The road trip packing list: what I wish I'd had on the side of a Portuguese highway at 9pm

I have been stranded on the side of a highway in rural Portugal with a flat tyre, no torch, a car jack I couldn’t figure out, and a total absence of any item that could have made the situation better.

It was 9pm. My phone was at 6%. The rental car’s roadside assistance number was on a document inside the glovebox, which I found after four minutes of fumbling in the dark. The car jack instructions were in Portuguese. I figured it out eventually. The whole experience took 90 minutes and cost me approximately 40 stress years off my life.

Every item on this list exists because of an experience like that one. Here’s what you actually need.

The car kit: the items nobody romanticises but everyone eventually needs

This is the section most road trip packing guides skip because it isn’t aspirational. It doesn’t photograph well. It doesn’t have any wanderlust in it. But it is the list that matters.

Phone charger that works in the car. A USB-C or USB-A car charger that fits the car’s USB port or 12V cigarette lighter socket. Not your cable, a car-compatible charger. Your phone is your GPS, your entertainment, your emergency contact, your accommodation confirmation, and your roadside assistance finder. A dead phone on a road trip is a genuine crisis. Charge it constantly while driving.

A portable power bank as backup. Even with the car charger, long days of GPS-on, streaming, and stop-start driving can outpace the charge rate. A 10,000mAh power bank in the door pocket keeps you covered during stops where the car is off.

A physical torch. Small LED torch, headlamp preferred so your hands stay free. You will need this at some point: a flat tyre, checking something under the bonnet, navigating a dark campsite, a power cut in a rural guesthouse. It weighs almost nothing. The consequences of not having it are specifically unpleasant at night.

Offline maps downloaded before you leave. Google Maps offline works by downloading a specific region to your device while you have Wi-Fi. Do this before you go. Signal drops in mountain passes, tunnels, rural areas, and anywhere with limited infrastructure. In Portugal (a beautiful country with a patchy mobile network in its interior), in any remote US state, in rural Japan or Australia, you will lose signal. If you don’t have offline maps, you are literally lost.

I download maps.me as a backup to Google offline maps. It uses OpenStreetMap data, works without any data connection, and has pulled me out of signal-dead situations in places where Google’s offline coverage has gaps.

The rental car / vehicle documents. If renting: the rental agreement, the excess/insurance documentation, and the roadside assistance number. These should be in the car AND photographed on your phone. The roadside assistance number specifically: save it as a contact before you drive away from the rental desk, not when you need it.

Basic first aid kit. Not the camping emergency kit. Plasters, ibuprofen, antiseptic wipes, a triangular bandage if you’re being thorough. This covers the blister from yesterday’s walk, the headache on day three, and the minor cut from the car door that doesn’t close quite right.

Reflective vest and warning triangle. In many European countries (France, Spain, Germany, Italy, most of the EU) these are legally required to be carried in the vehicle. In France, you must put on the vest before exiting a vehicle on the motorway, doing it from outside the car is illegal. In Spain, you must place warning triangles behind and in front of the vehicle. Rental cars usually have these but check before you leave the lot. Buying them at a motorway service station costs €30-50; getting a fine for not having them costs significantly more.

Cash. Motorway tolls in some countries (France, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, many US states) are cash-only at some booths. In rural areas everywhere, card machines fail. Keep €50-100 or the local equivalent in the car for situations where digital payment isn’t an option.

International driving requirements vary. Your regular driving licence may not be sufficient in every country. An International Driving Permit (IDP) is required in Japan, required alongside your licence in many African and Asian countries, and recommended for parts of South America. The IDP is not a licence, it’s a translation document that works alongside your existing licence. It’s issued by your home country’s motoring organisation (AA or RAC in the UK, AAA in the US) for a small fee. Get it before you go; you cannot get it abroad.

Driving rules differ more than people expect.

Japan: Traffic on the left, steering wheel on the right (same as UK and Australia). Speed limits are strictly enforced and low: 60km/h on most national roads, 100km/h on expressways. Alcohol limit is near-zero (0.03% BAC). Filling stations are everywhere but some in rural areas close at night. Expressway tolls are expensive and everywhere; budget for them.
USA: Traffic varies by state, but right-hand drive. Right turn on red is permitted in most states unless signed otherwise: this confuses many international visitors. Speed limits vary wildly between states. Rural areas mean genuinely long distances between fuel stations in states like Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana. Never let the tank get below half in remote areas.
France: Traffic on the right. Priority à droite (priority to the right at unmarked intersections) still applies in many areas and confuses people regularly. Speed limits are 80km/h on secondary roads outside urban areas. Speed cameras are dense and fines are immediate.
Australia: Traffic on the left. Driving distances between towns are genuinely extreme in the outback. The number one cause of serious accidents in remote Australia is fatigue: long, straight, featureless roads in heat cause microsleep. Take breaks every two hours. Kangaroos are a serious road hazard at dawn and dusk; avoid driving in those windows in rural areas if possible.
Morocco: Driving is challenging in cities (fast, chaotic, give way to whoever is most confident). Rural driving is generally fine but roads vary from excellent (new highways) to very rough. Police checkpoints are common; always have documents easily accessible. Toll roads cover most major routes.

