Miles of Yellow Lines

Handling food on the road can be a bit of a balancing act. Did you bring too much? Did you bring too little? Below are some questions to get you thinking about how much/what type of food to pack on a trip along with some tips and tricks to make it easier!

If you’d like to learn more about our go-to meals on the road, click here.

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Questions to Consider:

How much food do you need and how much can you comfortably start with?

If you plan to go out to eat for most meals, you may be able to pack mostly heavy snacks. If you do plan to bring food for the majority of your meals, you will need to determine how much food to pack. You don’t want to overload yourself with food, but you also don’t want to run out earlier than planned. Although we plan to eat out for a few meals, we pack most of our meals. We have found that we can pack a week’s worth of meals/snacks/drinks when we pack our camper fridge, cabinets, and a handy cooler in the truck for quick access while on the road. After a week, we usually aim for a resupply stop at a grocery store.

Do you have access to a fridge/freezer that will be running continuously or are you using a cooler that will require ice refills periodically?

The answers to these questions will help you in determining how much of the food can be perishable vs. non-perishable. You can also start thinking ahead to when/where you will stop for ice for your cooler, if necessary. We’ve been in both situations. When we tent camped, we would pack a large cooler with food and ice that would last about 3 days. We’d periodically stop for ice and additional food to refill the cooler. Now we have a camper with a freezer/fridge that is able to run on battery, so it is essentially running all the time.

How much work are you willing to do on the road to prepare a meal?

Be honest with yourself on this one. Do you like taking time to prepare a delicious, fresh meal on the road, or would you prefer something slightly less elaborate but quicker? I’ve seen these amazing pictures or videos of people preparing a fancy meal at their campsite. If that description fits you, that’s awesome! 90% of the time, it does not fit me. Realistically, I’m not going to want to spend that much time preparing a meal while on the road. We stay so busy and active on our trips that at the end of the day, I just want a quick, easy, and filling meal. I’d like to get more into cooking on the road in the future, but it’s just not where I am right now, so I plan our meals accordingly.

Our Tips and Tricks:

Here are some specific tips and tricks we’ve learned over the years related to food on the road.

Prepare in Advance

Prepare as much as you can in advance. A day or two before we leave on a big trip, we prepare some of our bigger meals. Some examples include making taco meat ahead of time, preparing lasagna, and cooking chicken and rice.

Individual Servings

This is a newer discovery for us and we love it! For our first two-week trip (Glacier/Yellowstone/Grand Teton), we prepared lasagna in mini aluminum foil pans before we left home. Our camper has a small propane oven. We were able to pull out two individual servings and cook them in the oven even when we were dry camping. We made four individual servings and had lasagna two different nights on the trip. It was delicious, quick, and easy.

Freeze It

If you have the ability, freezing food is a great option. We froze the individual lasagnas mentioned above. We prepared them at home a couple days before we left on our trip, froze them at home, moved them to the camper freezer, and then moved them to the camper fridge the day before we planned to eat them on the road. Even if you don’t have a camper with a fridge/freezer, you can freeze some food to make it last longer and help keep your cooler cold. We have frozen hot dogs and kept them in the cooler for several days along with other chilled items and ice.

Finger Foods

Especially if we’re going to be doing a lot of dry camping, I like to keep things simple and keep the mess to a minimum. Finger foods are great for a quick snack or a side to go with a meal. Even when we’re on the road I like to try to have a fruit and a vegetable with each meal. Some quick examples of the fruit/veggies we often bring are

• Apples
• Grapes
• Clementines
• Carrots
• Snap peas
• Mini sweet peppers
• Sliced cucumbers

Some additional finger foods that we will often pack are

• Cheese sticks (string cheese)
• Beef sausage sticks
• Crackers
• Pretzels
• Granola/Cereal bars
• Roasted almonds
• Trail mix
• Sandwich fixings

Bamboo Roasting Sticks

We almost always have a campfire when we’re out camping. We’ll often cook hot dogs over the fire and/or roast marshmallows for S’mores. We used to use a reusable metal roasting stick and attempt to clean it afterwards, but this got tricky, particularly with the marshmallows. Then we tried bamboo roasting sticks. They are long, thin bamboo rods with a pointed tip at one end. We’ve used them for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. After we’re done, we break them in half and throw them on the fire.

We’ve purchased several types of these bamboo roasting sticks. You can pick them up at many stores. Occasionally, we’ve found some that are extra thin and bow at the weight of a hot dog. The Coghlan’s brand has worked well for us in the past.

Paper Trays

These are small paper containers that are curved up on the sides. Think about what you might receive nachos and cheese in from a concession stand. We’ve found these are handy for a quick meal on the road. We might stop at a rest stop for lunch, make a quick sandwich, grab some carrots, grab some pretzels/chips, pile them all in the paper boat and return to the truck to eat/snack on the road. I eat slower, so I’ll often load up one of these boats and eat it in the passenger seat. They’re also great for loading up with food at the campground if you don’t have an easy way to clean plates.