How quickly can a rocking road trip become a complete nightmare? A blink of the eye it seems. While there is no way to prepare for every situation and sometimes things are unavoidable but there are a few things you can do to keep the trek from coming to a screeching halt.

I’m no mechanic by any means and I’m not the best person to get advice from when dealing with cars (hence this is a travel blog not an auto blog) but I did live 10 hours away from my school so any journey home involved a lengthy road trip. Some of these tips are unfortunately from personal experience.

*Bring a spare car key- who hasn’t locked their key into their car at a remote rest stop in the middle of nowhere? And keep it somewhere accessible because nothing is worse than locking BOTH keys into your car.

*Get your oil changed and fluids checked before you leave- peace of mind is worth a lot.

*Make sure your tires are in good condition and have proper amounts of air- hopefully you do this anyways.

*Make sure you have a spare tire and your jack is in working condition- we found out way too late that my jack had rusted over.

*If you have an older car bring extra water and coolant- arghh can we say Las Vegas in July? Happened to me twice.

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