8 Simple Ways to Save Money on Road Trip Food
Eating healthy on the road is not always easy to do! And sticking to your road trip budget to make that cheap road trip work is also not always easy!
We’ve got a bit of experience with taking cheap road trips, and have found that road trip food and meal choices can make or break your budget, as well as the overall way you feel as you travel down the road.
Packing food for a road trip is a great way to save a ton of money and calories while on the road, and these 9 tips will help simplify your road trip food, both in packing and in preparing it when on the road.
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Tip 1: Travel with the basic kitchen supplies
Our number one tip for saving money on a road trip: Pack your own food and be able to serve it from your vehicle.
If you’re able to travel with a basic kitchen setup during your road trip, you’ll have a lot more control over what you can eat. Packing food for a road trip and eating healthy become much easier if you don’t have to rely on shelf stable or precooked foods, or even worse, a lot of drive through meals.
So if you’re taking a camping road trip and have a micro-sized kitchen available, stock it with kitchen supplies and healthy food choices, and then use it!
If your road trip is broken up by hotel stays and your vehicle isn’t equipped with a legit kitchen, be sure to grab these supplies:
napkins or paper towels
baby wipes
a knife
a little cutting board
silverware
bowls and plates
bag clips
garbage bags
all things coffee (see tip #8)
Having these few things will make it much easier to serve and eat meals from your vehicle, so you’ll be able to save money and eat healthy while on your road trip.
Tip 2: Freeze and Bring Healthy Make-Ahead Road Trip Meals
If you’re taking a budget road trip from an RV or campervan with a freezer, this tip is for you.
About 6 weeks or so before leaving, start thinking about meals that would freeze well, be easy to reheat on the road, and don’t require many extra moving parts (like one pot meals).
And then start plugging those meals into your weekly meal plan. When making dinner, say 5 weeks before leaving, double the recipe, giving you a portion for that evening and a portion to freeze for the trip.
Do this a handful (or two) of times in the weeks leading up to leaving and you’ll end up with a variety of premade healthy road trip meals to enjoy after a long day of driving or exploring during your vacation.
If you’re new to freezer meals, these pointers should help:
Know the size of your camper freezer (they are pretty small!) before going overboard with your make ahead road trip meals
Plus freeze a few extra - they can thaw in the fridge to be eaten during the first leg of your trip
Label your freezer bag before filling it
Fill out any additional needed ingredients and reheating instructions on a Road Trip Meal Planner (see tip #4)
Freeze the bags of food flat
Layer wax paper between the freezer bags to prevent them from freezing together
Tip 3: Bring Simple Recipes Along on Your Road Trip
Before leaving, pick out simple recipes to have on hand. Pay attention to seasoning, etc., so you don’t have to tote along too many of those. You could premix seasonings for more involved recipes in a baggie before leaving for your road trip.
Having easy road trip recipes already picked out makes a mid-trip grocery run much faster and can help keep you on track for using your camp kitchen to cook, saving a ton of money (and calories!) along the way.
Tip 4: Keep Track of What Road Trip Food You Have!
During some of our camping road trips, we end up leaving home with food in some odd spots - like in a hard-to-reach cubby in front of the wheel well, or in a storage box on top of the roof rack.
It’s impossible to just remember exactly what road trip food we packed when it isn’t visible. So if your camper setup means some of your road trip food is tucked away, jot down what you’ve got with you before leaving.
And as you’re making and freezing food in advance, keep track of what you’ve made. Any simple list will do, or you can print one here for free.
Remember to bring the list with you while road tripping!
Tip 5: Always Have Easy Road Trip Meal Options Handy
Just like days at home, there will be (plenty of) days while on a road trip that making lunch or dinner just feels like too much!
So once we run out of our premade freezer meals, we always have a couple of convenience options in our camping fridge in an attempt to make eating the food we have already purchased easier, healthy, and more appealing than grabbing fast food or going to a restaurant.
