We have been driving to Disney for years.
We’ve lived in Texas for 16 years, and before that we lived in Georgia and North Carolina. Our first family trip to Disney more than 20 years ago was a last-minute trip while my husband was competing for Soldier of the Year. Getting five kids and three adults to Disney was honestly easier as an eight-hour drive than turning the whole thing into an airport production.
That pretty much set the stage for us: we became road-trip people.
Back then, we had a big conversion van, five kids, and an entirely different definition of what we needed in the car. These days the kids are grown, the van is long gone, and our road-trip packing looks very different.
This is not a list of everything you could possibly buy for a Florida road trip. It’s the stuff I actually pack—the things that have earned a place in the car after a lot of very long drives.
Comfort Comes With Me Now
When I was younger, I could sit in a car for hours, climb out at the end of the day and somehow still function like a normal human being.
That is no longer the case.
If we’re going to spend 16 hours in the car, I want to arrive in Florida excited about the trip, not feeling like I need a chiropractor and a three-hour nap.
I usually have a small pillow, a U-shaped travel pillow and a light blanket within reach. The blanket is partly because car temperatures are apparently impossible for two people to agree on.
I also travel in my OOFOS because I want comfortable shoes, and I use compression socks on really long stretches in the car.
At this point in life, I’m completely fine admitting that comfort matters. The drive is part of the vacation. I don’t want to spend the first day recovering from it.
The Stuff That Stays Within Reach
I’ve gotten much better about separating what we’ll actually need during the drive from everything that can disappear into the luggage until we reach the hotel.
My computer bag stays with me. So do drinks, snacks and charging cords.
And yes, I bring powdered non-dairy creamer for coffee. I like Laird SuperFood. A quick caffeine stop is considerably less useful when they don’t have the milk I want.
The rule is simple: if there is a decent chance I’ll want it before we stop for the night, it does not get buried underneath a suitcase.
All the Cords Go in One Place
Phones, watches, tablets, computers—traveling now means traveling with a ridiculous collection of electronics.
I recently added a small tech organizer for our charging cords and other electronics. Instead of having cords floating around my computer bag or trying to remember which pocket I put them in, everything stays together.
That sounds like a tiny thing until you’re tired in a hotel room and somebody needs a charging cable that you know you packed.
I Pack for the Hotel Room Too
Some of my favorite road-trip things aren’t really for the car at all. They’re for all the hotel rooms along the way and once we get where we’re going.
A travel power strip is one of those things that doesn’t sound exciting until you’re in a room with two people, multiple phones, watches and other electronics—and approximately one useful outlet.
I also like having an electronics cord organizer because I can carry the whole thing into the hotel instead of collecting loose cords from around the car.
And my Kindle comes with me. A road trip includes a surprising amount of downtime: hotel evenings, early mornings when somebody else is still asleep, and those rare moments when I have absolutely nowhere I need to be.
Packing Cubes Earn Their Space
I used to think packing cubes were one of those things people bought because the internet told them to.
Then I started using them.
For a long road trip—especially one with more than one hotel—they make a lot of sense. I don’t want to completely explode a suitcase every night just to find one thing.
Compression packing cubes also help me keep categories together, which makes repacking much less annoying when it’s time to get back on the road.
Snacks and Drinks Are Not an Afterthought
We keep drinks and road-trip snacks where we can reach them. That sounds obvious, but there is nothing particularly useful about a snack packed beautifully underneath three bags in the back.
I don’t try to turn the car into a convenience store. I just want enough on hand that every little hunger pang doesn’t require another stop.
And coffee still gets its own category because, well, it’s me.
What I Don’t Do Anymore
I don’t pack the car based on some giant internet checklist.
If something repeatedly makes our trips easier, it earns a spot. If we haul it to Florida twice and never touch it, I start questioning why I’m giving it a free vacation.
That’s probably the biggest difference between road trips now and the ones we took with five kids. I’m less interested in being prepared for every theoretical possibility and much more interested in making the trip comfortable and easy.
My Florida Road Trip Rule
Pack for the drive you actually take—not the road trip somebody on Pinterest thinks you should take.
For us, that means comfort, coffee, snacks, organized electronics, a few things that make hotel rooms easier and enough organization that I’m not digging through the back of the car at 10 p.m.
After all these years of driving to Florida, those are the things I actually use. And those are the things that keep getting packed.
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