I've mentioned a few times that we are driving home for Christmas! Super excited since it has been FIVE years since we last spend Christmas with our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles! What I'm not excited about is the drive. It's at least 18 hours one way to drive from our house to the town we call home! We've made the trip twice before, so the kids know what to expect and we've discovered a few of the best and worse places to stop along the way. But that's over 36 hours of driving to get there and back, which means a lot could happen along the way. To make sure we've got a few things we might need I put together a Winter Driving Emergency Kit.
This kit is not a full on zombie apocalypse emergency kit. It's just a few things to hold us over if something comes up that slows our drive down. I'm not an expert in emergency preparedness, I just packed what I thought would be best for my family and I'm sharing it with you for your own ideas!!
Here's how I pulled it all together:
First, I gathered all the random first aid kits I have around my house.
Then, I picked which container would work best for travel. I also looked at Target and Walmart for a container but never saw one that I thought would work better than
this kit that I bought several years ago. I wanted something that wouldn't take up a lot of space and flat enough that it would fit under the back seats of my Explorer when they were folded down flat. The contents of that kit though were really picked through so I laid out all the supplies I had and decided what was needed.
The Items I included and why I included them:
- Ice pack - if we are in an accident it might be useful
- Plastic grocery bags - trash bags, kid puking, dirty clothes...so many uses. To save space, I folded them the way my Japanese friends taught me, into a neat triangle. Click here to see how.
- Hot Hands Hand Warmers - if it gets cold these will come in handy, picked them up in the dollar spot at Target but you can buy large quantities on Amazon.
- Ritz Peanut Butter Crackers and Beef Jerky- just some snacks to hold someone over if we can get to an exit right away or are waiting on help
- Glow Sticks - will help if we are stuck in the dark
- Wet Ones - cleaning up messes
- Gloves and ear warmer - it's winter if there's something to do outside the car it'll be cold bought red ones in hopes that it helps to be seen if we are on the side of the road. They were $2 each from Walmart.
- Keychain flash light - helpful in the dark
- Small container filled with bandages and gauze - hopefully if we get in an accident it will be small injuries
- Tylenol To Go and Chewable Pepto - headaches and upset stomachs always happen when you are stuck in a car for 2 days
- Hand sanitizer - cleanliness
- Emergency sign - one of the kits I had bought had a sign to put in your car for emergencies so I swapped the kit it was in and included it in this one
- Whistle - great for emergencies to signal for help
- Charmin to go - with 3 kids you never know
- Klennex - winter equals running noses
- Emergency blankets - will help if we are stuck or waiting on help
- Emergency first aid guide - in case of an accident
- Gloves - in case of an accident
- Ziploc bags of various sizes - containing messes, dirty clothes, snack bags
- Accident Report Forms - found at PinchALittleSaveALot.blogspot.com I've had copies of these in my car for a while but I printed extra for this kit
I organized everything in the case the best I could, trying to put the items I thought might be of most importance (like wet ones, tylenol and plastic bags) on top.
When I'm driving during the winter I also always make sure to have an ice scraper in my car, bring our coats and wear shoes. Short trip or long trip those are important to have! Since we are traveling for a while we'll also have extra clothes packed in our suitcases and the kids will have their backpacks full of stuff to keep them entertained for the drive.
After I decided what would go in this Winter Driving Emergency Kit, in true blogger fashion I made it pretty with a cute little graphic and some washi tape!
One thing out of a thousand is prepped and ready for the road trip at least! And I know if we get into any trouble we will have few extra supplies to help us out. The best part, most of these things I already had so I don't think I spend more than $8 to pull all of this Winter Driving Emergency Kit and now I can feel a little more at ease during our trip.
Are you traveling this holiday season? How far is your trip? Did I forget anything? What else would you include?
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Labels: Driving, Emergency Prep, Winter