❌ STOP Making These 3 Big Road Trip Mistakes

If planning a road trip feels more stressful than fun, you're not alone. It also means you're possibly making it more complicated than it needs to be. Now, I plan a lot of road trips inside my Wandering Motorhome Club, so people can come into the group Zoom calls and they can share their itineraries, and I can give them tips and feedback on how to make them better. And time and again, I am seeing the same 3 big mistakes that people are making, mistakes that can turn your dream road trip into stress and fight with your dearly beloved and all the good stuff that comes with that. Hands up if you've been there, because I know I have. Don't feel bad if that's you. This video is here to help you avoid these mistakes with your road trips so that all of your future trips will be stress-free and fun. Promise. Mistake number 1 is overplanning every single detail. Now, I know I am 100% guilty of this one. In fact, when I first quit my job to go travelling full-time, I treated us travelling almost like a holiday, but also I overplanned everything because I wanted to make the most out of this incredible opportunity that I had to go travelling. I wanted to see as much as possible and cram everything in. And the problem with that is that it is stressful and you get burnt out, especially if you are on a long trip. Now, it took me a few years to learn how to just slow down, even if that means you don't see everything in a country in the 2 weeks that you have got. You'll find it so much calmer and more enjoyable if you're not planning every single lunch stop, everything that you're going to do every morning and everything you're going to do every afternoon. And you leave a bit of room for either laziness, which is completely allowed on a road trip, or to do things that you discover when you're actually there and you didn't know were there, perhaps an event or a festival or a site that you didn't know you wanted to go and see. All of these things can add to the stress because you'd like, I've got to be here. No, right now it's 1 o'clock, we have to move on to the next one. And if you can just let that go a little bit, It will make your life a lot better, I promise. Now, the way that I did this was instead of planning morning and afternoon, I pick a few key places that I want to go see on my trip. So, for example, I don't know, 2 or 3 a week. And then I would plan the rest of my trip and the rest of my days around that. And I, every 2 or 3 days, have a no-driving day. Now, that might not always be the no-driving day because I'm going to talk about this in a minute. But if I have that gap, that space, then I can rearrange my itinerary. I can do something that I find along the way. I can even, shock horror, just spend an extra night somewhere really lovely and read a book or edit a YouTube video or do these things that I do as I'm travelling. And it just helps it a little bit calmer. And you can spend time looking around a city or around the place that you're in rather than just driving from point The other thing is you will find that life on the road rarely goes to plan, whether that is traffic jams, whether it's road closures, whether it is something unexpected that goes wrong. Not horrendously wrong, but just enough so that if you don't have the wiggle room, you'll get really stressed out because everything will start falling to pieces. So not having such a rigid schedule will really help you. Mistake number 2 is ignoring the weather And the road condition. Now, one thing that I really struggle with is the weather not going the way I want it to. It's a little bit easier when I've got more time now to travel, but at the times when I was working, we only had a week or two for a holiday or a road trip, and then the weather's awful. You're like, oh. Now, the first time I learned that having a motorhome is amazing when the weather is bad was up in Scotland, and we were on the Isle of Skye, and it was horrendous, like torrential rain, really strong winds. Just not a lot of fun, especially in a motorhome. But on the east coast of Scotland, it was beautiful, and that was when we realised that actually we could change our plans and go where the weather was nice. And that really was sort of life-changing, switched a little flick in— no, flicked a little switch in my brain, um, and just made me see road trips a little bit differently. And part of the beauty and the freedom of them is that you can Absolutely change your mind. So, for example, on this recent trip that I've done in Sweden and Norway, as I was heading up and I was up in northern Sweden and I was planning when I was going to go up to Nordkapp, which is like the very top of Norway, it was sort of beginning of October. The weather was very, very changeable and it was starting to snow. Lots of rainstorms which were turning into snowstorms. And of course, I wanted to be there with the best weather possible so I could launch the drone and take advantage of the fact that I had reached this Bucket list destination of Nordkapp. So what I did was I started looking at the weather forecast, and actually I changed my plans several times. If you look at my actual trip on Polarsteps, which you can't because it's locked down for family, but if you could see it, the zigzags were all over the place because I literally started changing where I was going to go when based on what the weather forecasts were. And it worked. It wasn't beautiful blue sunshine, but for October, the weather I had there was fantastic. Part of that as well is understanding that not all roads are the same. Now, if you've lived somewhere like the Lake District or Cornwall, you understand that a 30-mile-an-hour road doesn't always mean you're going to be going 30 miles an hour. But I think when you are new to perhaps touring in Europe or touring in places that are a bit more remote, you sort of look at what Google is telling you, that this is going to take you 3 hours between point and point, and not really understanding that smaller roads, often you're going a lot Slower than whatever speed limit has been applied to that road. Some of the roads around Devon and Cornwall, my parents live down there, are marked as national speed limits. So 50, 60 miles an hour. You're not going to do 50, 60 miles an hour down the road, especially not in a motorhome or a campervan. So that will, of course, take your time a little bit longer. So between getting from point to point, an understanding that the estimated times between destinations could be longer will actually help you. Relax a little bit more than again having that rigid plan. Oh no, we're 2 hours late, it's all going wrong. That will just help you calm down a little bit and also make your planning a bit easier. So look at the type of road rather than just the distance and then figure out exactly how far you can go on each day. And the third big mistake, which I know so many people have made, and again, I'm totally guilty of this, is packing last minute when you are stressed. Now, most people, especially if you're traveling with your partner or your family, going on a road trip can actually be quite stressful. So making sure everyone's got all their right stuff, making sure the kids have packed more than just, you know, junk food and their Walkman or iPod or whatever, and actually making sure that you've got things that you legally need to have and everything else. If you can do that before the last day or 2 before the trip, you will find so much more patience and calm, and it will not be anywhere near as stressful. You will probably still get that last minute running around the house making sure that they've actually got 2 matching pairs of shoes. I'm talking about your husband. But now not so much the kids, but it can be a lot of stress and things to remember inside your brain. And if you can get as much of that off with a packing checklist, which you can grab below, I'll leave the link for you, but also with just writing your own little checklist of things that you as a family, or even just you on your own, need to take with you, whether that's meds, whether that's glasses, whether that's dog food. I cannot tell you how many times I've forgotten the dog food or the dog bowl or whatever. I mean, now I have them in the van all set up, but before that, it was just one more thing. And this ball of stress. And the other thing is just writing it all down, writing lists of stuff you've got to remember to take with you. And if you can start packing it all up and getting yourself all organized a few days or even a week or two before you're going to go on your trip, it will all just be a heck of a lot calmer. Now, like I said, if these mistakes sound familiar, don't worry, you are not alone. They are all things that I am guilty of myself and I've learned from. And that's why I'm hosting my free workshop next week. You can find the links to deal with it. Like I said, it's completely free to come and And I'm going to be walking you through my process of how I plan my road trips, tips that I do to make it easier, and how to avoid stress and fights with your dearly beloved. So the link for that is below. If you happen to be watching this video after the workshop has passed, don't worry, there will be a link there for you so you can catch the replay. Don't forget as well, like I say, you can grab your free road trip checklist. I'll leave the link for that as well. And I wish you all the best and calm with planning your next road trip, wherever that may be. Let me know where you're heading off to. in the comments. I'd love to share it with you. Right, thank you as always for watching, and I'll see you on the next video. Take care. Bye.