What We Ate on the Road

We put a lot of thought into what we would eat on the road trip. It would have been easy to get gas station snacks and starbucks and eat out every day, but as everyone knows, that adds up real quick. While we still did our fair share of empty stomach impulse buying and starbucks stops (okay, that last one was mostly me), we started the trip with a huge costco haul and a day meal prepping in the kitchen.

For the trip, we had one medium sized cooler for all our perishables, and one huge cardboard box where we stored all the shelf stable stuff. It should be noted that shelf-stable and hot car stable are not the same thing, which we didn’t take into account when we bought a bunch of chocolate based snacks. Luckily, chocolate tastes just as good melted as it does at room temperature.

We learned that the key to simplifying food on the road is to buy as many snacky items as you can fit to start, so you don’t have any excuses to buy gas station food, and get everything that doesn't need to be kept cold before you leave, so that the cooler can have room for prepared meals, meat products and produce that you buy and use along the way.

Breakfast

We stocked up on coconut milk yogurts and granola for mornings in the car, instant oatmeal for mornings at camp, and a variety of granola bars and protein bars. I’m the type of person who gets bored with breakfast easily, so it was good to keep things mixed up. As for the most important part of breakfast, coffee, we stocked up on costco cold brew cartons before we left. These were great because I didn’t need to keep them in the cooler until we opened them. I also stocked up on Oatly Barista Edition, which is my absolute favorite alternative milk for coffee. I like it even better than half and half, if you can believe that. I didn't know if I would be able to find it along the way, so I bought four cartons at my local coffee shop. The best thing about oat milk: it doesn't need to be kept cold until it's opened either! For mornings at camp when we were not necessarily in a rush to get on the road, I brought my aeropress, a coffee maker that only needs hot water! Enjoying a hot cup of coffee with oatmeal on a quiet morning at camp was such a dream!

Lunch

Lunch was usually thrown together on the go, some of our favorites were bagels and cream cheese, hummus and carrots and cucumbers, apples and peanut butter, pretty much whatever we could reach from the front seat.

Dinner

We started the trip with a huge chicken pot pie my mom made for us, and spent the first few days at relatives houses in San Francisco, so we were pretty well taken care of. We were lucky enough to be hosted by some AMAZING chefs. Dinner was probably the meal we always put the most effort into once we started camping. Before we left we picked up pre-cooked sausages, so if we couldn't make a campfire we still could eat them. Luckily, the fire regulations were pretty chill everywhere we camped, and each campground we ended up at had a fire pit already. Every night we would start a fire, heat up the sausages, and cut up an array of fruits and veggies. Our favorites were little banana peanut butter bites, avocado with lime, and cucumber tomato salad. After long days of munching on processed snack in the car, we loved filling up with fresh ingredients.

All these meals were eaten at a campsite or in the car. When we were in Yosemite and Moab, we started bringing easier dinner makings to beautiful spots to cook with my little backpacking stove. Stay tuned to hear about the wonders of freeze-dried meals and stunning views!