Snack Ideas For Your Road Trip by Car Hire

If you are traveling for fun with no time limit and no reservations then you can afford to stop and eat at restaurants, sampling all the local flavors.  If you're like many travelers on route for business or holiday reservations then stopping to eat might not fit in the schedule, or maybe you just want to avoid eating out every meal to save a little money on vacation?  You're going to need some road snacks!  In the next week I will be taking two road trips with my family by car rental and I came up with some great ideas for affordable road snacks.

Make Your Own Trail Mix

Pre-mixed bags of nuts and fruits, often accompanied by some type of cracker, pretzel, or even candy can be found in travel stops all around the world.  The problem with pre-packaged trail mix is they are always either A) they full of salt which only makes everyone more thirsty and thus slows down your road trip with frequent potty breaks, B) full of other crappy ingredients like corn syrup and artificial colors, or C) overpriced.  Sure, you can find several brands that sell decent organic trail mix at health food stores, such as Grizzlies All Organic Trail Mix, but why not buy the bulk ingredients separately and mix your own?  I estimate I saved about half the cost by buying my pecans, tropical dried fruits, sliced almonds and granola separately, plus I got to choose the ingredients I love!

Snack Bars

Everyone loves a good snack bar so I picked up three kinds: amaranth bars and sesame seed bars by Bio-Land, a natural and organic company based out of Costa Rica, and some oatmeal bars made by nuns.  These will keep my 2 year old happily snacking in the back seat of the car rental.

Jerky

Last but not least, I picked up some beef jerky for the man appetite I'm also responsible for.  While he might munch on a sesame bar, I think it will be the jerky that holds him over from late breakfast to an early dinner, meaning we can get by without stopping for lunch!  I got local beef jerky from Costa Rica, but one of my favorite "jerky" snacks is actually the vegetarian Stonewall's Jerquee.  Available at most health food stores, Stonewall's is a good option because they are gluten-free and have great flavor and texture (unlike some other fake meats).

I hope you enjoy my tips to save money and time on meal with snacks in the car rental.  The best tip of all is to book your car hire though CarHireX.com, where we offer the lowest rates on car rentals in more than 10,000 popular pick up locations around the world.