Real Life versus Road Life

Or, On Candy in Bed and Other Travel Indulgences

In my Real Life, I like to cook from scratch from minimally-packaged ingredients, I buy bulk toiletries and eschew semi-processed produce like peeled squash or pre-shucked corn swathed in yards of plastic wrap, I bring reusable tote bags with me to the store, I go to the box office in person to save on online ticket-handling fees, I stop myself from finishing restaurant meals with the intention of taking a doggie bag for the next night’s dinner–all the ways I can tell myself I’m staving off impending environmental and financial collapse by putting in a little effort or tolerating a certain amount of inconvenience. In my Road Life, though, the equation often changes, and those minimal efforts or tolerable inconveniences become not only magnified in scope, but also kind of a dumb idea. This is when I have to remind myself of the differences between Real Life and Road Life.

Take cooking on the road, for example. We often stay in house rentals or efficiency hotels with kitchenettes, with the very good intention of making at least a few dinners in order to save money and give our stomachs a break from restaurant food. The first few times we did this, I tried to replicate my home-cooking experience in erratically-equipped kitchens, struggling to wash the head of romaine lettuce, slice the red pepper, and drain the fusilli with a teeny-tiny strainer and a dull steak knife with no cutting board. I quickly learned that trusting that the spices left behind in a vacation home kitchen is the way to madness, and I grew to understand that making enough of a dish to have leftovers the next day is really just a way to waste twice as much food if you’re hitting the road and literally can’t take it with you.

I have since learned that many of the convenience items I bypassed superciliously at home are ideal for vacation meal prep. Now, if we want a salad while on a trip, I pick up a bag of pre-washed salad mix with a single-serving package of dressing. Yes, buying premade food in a plastic bag may be more wasteful than picking up the raw ingredients and preparing the dish, but if I don’t have the time or space to store half a head of lettuce, a bottle of olive oil, and a bag of lemons, well, maybe this solution is less wasteful in the long run. Even though I know I could easily make rice pilaf from scratch, do I really want to run around the grocery store gathering a half-pound bag of rice, a box of orzo, a sack of onions, and all the seasonings, only to have to figure out what to do with the leftovers, or do I just want to pick up a single-serving box of rice pilaf mix and get on with my vacation? I know the answer now, though it took a while to realize. The first time I gave myself Road Life permission to buy individual flavored yogurt cups instead of a two pound tub of plain yogurt and a jar of jam to mix into it was life-affirming.

Similarly, I’ve learned to rethink what it means to make budget-conscious decisions when grocery shopping on a trip. This is where Road Life diverges not only from Real Life, but also from sixth grade math problems: if a one-pound box of store-brand butter costs $4.19 (at 26 cents an ounce), and a single 3.5 ounce stick of imported Irish butter costs $2.79 (or 80 cents an ounce), which is the better deal? In your sixth grade math class, the answer is the box of generic American butter, but if you are only spending two nights at your current location and don’t have any way to take leftover butter with you, splurging on the single stick of fancy import costs nearly 50% less, assuming you and your family aren’t planning to consume an entire pound of butter over the course of two breakfasts (and it’s much more delicious, to boot.) Similarly, if your trip involves air travel with carry-on luggage, buying an overpriced travel-sized bottle of shampoo to replace the one your kids left in the last hotel bathroom is still probably cheaper than buying a bulk-sized bottle that you’ll need to dump at airport security in two days. In Road Life, sometimes less really is more.

Along those lines, it often makes sense to pay a little more for convenience when vacation time is more valuable than money; paying extra for a theme park express pass that enables you to get in four or five extra rides is probably worth the cost, if you can swing it, and the higher rate for lodging right near a National Park may seem a small price to pay when you realize you don’t need to spend an hour in transit just to get from your somewhat-cheaper “greater Parks area” cabin to the entrance gate that’s still a forty-minute drive to the first visitors’ center. In Real Life, my New Yorker’s instinct is to think of walking or taking public transit as much faster and cheaper than driving, but in Road Life, I have to check those assumptions (I’m thinking of the time it took us twenty minutes to cross the street on the Las Vegas Strip, a bizarro universe where you need to go up to go down if you’re on foot and it might be easier to take a taxi to the casino directly across the street.) And Road Life Me knows that paying the handling fees to book experiences online in advance is definitely better than taking your chances on your must-see attraction being sold out when you get there, especially if you’re scheduled to hit the road again the next day.

Another truth about Road Life that’s different from Real Life: on the road, you can never have too many plastic bags. Even though I swear by my massive collection of totes and insulated cooler bags and farmers’ market carryalls at home, on the road, I never pass up a chance to pack my groceries and drug store purchases in plastic bags. Once the goods are unloaded, the bags are swiftly dispatched to any number of purposes: back-seat garbage containers, barf bags, vessels for wet swimsuits and mucky shoes, cushioning for fragile souvenirs, laundry hampers, impromptu strainers for washing grapes, spill-proof packaging to contain the now-leaky overpriced travel-sized bottle of shampoo that your kid broke the cap for–you name it, a plastic bag can do it.

Oh, and the best part of Road Life is that you can get away with things you’d never allow in Real Life; loosening the rules can be the best part of a vacation, and the source of more than a few cheap thrills. When my daughter was six, we read Sidney Taylor’s classic All of a Kind Family. (NB: If you aren’t familiar with this series, a sort of Lower East Side Little House on the Prairie, but about Jews, do yourself a favor and find a kindergartener to read it to; chapters like “Dusting is Fun!” and episodes involving buying pickles for five cents have captivated generations of young readers for a reason.) One of my daughter’s favorite scenes involves the two youngest sisters, Charlotte and Gertie, saving up their allowance to buy penny candy, which they nibble after lights out in the bed they share in their family’s tenement; since first reading that chapter, my daughter longed for the illicit pleasure of “candy in bed,” something that is forbidden in our house (we have very few rules, but “no food in the bedrooms” is a necessity of living in a city with pervasive problems of the six- and four-legged kind.) Even now, all these years later, she eagerly anticipates picking out a special candy to enjoy in bed in our motel room—an unthinkable invitation to roaches in Real Life, a beloved tradition of Road Life.

There are definitely parts of Road Life that are the same as Real Life–manners, for example (being a tourist is never an excuse to be rude to people in the service industry), and basic health and safety guidelines. You don’t want to undo routines and expectations you’ve carefully cultivated for years because you’re on a vacation, so while it may seem tempting to say that Road Life means your kid can demand plain pasta and white toast for every single meal, two weeks straight, you probably don’t want to deal with the constipated little monster you’ll have to bring back home at the end of your vacation. Don’t let Road Life be a reason to absolve yourself of all caregiving responsibility (and that includes yourself, if you’re the one likely to become the constipated little monster.) Still, it’s important to give yourself permission to adapt to the exigencies of travel so that you can make the most of your trip, as long as you are clear with yourself about why you are making these adjustments and you’re also realistic about any potential consequences–you may decide that Road Life means your kids can chew gum instead of brushing their teeth on a late night drive, but be ready to hold firm when they argue about using a toothbrush the next morning. In the end, balancing Road Life and Real Life takes a little practice and a little consideration, and probably a few mistakes that result in constipated little monsters and melting half-pints of ice cream in the back of the car, but I suppose that’s part of the journey!

Safe travels and happy Snack Bag wishes to you!