Road Trip in California Tips and Must Haves

Road Trip planning is a task and a half. It takes some people to plan a road trip over a year and it took me a few months. The problem that most people experience is that when you actually get to do it, you realize that you might have forgotten to account for a thing or two. So I wanted to suggest a few tips that will make your road trip definitely more comfortable and safe.

First of all, if you are going on your raod trip from the UK, you need to sign up for a 1-month contract with the Network Three as you will receive 12 gigabytes of data This is more than enough to get you through 3 weeks or even a month. If you are going for the longer period of time then you can make your contract last 2 or more months, but make sure you give the network 30 days notice when canceling to avoid being charged anything extra. The connection is reliable however not as fast as 4G but pretty decent and it will cover your regular Instagram posting and most importantly Google maps.

Next must have is a power bank, mine is Belkin from Halfords and it can charge my phone up to 4 times. This is a major necessity in my life as my iPhone lasts for up to 3 hours so being able to plug in from my bag, it’s quite important to me. Besides, there is nothing worse than the feeling of being lost because your phone battery died. Also, it looks really sleek and you can buy colors that match your phone. It’s pretty light too and it has light dots to tell you how many charges are left before you charge the bank itself. Absolutely love it.

Google Maps app are my next must have although an obvious one. The navigation is so smooth and it calculates all the best and fastest routes for you. The best thing of the entire app is free and it works offline. With the latest update, you are also able to download your routes so you don’t need the Internet to get places. Apart from being so helpful, it will save you as much as $300 on Sat Navigation rental that car rental companies will try and sell you. I say avoid this. One tip when it comes to Google maps is to insert the location you are going to whilst on wifi and make sure you don’t switch the app off when you go offline as this will stop the navigation from working. The best of all, you can add additional stops to your route such as drive through Starbucks just to make your trip a slightly more comfortable.

The next app I think everyone needs especially if you are going to America is ParkMe. This is a free app that will scan your environment for all the available parking out there. We found quite a few free parking options especially around Venice and Santa Monica and 3 times cheaper parking in Beverly Hills. This little app is really helpful and free to download.

If you are planning to get the money on the best exchange rate possible, I really recommend Best Foreign Exchange. Few people that I know, including me, signed up for We Swap  which is a Travel Money service. They send you a card which you can then use to purchase at no cost. I didn’t find this the best out there as I didn’t transfer the all of my money at once and once I found myself  in the States, I was only able to change USD to other currency. This really defeats the cards purpose so you are better off taking cash with you to avoid $3-6 ATM charges plus exchange fees on your debit or credit card. We Swap in a longer run cost me more than £100 plus they asked me to pay £5 fee ti withdraw money from their account, so I would definitely recommend against using their service.

I hope I helped your road trip planning and feel free to leave a comment or questions below.

Have a great weekend.

Tania xx