We just came back from a 13k km – 28 days long – super exciting road-trip. Since talking about our adventures would take forever, and I still need some time to organize it, I decided to share the technical aspects of our trip. Trip in a pickup truck, with 6 people (including a baby and all his belongings), with tents and all the parking gear, with full kitchen and closet, and NO trailer or any sorts of additional storage.
Sometimes I still wonder how we managed to take all the stuff and not get drowned in all of that. Well, here are some answers:
1. Super-duper truck bed organization set
Here M. went above and beyond.
Custom cabinets with special shelving for all the boxes (only clear plastic boxes with clear lids and labels) that worked like drawers.
Right behind the cabin: deep plywood bins for squishing all the loose stuff (like sleeping bags, tents, pillows, extra shoes, etc). Some of the items here were only needed for the camping days, when we had to basically unpack everything anyway.
The very rear was designed as a kitchen. Lots of shelving for cooking equipment, spices, knives, food supplies, etc. Special portable shelf with our camp stove. Slots for water jags (total of 20L) and a picnic blanket ;).
We even changed the liner of the tailgate to a smooth, vinyl finished board, so we had a nice countertop, mostly used for the kitchen (but sometimes bench, change table…very flexible).
M. left a “tunnel” in the middle for the large items storage and easy access to: cooler, stroller, swimming gear, eventually laundry.
2. Colour-coding
60 t-shirts, 60 pairs of underwear, 60 pairs of socks…and the list goes on and on. Everything tightly rolled to save as much space as possible.
Instead of organizing the clothing by person, we put together boxes divided by ease of access. All the everyday items were at the top so everyone could simply open the cover and get what we needed for the night. And the extra sweaters and warm pants were well hidden with a hope that we’ll never need them.
Anyway…to make any sense of the giant pile of rolled t-shirts we marked them with coloured rubber bands.
All of these didn’t really take much longer than standard folding and made our road trip life much much easier.
3. The kitchen
This was simply genius!
M. built couple custom shelves with special slots for knives, cutting boards and plates. A little drawer for spices and cooking utensils, and a custom portable mini-table under the camp stove sound maybe a bit overboard, but how cool was it to have it! The larger shelves fitted all the dishwashing supplies, pots and pan, propane, some everyday food supplies and short term food storage (pasta, couple cans). Everything was easily accessible, we just pulled out whatever we needed right on the tailgate table. It was so present, that instead of grabbing fast food or spending fortune on restaurants, we used this kitchen every day, stopping at some beautiful secluded spots and preparing some healthy, delicious meals (while the kids were using up their energy: swimming or running around)
4. The inside
The main idea was to keep as little as possible inside the cabin (it was already full with 6 of us inside!).
The boys got one larger storage box under the seat and a seat organizer to keep there stuff (phones, games, drawing supplies, Lego, books). The remaining under-rear-bench space was occupied by toiletry/first aid case, baby’s backpack, toys and some tools.
Under the baby’s seat we kept the electric cooler and this was one of the better ideas. All the snacks and dinner ingredients stayed fresh.
With four boys inside it was quite important to keep out any possible odors. Shoes usually traveled in a sealed bag in the trunk. We got whole bunch of the Munchkin baking powder pots and spread them all over the truck.
5. All the things we didn’t need…
Ah…and here comes the truth: we were packed so tight that there was not much room to bring anything back. We could have got much more of these delicious Ghirardelli chocolates, and all the Chicago popcorn, and more rocks, and donuts, and toys…if only we knew:
– You don’t need 5 folding chairs if you are coming to you campsite after 11pm and the only thing you dream about is your comfy sleeping bag and a pillow.
– You don’t need folding highchair if you have stroller or a blanket. Baby is seating in the car so long he needs a break anyway.
– You don’t need a month supply of canned food. We used a lot of fresh ingredients and there are stores in US as well;)
– Although smoothies for breakfast sounded like a great idea at first. After couple days we were starting to get sick of it and wanted something more solid. The mini blender and smoothie-cups were always in the way for the rest of the trip.
– Books. We had no time for reading and my book went for the trip without being opened even ones. The phone was more than enough to meet all our reading needs.
Family in the making 
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