Taking inspirations from
Wild Blue and
sygazelle , wanted to do a vacation trip from Austin, TX to National parks near Moab, UT and Page, AZ for a total of 20days. Due to my son's basketball season and unexpected tournament we had to cut short our trip duration from 20days to 10days. We were planning to cover parks near Moab, UT
but changed the plan to Page, AZ two days before the planned trip because we came to know that Antelope Canyon tours were resuming from July 12th.
Our plan was to not drive more than 7hrs a day. So the trip planning came to something like 3 days drive to Page, 4 days in Page driving around different place of interest and 3 days drive back
We booked Holiday Inn for the cities on the road and Hilton in Page, AZ
The paces we were planning to visit:
For planning we used Roadtripper app. It was very clean and easy to look at different place of interests along the route in the app.
Also, our goal was to take it as it comes and not to strictly follow a schedule. We wanted to drive till Page, AZ and drive around from Page to other attractions.
We are a family of four, Me my wife and two kids (Daughter in Middle School and Son in High school). X7 was a perfect fit for our get away. wanted to document our trip so that I might help others who are doing a similar planning. As this is our first Family trip and a long drive we did few amateur mistakes, but will help to plan better in our next trip.
One day before trip: (10th July)
Enable hotspot 3GB free trial and added unlimited packages in the car so that kids are entertained during the long trip. We also bought BMW travel folding tables
Packing:
1)
Fridge
[As the places that we would be visiting will be very hot and we'll find little to no Indian restaurants on the way we wanted to have a fridge to store our pre-cooked Indian food and cool water/gatorade/ soda]
2)
Battery to run our fridge and dash cam.
3) First aid kit, Emergency kit
4) 10 pairs of dresses each
5) Instant Pot electric
6) Water kettle (drinking hot water)
7) Water (48)
8) Gatorade (24)
9) Trail shoes (4 pairs each one)
10) Trail walking poles - 4
11) Trash bags Big size
12) Trash bags - small size
13) Tissues and toilet papers
14) Assorted snacks - big bag
15) Prepared Indian food
16) Sunscreen
17) Medicines (for all)
18) Kitchen towels and toilet papers
19) Milk - 1 liter, Chocolate milk - 12, Eggs, Coffee powder etc
20) iPads - 4, Laptop, Camera and cables
21) Blanket
22) Empty water bottles
23) Mini Coke
24) Masks
25) Orange juice - 12
26) Windshield washer liquid, windshield liquid spray and pole
27) Fire extinguisher
28)
Jumpstart battery
29) Flash light - 2
30) Engine oil - 1 liter (just in case)
31) 4 round caps
32)
BMW folding table
33) Duck tapes
I don't have spare tires, so used that space to store item #3), 10), 13), 18), 26), 27), 28), 29), 30), 33
Then the next thing we did is to arrange Battery and Fridge with bungee cord to anchor to the slots on the 3rd row sear (car seat anchor point):
After that we used all the space to fit other large items. Once done we drew in all the smaller items between spaces with the tail gate closed. Water, Gatorade and orange juice were put in small spaces and corners
There was a gap between the second row seat and storage cover, so we used a green blanket to cover that space so that the items are not visible from outside
Its a long day, so will continue my blogging ....