Road Trip Hints

A few tips for anyone considering a road trip in the USA.

1. Look for discounts on hotel websites instead of turning up without knowing what hotels rate are.

2. Buy a good cooler box form Wal*Mart. Don't waste your money on one made from polystyrene foam for about $5 or $6; push the boat out and spend about $14 to $15 fro a sturdy one.

3. Buy 10lb bags of ice to put in the box. Cubed ice will fit around bottles in a cooler box more easily than a block of ice but a block of ice can last for nearly 2 days. You takes your choice depending on what you need to cool and how hot it is.

4. There is plenty of kosher food available in most stores in the USA - even in the most out of the way places. Biscuits, crackers, crisps, tins of tuna, sweetcorn, milk, yoghurt, cheeses; you name it and it is there on the shelves with hechshers on the labels.

5. Avoid Athenos hummous that is sold in Wal*Mart, Kroegers and Publix. It has a nasty taste and a not too good texture because a lot of canola oil goes into its making and the quality of tehina in it isn't too good either. Better to wait until you can find a Costco and buy your hummous there. Believe me, a plate of good hummous with a selection of fresh vegetables makes a very nice lunch on the road.

6. Buy plenty of water. It can be surprising how much you need to drink on hot summer days and also when you are at over 10,000 feet above sea level. Keep your cooler box filled with water bottles most of the time.

7. The 'mem' likes a good cuppa in the morning so buy a small bottle of milk in any store. If you don't want to bring your cooler box in from the car at night the milk can be kept cool by putting it into a filled ice bucket in your room.

8. Buy a kettle to boil water for tea and have a supply of your own tea bags in your room. Nothing tastes worse than water boiled up in a room coffee maker which gives tea a strange coffee-like taste. We are lucky since the American Superpharmette bought a kettle years ago and gave it to us for American vacation use.

9. Buy a US pay-as-you-go SIM card. T-Mobile offers one which gives a year's activation for $100 a year. You will save money if you don't use your UK phone number to receive calls while you are in America. To make calls buy minutes on a pre-paid calling card number. Calls to the UK costing only a few cents a minute plus your standard pay-as-you-go minutes are much better value than paying about a 90p a minute or more using your UK phone number. Text messages are also a lot cheaper. Also, you can make other people's life easier if you know that they are going to the US and need a phone. If you have a tri-band phone just change SIM cards: otherwise buy a cheap US cellphone; there are usually deals at most phone dealers or if you are a Costco member the deals offered there are hard to beat.