Summer's here: what foods do you like on a car trip?

[ginnyinWI]

I mean healthy stuff--anyone can pack just chips and soda and candy bars...

I'm thinking string cheese, fat free pretzels, apples, walnuts, carrot sticks, maybe something home made like muffins on the first day. Cottage cheese and yogurt in small packs? To drink--water and take out coffee.

What else?

[eleny]

1. I always include thinly sliced celery sticks because they're juicy

I also like some tuna salad since we put a cooler on the back seat with dry ice.

Raisins for a snack. A couple of small bottles of sports drinks. I like homemade cookies since I can control what's in them.

[Tesha]

2. Mixed Bag

the kids always called it GORP - but the recipe changed with available ingredients.

Nuts, pretzels, raisins, various dried fruits, chocolate chips, crackers....


salty/sweet chewy/crisp something for everyone... and cold water.


Yummm

[grasswire]

3. my mother always took a lunch

bananas
fig newtons
deviled ham sandwiches
coffee

I always have packed a tupperware of my favorite oatmeal cookies for a road trip. I also like quite a bit to stop at roadside produce stands although those are more rare and non-existent on freeway driving. I remember buying a bushel of English peas in pods in Half Moon Bay California and nibbling on them for hundreds of miles. More than once!

[ginnyinWI]

4. reminds me of the time--actually it was 20 years ago--

we took a trip through Canada on our way to Niagara Falls. Stopped at a roadside stand in front of a farm and bought fruit tarts. A fun thing to happen upon.

[japple]

5. Coffee in the thermos, water, homemade cookies, raw

almonds, salted cashews, Annie's Cheddar Bunnies, bananas and apples.

Earlier this year, my sister and I drove to Texas and back. On our way home, we had some leftovers from a Mexican dinner that we couldn't bear to throw out, so we put those burritos and quesadillas in a covered microwave dish and set them in the rear window well of the car. After about an hour, they were warm and ready for lunch. Sure beats any other kind of "road food" we could have gotten along the interstate.

I've heard of people putting foil wrapped food under the hood (on the manifold?) so their dinner would be ready when they reached their destination.

Whenever we travel, we always take our own food and try to stay in a motel that has a fridge and microwave, and usually eat breakfast in the room. It beats eating Froot Loops and gummy donuts at the "continental" breakfast. Keeps our Guinness cold, too.

[hippywife]

6. Sounds almost exactly

what I would pack, too. Very convenient and still nutritious.

Bill and I did an all cold food camping trip a couple of years ago. We wanted to spend most of our time canoeing and stuff without taking away the time needed to prepare a fire and meals. I packed the fixings for PBJ's, some cheese, crab salad, crackers, grapes, nuts and other fruits, yogurt for breakfast, etc. When you're tired from paddling out on the lake all day and fishing, you're usually famished, too, and anything tastes fabulous at that point. LOL

I'd definitely do it again.

[ginnyinWI]

8. sounds healthy

Crab salad would be great. A lot of good stuff can be found in the deli section a lot cheaper than at a restaurant. There are even salad bars in grocery stores now. Surfing the grocery stores saves time, too, when you are on the road and don't want to sit for hours and wait for a restaurant meal.

[ginnyinWI]

7. some of those hotel breakfasts are terrible.

I remember one where everything was white--white bread, white cereal, white doughnuts. Couldn't believe it. It was some bare-bones hotel in Denver.

We collect Hilton family points so try to find a Hilton Garden Inn when we go somewhere--and they have the fridge and microwave. And it's usually cheaper than Hampton Inns (also a Hilton property) which don't have the fridge but do have the mediocre breakfast.