The Prudent Pantry: Road Trip Snacks

This past week I returned home from a family road trip just in time for Rebecca's post on family road trips. Oops!  The good news is that I'd instinctively followed her advice anyway--bringing snack foods for the car time.

Never having traveled any great distance with this particular family configuration before (in addition to the new-ish baby, my mom and sister were with us), I went shopping without a list, which I'm sure was not the most economical way to do it. I bought our usual snack foods, guessing at amounts. Surprisingly, I wound up running out of some things that I hadn't thought I would, while there was a ton extra of a few things that seemed like sure bets. Next time, though, I will know what to put on my list!

These are some of the things we brought and how they worked out for us:

Dried apples. This was the first thing to run out, and while I enjoy dried fruit I was really surprised by how quickly these went. Next time I will buy more!

Almonds. I expected these to go FAST but there was about half a bag remaining at the end of the trip.

Pretzels and peanut butter pretzels. The peanut butter ones were almost all eaten, which is good since they were my four-year-old's primary source of protein on the drive. The plain ones barely were touched! Another surprise.

Apples and bananas. Perhaps due to bad planning on my part, these were sort of a bust. The bananas went bad almost immediately, which could have been prevented if I'd stored them more carefully. The apples were mealy by the end of the trip, but I think that we would have eaten them all before that happened if we'd planned better when we packed the car--I forgot all about them for the first two days. Next time we will buy fruit as we go.

Microwave popcorn. There was no microwave in the car, of course (though the minivan we rented was so fancy I wouldn't have been that surprised), but most hotel rooms have them these days. When my son was sick of traveling, I gave him an evening off with a DVD of Toy Story 2 on my computer and a big bowl (actually the hotel ice bucket) of popcorn. He slept so well that night!

Granola. I made this myself before we left, and thought I would nosh on it non-stop, but barely touched it. I guess I really do prefer it with yogurt!

Cereal and almond milk. Traveling with an open carton of almond milk was difficult (we opted to leave the cooler at home, and had to contrive ways to keep the carton upright) but I was really happy to have it. With the AC on, it kept just fine.

Cereal bars. My son would eat nothing but blueberry bars (Trader Joe's "A Blueberry Walks Into A Bar") if I let him, and sure enough these kept him going even when he refused to eat anything at any of the restaurants along our way.

Nothing but the bananas and the last of the apples went to waste--we'll eat it all now that we're home. But next time, I will be able to make a more educated guess about what to bring with us. And next time? I think I'll bring the cooler. Not so much for its cooling properties as for its abilities to keep food packages upright.

Been on a road trip lately? What food did you pack?

Annika Barranti is a writer living in Los Angeles and blogging at Through the Looking Glass. She and her husband are raising two children and trying to eat well on a tiny budget.