Contingency Planning you ask? Yes! Preparing for failure and emergency situations. I am talking about the small stuff here. Things that you understand could happen but you don’t actually think will happen on your watch. I’m here to say they can and some will happen. I warn you though, once you start with the “what if’s” it can easily snowball out of control. Read on…if you dare.

The Rental Car

So I had to call the rental car company this morning to ask a quick question about drivers. I did a quick internet search to get their phone number and noticed part of the search results were customer reviews. So I started reading reviews. Harmless right? Wrong! As few as three days ago a customer complained about picking up their rental car only to find out that they didn’t have the type of car she rented available. Long story short, she ended up with a smaller car.

This threw me into a small panic with only two weeks to go until our trip starts. What if something similar happens to us? A car is not an option. How will all the snacks fit?!

I won’t be able to wait on some chance the right car shows up in a few hours either. Due to cost constraints I am picking up the rental car on the day we leave. I need the full day to load the car for the trip. This calls for some contingency.

Generally speaking, as long as you don’t choose to pre-pay for a rental car, there is no penalty for canceling a reservation on the day of your rental. Do I like to do that to a business? No. But in rare cases like this, it’s a necessity. I have made a second car reservation with another location in the event that something goes wrong with the first.

Caveat, always read the fine print Terms & Conditions before trying this at home.

The Internet of Things…or Not

You’re driving along happy as a clam using your navigational app when BAM! The signal is gone. It happens to us often as we tend to enjoy the road less traveled. Losing internet connectivity can happen and it can be long lasting. Don’t be stuck wondering if you’re going the right way. Be sure to pack some backup maps with you on the road. You know, maps. Paper pictures of roads that help you get from one place to another. They still exist. And they can be fun; but, we’ll talk about that in another post.

Losing the internet doesn’t just affect your navigation apps. It can affect your email. And you’re ability to access information, movies in the cloud, or even worse, events where your ticket is accessed and used on your mobile device. These are important things.

Be sure to print backup copies of hotel reservations from your email. Most of the time you don’t need the confirmation numbers but in rare cases hotels have been known to misplace a reservation. Those movies? Maybe we’ll need them, maybe we won’t. Just in case, download a select few favorites so you can access them at any time. And while you’re at it, print a paper copy of those event tickets. You don’t want to be left out at the cold, dark entrance missing out on all the fun.

The Weather

When I title this section “the weather”, I’m not just talking about rain on our trip. I’m talking about severe weather. Have you seen what’s been going on in the Midwest lately? Of course it’s all very close to our route. Tornadoes, flooding, you name it. It has crossed our minds that we could be caught in something big.

I’m not sure how prepared we are to handle the big stuff. Most of our plans involve looking at the weather reports daily and hourly if the reports warrant it. We have packed some emergency supplies too. A battery jump starter, waterproof matches, flashlight, etc. Pictured below is that jump starter against a measuring tape to show the scale of its size. They are extremely portable these days and take up just a tiny fraction of space in the car. and yet can fully charge a car battery.

An emergency kit is essential if you ever watch shows about people who were stranded, near death and still survived. I think we watch too much TV.

Of course we are signed up for emergency alerts which hone in on your location to provide information as we go (as long as there’s still internet connectivity – see previous section). And, we have ideas of where we will head if it alerts us to take shelter. We definitely are not interested in capturing tornado footage from the road.

As for the flooding, we are expecting that some parts of our Route 66 journey will be under water. Disappointing; but, we aren’t interested in drowning either. You know the motto. We’re following the motto. Turn around, don’t drown. If it happens, it will just give us some motivation to return on another trip to catch what we miss.

So I’m going to end contingency planning right there. I could talk all day about the “what if’s”. But then you might think you’d better stay home and not go anywhere. That’s not what we want to happen. Hopefully there’s just enough fuel to get you thinking about how you can avert disaster on your own road trips. Or better yet say, “I didn’t need all that stuff, but I’m sure glad I had it”.

traveling with kids