Trip "Endorsements"

Every time we take a trip, there are a few little ideas or innovations that we find that make it go more smoothly. In our household, we call those moments of enlightenment “continuous process improvement.” Sharing those discoveries seems like a great way to give others the benefit of my learning experience. Most of these “endorsements” are really minor, but they impacted the trip in some way, so I’ll pass along my experience to give you some ideas you may not have considered.

1.      An I-PASS or an E-Z Pass will streamline travel days. This is pretty standard for people traveling where there are many toll roads, but that’s not really a thing in Minnesota. I would expect that most people who have taken big trips through heavy toll areas already know to get a “pass” system of some sort, but there may be a few who haven’t considered that option. It is pretty simple. We settled on the I-PASS (the system for Illinois) because it gives a 50 percent break on Illinois tolls. We figured that’s the closest place to us, so the odds are greater that we would use it there again, after our trip. Also, there is no annual fee to own an I-Pass, and when you return it, you get your $10 deposit back. We paid our deposit to get our I-PASS and had to put $20 on it immediately, so the initial cost was $30. We added $50 before we hit major tolls, and then added a couple more $20’s along the way. The system itself will automatically add to get you up to $20 if you get below $10. The beauty is that you get to go in the “fast lane” through all the toll booth areas. Sometimes you do have to slow down considerably, and sometimes you just go through at road speed. Either way, though, you do not have to get out money each time and stop to pay it. Your pass will be read as you go through the gate, your fees deducted, and you are on your way. We spent around $85 on American tolls, so you can imagine how many times we would have had to deal with payment. This was an easy way to make our trip better. Here are links to get more information about I-PASS or E-Z-Pass.

2.      A windshield cleaner of your own might not be important to everyone, but I sure enjoyed having one along on our trip. I picked this up at WalMart for just $5.00 right before our trip. The bottom section is a spray bottle of window cleaner, and the top section is a scrubber/squeegee combination, just like you find at gas stations. We went through a lot of areas where the bugs were thick, and our windshield got to be a mess very quickly. It’s simple enough to clean it up at a gas station, but what about between stations? With this handy device, I could give us a touch-up when we were at rest areas along the way. I like taking pictures out the window of the car, and it helped a lot with that; but even if you don’t take pictures of EVERYTHING along the way on your trip, it’s nice to be looking through a clean window at the beautiful world God made for you.

3.      Upgrade your license plate game with an app on your phone. If you are going to travel cross country, it seems like you will inevitably find yourself noticing all the different license plates you see. We found a good app for both U.S. states and for Canadian provinces. I could just check off the plates as I found them, and the picture in the app went from black and white to color. This app also included Mexico, if I would have wanted that, but I could pick and choose which plates were visible. For this trip, I chose only U.S. and Canadian plates. The app we used was called Spy Plates. It was an android app and free (with ads).

4.      The Cricket International plan worked very well for us in Canada (speaking of phones). For those of you with Cricket phones, you might be happy to know that we test drove the international plan for you. I use Cricket for my phone, and we typically use the $30/month, basic plan. I upgraded to the $55/month plan while we were on our trip, which allowed for unlimited high speed data and international coverage. We had very good coverage in Canada, with only a few spots without data. I seamlessly changed to the more expensive plan and back again to my cheaper plan. It was a great way to have service while we traveled without needing a cheap “burner phone” or the like. This plan works for travel in Mexico as well.

5.      Lubriderm lotion, for the win! This is an extremely minor endorsement, but I figured I’d pass it along anyway. When you go on a three-week trip, you can’t really get by on one of the travel size lotions, if you use lotion every day like I do. I found this nice-sized (13.5 oz) bottle that fit easily in my travel bag. It also locked with a quarter-twist of the spigot, rather than requiring me to push down (thus squeezing out lotion) and twist. As an added benefit, I bought the variety that had a built-in sunscreen. That way, when we just got out of the car for a quick walk, I already had some minimal coverage.

6.      Command hook saves the day! I use Command hooks all the time in my preschool classroom. Just before our trip, I found a use for one in our car. We recently went from a mini-van to a much smaller car (Scion xB) and have not been able to find a place to keep our garbage as we travel. We tried little bags that ended up sliding around too much, sometimes under your feet as you drove. That was no good. In the end, I just put a Command hook on our central console and hung a plastic bag from it. Voila! It worked perfectly the whole trip long. My only caution is that the Command hook adhesive will not stick to the textured plastic of most of the interior of the car. I had to find a smooth surface in order for it to adhere.

So there you have it – a basic list of things I found useful on our 23-day trip. I’d love to hear about the things you found useful when traveling! Share away!

P.S. I also recommend coming home to one of these. It will make your homecoming all the sweeter!