from anchorage to kadena afb okinawa and kuwai lodge for a few weeks while looking for housing. coming back the child was older and we were retiring-when the plane stopped in l.a. we decided to travel accross country by car.. went to disney land, then hoped our newly purchased used car would make it up those mountains and get us to mississippi. finally after all those years we get to hang pictures on the walls as we are not moving ever again!
May 7th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
We have just the one new crawler. Recently on the way home from visiting great-nana she had done really well but needed a good long break of at least half an hour. It was too cold to be outside, and our other option in a strange town seemed to be MacDonalds playground. Until we asked at the local information centre for directions to the local library. Voila, a safe, free, place for Sossie to crawl and play with blocks and books to her heart’s content.
May 7th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
We eat on the road frequently, due to food allergies. Like others, we find that tortillas are a great bread substitute. They don’t get squished, and they generate fewer crumbs than homemade bread. I frequently mash beans with ketchup for a filling that tastes decent cold and doesn’t have to be kept as cold as other sandwich fillings. Those not allergic to milk sometimes add shredded cheese.
Cold pizza is popular with my kids. Even a frozen pizza is much cheaper than a trip through the drive-through, so I stock up when my favorite brand is on sale. I bake it the night before, and then it’s ready to pack in the ice chest the next morning.
Freeze dried fruit is easy to buy now. It’s not as cheap as regular dried fruit, but it’s less sticky and chokey if you have little ones, and regular dried fruit is usually dried on the same equipment that they use to roast nuts, making it a cross-contamination nightmare. I recently stocked up when there was a great sale at Amazon, which they let me combine with a Subscribe & Save discount. I paid less than $.70 for individual serving sized bags of apples, pears, bananas, and a few other fruits. It’s way too expensive for eating at home, but it’s good for on the road. As an added bonus, I can keep some bags in the car all the time, so we have emergency snacks with us for when we’re away from home for longer than anticipated. I used to keep individual servings of applesauce in the car for those events, but these are way less messy and don’t require spoons.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:14 am
We eat a lot of self-prepared food on vacations.
One of the best things we did for vacation food was to buy an electric cooler. It cost $66.97 at WalMart in August 2004. Ours is the older model of this one:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4810828&findingMethod=rr&
The cooler has an option to keep foods warm instead of cold, but we only used that feature one time — when I was taking 30 breakfast burritos to a group of teens.
I think it’s the 40-quart size. That cooler lets us keep milk, cheese, lunchmeat, produce, and some chocolate without spoiling on vacation. DH likes cold sodas on the road too. When we stop for the night, DH carries the cooler to our room and plugs in the outlet adapter — that way we don’t run down the car battery!
In general, the cooler lives in the back of my car. Grocery trip on a hot day — plug the cooler into the car’s cigarette lighter.
And … when we have a party, we just plug the cooler in the living room and stash sodas for the guests.
Might just be the best $66.97 we ever spent.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Two more thoughts:
* We keep a picnic pack ready at all times. It was originally similar to this one: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Picnic-Plus-Spinnaker/12534742, but I bought mine for $5 on clearance at Target … maybe 10 years ago.
We have added and removed items so that OUR picnic pack contains a small container of dish soap; cutting board; can opener; sharp knife; dishrag; brillo pad; ziplocks; and microwavable containers — as well as a plates/utensils/cups for 4. I keep a plastic tablecloth with the picnic pack.
* The other thought I wanted to mention is using a propane stove to cook. It does take space, but, if you have space, a nice hot lunch cooked over a propane stove out in the middle of a National Park is a real treat. When we were at Yellowstone, we made Betty-Crocker-skillet-meals in ours. The young couple next to us had pre-made their Asian noodle salads, but they used their propane stove to heat water for tea.
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