For easy road trip lunches, grab some tuna or chicken salad packets with a cheese stick and crackers. We also like to take time every few days to do a little lunch-related meal prep (like slicing some tomato or onion). This makes it so easy to quickly throw together a deluxe sandwich.
For easy road trip dinners, walk through the freezer isles of the grocery store and pick up a couple of pre-cooked bag dinners - the packages that have protein, veggies, and carbs all in one and just need to be heated. Those bagged salad kits that include dressing are also nice.
Although these foods can be more expensive than average groceries, they are far less expensive than a meal out. So at the end of a long day when you’re beat, having these types of easy and quick meals that, at most, just need to be heated, can save you a bit of money.
Tip 6: Find a Nice Place to Make Your Road Trip Meals
This one took us a while to figure out. Not every place you happen to pull over is suitable for making on-the-go meals.
The gas station parking lot with 18 wheelers all over the place, standing in the blazing hot sun - don’t do that. When you’re part way through making your food, you’ll be wondering why you aren’t just going through that McDonald’s across the street.
Take an extra couple minutes to find a better spot! If you’re already pulled over for gas, look for the closest city park or ballfield. If you’ve got kids, they’ll be able to safely run around like little maniacs as you throw food together, there will likely be some shade to park underneath, and there might even be clean bathrooms that go largely unused.
Just Google “playground/city park/rest station near me”. We sometimes switch Google Maps to satellite view to scope out the area before driving that way.
Tip 7: Spend More on Road Trip Snacks (at the Grocery Store!)
Don’t get hangry and blow your road trip budget on junky gas station food or drinks!
Keep plenty of snacks around that are easy to eat in the car. Spend more at the grocery store than you typically would, because having yummy (and as healthy as you decide) road trip snack options around will save you from dropping $5 or more during every gas station stop.
For those traveling with kids: snacks, snacks, snacks! You’ll never have too many snacks.
If you’re traveling with little ones, check out our post, Here’s How To Survive a Road Trip With Your Baby or Toddler [44 Tips].
Tip 8: Save Money on a Road Trip by Making Your Own Coffee!
Coffee. It’s a staple of every good road trip. And if you’re really trying to cut your budget and take a cheap road trip, look at your coffee spend. It’s a bummer how quickly little purchases like this can add up.
So, make your own coffee!
Even if you aren’t traveling with a mini kitchen setup, or you know you won’t want to have to hook up your propane stove to heat water throughout the day, there are still some pretty convenient ways to make coffee on the road.
We have a whole post outlining 7 ways to make camping coffee, but here’s our top 3 recommended ways to make coffee during a road trip:
Instant Coffee
Good instant coffee isn’t cheap. But, compared to buying crappy gas station coffee or spending a lot more at a coffee shop, instant coffee is cheap! This is the most convenient way to make coffee while on a road trip.
Aeropress Coffee
We love our aeropress coffee. It isn’t a pricey method for making coffee during a road trip, but it is more time intensive compared to instant.
Pour Over
A collapsible pour over designed for camping is a nice way to make coffee during a road trip, if you don’t mind the extra moving parts and time it takes (again, as compared to instant).
No matter your preferred method for making coffee on the road, we recommend you keep all you need in a little kit that’s easy to access.
Here’s what you’ll need, depending on the method you choose:
Or heat water on a camp stove in one of these little pots*
Aeropress Kit* (this includes filters and all you would need)
Coffee Grounds or Beans
A mini grinder* if you use fresh beans
Don’t forget any sweetener you like!
Jugs of water or water container
Having a little coffee kit will make the whole process more streamlined and possibly even therapeutic after a long stint on the road!
Hopefully these road trip food and meal tips can help you save a bunch of money while still having some healthy, easy, and convenient choices available! If you’re looking for more ways to save on your next adventure check out these 31 Ways to Take a Cheap Road Trip on a Budget.
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As always, thanks for reading!
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