The road trip checklist: everything you actually need (and the stuff you'll definitely forget)

There’s a gas station somewhere in the middle of rural Portugal where I learned that I had forgotten my car’s emergency triangle.

This is a legally required item in Portugal. The fine for not having one is significant. The guardia who pulled me over explained this in Portuguese, which I do not speak, and then mimed what a triangle looked like with his hands for a full thirty seconds while I nodded and tried to look like I understood and also wasn’t panicking internally.

I had the triangle. It was in the boot of the rental under the spare tire. I had just not looked there first.

The point is: a road trip checklist isn’t about being overly prepared. It’s about not standing on the side of a highway in rural Portugal miming triangles to a police officer.

Here’s the list I use now.

Before you leave home

Documents

Driver’s licence (obvious, but people forget)
International Driving Permit if you need one (required in many countries outside your home region. Check the rules for your destination country before assuming your licence is enough)
Passport or national ID
Vehicle registration documents (rental agreement if it’s a hire car)
Insurance documents, including breakdown cover
Any toll payment cards or tags (in France and Spain especially, having a toll tag saves massive time)
Printed or downloaded offline maps for areas with patchy signal

Phone prep

Download offline maps for your entire route before you leave. Google Maps lets you do this. Apple Maps doesn’t, which is one of my ongoing grievances with Apple. For international road trips, sort your data situation before you cross the border: an eSIM that covers the country you’re driving in means your navigation keeps working even when you’re nowhere near a town. I cover this in detail in my guide to using your phone abroad.

The car itself

Whether it’s yours or a rental, check this before you pull out of the driveway.

Tyre pressure (including the spare)
Windscreen washer fluid
Oil level
That you know where the spare tyre, jack, and wheel brace are (yes, really)
Emergency triangle (usually legally required in Europe)
Reflective vest (legally required in France, Spain, Austria, and others. Keep it in the car, not the boot)
First aid kit (some countries require it)
Fire extinguisher (required in some countries, always a good idea)

For rental cars specifically: do a full walk-around with photos BEFORE you drive off the lot. Document every scratch, dent, and scuff and make sure it’s noted on your paperwork. This is not being difficult. This is protecting yourself from a €400 charge for a scratch that was there when you collected the car.

Emergency and safety kit

The goal here is to cover the three most common road trip emergencies: breakdown, accident, and getting stranded somewhere you didn’t plan to be.

Jump leads or a portable jump starter (the compact battery ones are brilliant)
Tow rope
Torch and spare batteries, or a rechargeable one
Warm blanket (even in summer, because a motorway breakdown at 2am gets cold fast)
Spare water (2 litres minimum, more if you’re driving anywhere remote or hot)
Non-perishable snacks (energy bars, nuts: not for the road trip fun, for genuine emergencies)
Basic toolkit: screwdriver, pliers, duct tape (duct tape is the answer to a surprising range of minor crises)
Phone charger and a portable power bank
Cash in the local currency (not everywhere takes cards, especially tolls in less-traveled areas)

The charger point is not optional. A dead phone on an empty road is not a vibe. It’s a problem.

GPS is your primary. Offline maps are your backup. Paper maps are your backup’s backup.

I’m only half joking about the paper maps. When I drove through parts of Mongolia (a whole story), there was no signal, no offline data, and the roads were more of a suggestion than a reality. The paper map I’d bought at a petrol station in Ulaanbaatar was not great but it was something. For most normal road trips this won’t be relevant to you, but the principle holds: don’t have a single point of failure in your navigation.

Route planning tips that actually matter:

Build in more time than you think you need. The scenic road always takes longer. Lunch in a place that turns out to be genuinely good always turns into two hours. The “quick stop” at the viewpoint is never quick. Factor this in.

Know the opening hours of petrol stations on your route if you’re driving through rural or remote areas. Some areas of rural France, Spain, and Portugal have very limited options on Sundays. Running out of fuel 40km from the next open station is a special kind of stressful.

The comfort and sanity list

This is the bit that separates a good road trip from a miserable one.

In the car

Neck pillow for passengers (or anyone who isn’t driving)
Sunglasses (driving into a low sun without them is genuinely dangerous)
Sun shade for rear windows if you’re traveling with kids or in serious heat
Rubbish bag (car becomes a disaster zone with nowhere to put wrappers)
Wet wipes (multipurpose, irreplaceable)
Spare plastic bags (for rubbish, wet clothes, sudden motion sickness. Prepare for all of these)

Entertainment

Downloaded podcasts, audiobooks, or playlists for no-signal zones
A playlist everyone in the car has actually agreed to (this is more important than it sounds)
Offline entertainment for any kids
A road trip game or two if it’s a long drive (the license plate game is genuinely good for hour seven)

Food and drink

A proper cooler if you’re driving somewhere hot
A reusable water bottle per person
Real snacks, not just sugar. The sugar crash after two bags of Haribo is not compatible with driving safely.
Coffee for the driver. Take this seriously.

Overnight stops and accommodation

If you’re doing multi-day, don’t wing the accommodation entirely.

Book the first night at minimum. The rest can flex. But arriving in an unknown town at 9pm with nowhere to stay and limited signal is a situation I’ve been in, and the combination of tiredness and mild panic does not make for good decision-making.

Keep your booking confirmations accessible offline. Hotel addresses matter at the border even when you have no internet. And some border crossings will ask where you’re staying in the destination country.

International road trips: the extra layer

If you’re crossing borders by car, add:

Check whether your insurance covers the countries you’re entering (not always automatic)
Check vehicle requirements: vignettes for Switzerland and Austria (must buy before driving on motorways), separate breakdown policies for some countries
Check headlight beam deflectors if driving in a country on the opposite side of the road
Carry your vehicle’s V5C or equivalent if you own the car
Know the drink-drive limits for each country (they vary and some are zero tolerance)
Understand the rules around radar detectors (illegal in many countries)

The rules genuinely differ country by country. Five minutes of Googling the specific requirements for your destination country saves you from a fine or an impounded car.

The thing I always check last

Phone battery. Car battery. Snacks. Documents.

The document check is the one that bites people. I’ve had a rental company turn me away from the desk because the credit card I’d booked with wasn’t the one I had on me. I’ve had a border crossing that required my international driving permit and I’d left it at the hotel. Both of these are fixable problems that became genuinely stressful problems through a lack of a final check.

Ten minutes before you leave, go through the list. Every time.

Happy driving.