* 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.

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.

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.

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

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).

This is a great article on how to travel frugally, thanks for sharing!