Tag: gear prep

3 Smart Tips for Organization on the Road

MirandaLeave a comment

If you’ve ever taken a roadtrip, you know how crowded your vehicle can feel.

In a short period, it can start to feel, well, claustrophobic.

With all of your clothes, gear and equipment in your car, plus the family or the dog, there’s barely any room left to move around.

So how do you keep your space fresh and organized?

Have you been considering some car organizers, but don’t know which ones to purchase?

Keep reading for three tips on organizing your car for a roadtrip.

3 Tips for Organizing your Car for a Roadtrip

  1. Keep your car clean. This is probably the most important tip I can offer to a novice roadtripper. I don’t mean the exterior of your car – you do you on that front. Rather, keep the interior of your car cleaned out so that when you do get ready for a roadtrip,  you are ready to throw everything in the car and just go. And on this note, get yourself a little trash can that attaches to your gear shift. It will go a long way in keeping your car neat and orderly.
  2. Invest in organizers for your car. Organizers that hang from your seats are a convenient way to store items and keep everything in its place. I have a set of organizers that hang from the back of my seat – they have pockets and pouches for me to slide in bottles of water, my tablet or laptop and any other miscellaneous items I carry with me. These keep the backseat of my car organized.
  3. Practice your packing routine. I cannot emphasize this habit enough. If you are planning to roadtrip regularly and you want to make it easy to get on the road, take some time to put all your stuff together before you hit the road. Planning out where you want to stack all of your stuff will save you time and energy when you get ready to head out on your adventures.

These three simple tips for organizing your car will go a long way in keeping your car roadtrip ready (but don’t forget to check your tires and oil before you leave!) Stay tuned for more roadtrip tips from me in the future! Have some tips of your own? Share ’em in the comments!

Miranda and Violet Travel Updates

Violet and I are headed out on our next trip at the end of this month. We’re headed to the Pagosa Springs area of Colorado to spend some time in the San Juan National Forest. We are so looking forward to this trip! I only have one more thing to order before we go, otherwise I am set!

Enjoy my tips? Follow my blog for more roadtrip tips! Safe travels, friends.

 

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Gear Shift – Pup Gear Shakedown

MirandaLeave a comment

Before I got Violet, my biggest backpacking “goal”, beyond just going as many places as possible, was to reduce my pack weight as low as I could comfortably stand. I fancied myself an ultralighter, or at least aspiring ultralighter, and I meticulously weighed every single item I purchased. Fast forward to our first backpacking trip together, and I have an entirely new perspective on being comfortable in the outdoors. Don’t get me wrong – dogs don’t need luxury any more than humans do. Violet would eat her dinner right off the ground if I fed it to her that way, but we’re not trying to be uncomfortable. We want to enjoy our time outside, and sometimes that means we need to pack a little more.

I still meticulously weigh every single item I purchase, okay. I use GearGrams to keep a comprehensive list of all of my gear, as well as track my gear by trip and season. You can toggle between measurement units, which is a handy feature. I have a separate list just for Violet’s gear, because there still isn’t a lot of “ultralight” gear for dogs and weight is really important to both of us.

Here’s a rundown of what we took for Violet’s first trip, along with the weights in ounces (some of this I carried, some of it she carried) :

  • Outward Hound DayPak – 9.6 ounces
  • Mammut Alpine Mat UL – 3.1 ounces (cut in half to fit Violet’s body length, R-Value is 1.2, which is sufficient for 3-seasons for Vi as she is a warm sleeper)
  • Big Agnes Kings Canyon Quilt – 16.5 ounces (this is WAY more bag than she needs, so we’ll be adjusting our bag options for sure)
  • Fozzils Dish Container – 1.4 ounces
  • Outward Hound Cinch Top Bowl – 1.6 ounces
  • PackTowl UltraSoft Body Towel – 6.4 ounces
  • MLD Rain Kilt – 2.1 ounces (this serves a rain protection for my bottom half, a ground cloth when neither of us wants to get wet or dirty, and I’m going to figure out how to make it into a poncho of sorts for Violet)

I carried her quilt, sleeping pad, and food dish in my bag, and she carried the rest of her stuff, plus the rain gear & bathroom items. Since it is going to get hot in Texas soon, I am probably going to have to start the hunt for a good pair of all-weather booties (she has front dewclaws, so that’s a challenge.) The ground gets really hot here and I don’t want to risk injury to her paws. But her pack works fine for the weight we’re working with now, and it’ll take some time for us to work out the most comfortable sleeping arrangement. I suspect I’m going to get double pads & quilts and we’ll just snooze together. ❤