Data for navigation while driving. Roaming charges on a foreign mobile network can be enormous when GPS is running continuously. Sort your data plan before you leave, not at the airport. An eSIM that you activate before departure means you land with working data and navigate from the first turn. For multi-country European road trips in particular, having a plan that covers multiple countries without per-country top-ups makes the logistics much simpler. I use eSIMply for this, compare plans at the eSIM guide if you want to know what works where.

Clothes: road trip-specific considerations

You have more space than a backpacker, but the road trip context has specific demands that sitting-on-a-beach travel doesn’t.

Driving clothes are a category. You are sitting for hours. This is not the time for stiff jeans that cut into your waist, a dress that rides up, or shoes that make operating the pedals uncertain. Comfortable, non-restrictive clothes for driving days are worth thinking about explicitly. Linen trousers, loose joggers, comfortable shorts, whatever you’d wear for a long-haul flight.

Layer for the car climate. Cars get cold when the air-con is running in summer. They get warm when you’re stuck in traffic in the sun. Pack a layer you can put on and take off from the driver’s seat without stopping.

Destination-appropriate coverage. A road trip across multiple regions may take you from beach to mountain to conservative rural area in three days. Think about what you’re passing through, not just where you’re sleeping.

For a classic European road trip: one good waterproof layer, comfortable walking shoes and driving shoes, one smarter option for nicer dinners, and clothes that work across climate zones. Southern Spain in summer is 38°C; the Spanish interior can be 15°C at night. Scotland is its own weather system entirely.

The car organisation system

How you organise the car matters as much as what you’ve packed, because you’re in a contained space and you’ll be rooting around in it daily.

The system that works:

Main bags in the boot: anything you only need at accommodation
Day bag in the back seat: the bag you want access to during the day: layers, camera, snacks, toiletries if needed
Front console: documents, car charger, sunglasses, mints, hand sanitiser, small cash reserve
Door pockets: torch, water bottles, small snacks, maps

The failure mode is everything in the boot, which means you stop and unpack every time you need a jacket. Within two days you stop doing this and then you’re cold for the rest of the trip.

A dedicated rubbish bag. Hang it from the headrest. Not optional. The alternative is a slow accumulation of wrappers, receipts, and coffee cups that reaches critical mass around day four and makes everyone quietly miserable.

The snack situation: the one area to not be minimal

Everyone knows to bring snacks. The distinction that actually matters: how they’re organised.

Snacks in a carrier bag in the boot are snacks you don’t eat until you stop. Snacks in the front or back seat, accessible while driving, are the snacks that prevent the 3pm hunger-induced road trip argument.

The practical breakdown:

Something salty (nuts, crackers, crisps)
Something sweet (chocolate, dried fruit, energy bars)
Something that feels like a real food (apples, hard cheese, sandwiches if you’re eating them same day)
Water in a refillable bottle per person, refilled at every significant stop

Bring more than you think you need. A long driving day is more comfortable with food security.

Country-specific food considerations:

In France: motorway service stations are actually good. Supermarkets are excellent. You can eat very well without planning.

In the USA on interstate highways: service stations range from acceptable to grim depending on the state. If you’re driving rural Southwest or Great Plains, stock up in cities because the food options between are limited.

In Australia in the outback: bring significantly more water than you expect to need. 4L per person per day as a minimum in extreme heat. Roadhouses exist along major routes but are sometimes 200km apart. Treat them as mandatory stops, not optional ones.

In Morocco: markets in any town sell excellent fresh food cheaply. Supermarkets in cities are well-stocked. Rural areas have smaller selections. The bread is very good almost everywhere.

The documents checklist

This is the area where the consequences of forgetting are most serious:

Driving licence (both parts if UK): plus photo backup
IDP if required for your destination
Car rental agreement and insurance documents
Roadside assistance number (saved as a contact, not just on paper)
Passport (for international trips)
Accommodation confirmations (screenshot, not just in-app)
Travel insurance details and emergency number
Car registration documents (if driving your own vehicle internationally)
Country-specific requirements (Green Card for driving into some European countries in your own car; this is still required for UK vehicles driving into some EU states post-Brexit)

The honest conclusion

The Portugal flat tyre took 90 minutes because I didn’t have a torch and I couldn’t read the jack instructions in the dark. With a £6 headlamp, it would have taken 25 minutes.

Most road trip crises are like this: minor inconveniences that become major ones because of one missing item. The torch. The offline maps. The roadside assistance number saved before you needed it. The cash for the toll road that didn’t accept cards.

Cover the five most likely problems (dead phone, getting lost, car issue requiring assistance, minor injury, running out of something) and you’re set. The other 50 things that could theoretically happen: deal with them if they happen.

And bring more snacks than you think you need. On this point I will not be argued with.