Five problems we encountered on the road
Thursday, 19 June 2025
Road trips, I think like a backpacking trip, have so many moving parts that there is way more opportunity to encounter problems than on a traditional, beach hotel holiday.
Solving them however, is all part of the fun!
Here are five problems we encountered on our latest road trip:
Road Closures
Whilst we were in California, both the Tioga Pass and Big Sur were closed due to ‘seasonal conditions’ and landslides. These are two iconic tourist routes so they were both on our original plan. Luckily, we had done our research so were able to substitute Yosemite with Lake Tahoe and still make it work but this could have been disastrous if not. Some areas of California are so remote that a single road closure can add hours to your drive.
When we got to LA, our Turo host very quickly sent someone to properly fix the problem.
Restaurants shutting early
We really enjoyed the driving days so often, they were quite long. We’d usually arrive at our accommodation for the evening at around 6pm, get settled, shower and then head out. In the bigger cities, this was fine but in more often than not, in the smaller, local towns, we struggled to find restaurants that stayed open past 8:30. It was really quite odd and left us with very little choice when it came to dinner. In the end we would drive to the restaurant with all our stuff still in the car before checking in and just eat earlier.
Mobile Connection
Large stretches of the Mojave Desert, Route 66, and Death Valley had little to no phone reception. At first, I thought this was an awesome opportunity to be fully present, with only my favourite downloaded songs to listen to but actually, having google maps is quite helpful when you are driving 6 hours though a dessert without another person in sight. To get around this, we set off on our route whilst we had wifi, and just had to hope that the map got us to where we needed to go without any changes or updates.
Driving Times
This seemed to happen last year too but we’d plan our route, Google would say it took 4 hours and somehow it took us 6. I guess when you plot a route, you don’t take into account all the photo stops, wrong turns, toilet breaks and the gas refills. This wasn’t a problem for us, as we were quite casual with bookings but it did mean that we often arrived much later than planned so that is definitely something to keep in mind.
These things all made our trip what it was, so they weren’t necessarily bad, just things to look out for!
Solving them however, is all part of the fun!
Here are five problems we encountered on our latest road trip:
Road Closures
Whilst we were in California, both the Tioga Pass and Big Sur were closed due to ‘seasonal conditions’ and landslides. These are two iconic tourist routes so they were both on our original plan. Luckily, we had done our research so were able to substitute Yosemite with Lake Tahoe and still make it work but this could have been disastrous if not. Some areas of California are so remote that a single road closure can add hours to your drive.
Car issues
Our car was really great but since Turo cars are personal vehicles, they aren’t always freshly serviced like standard rental cars. We quickly realised that one of the tires had some kind of puncture which was affecting the air pressure. Most days, we were able to easily pump it up at a gas station but there was one morning, in Mammoth, where we went from one gas station to another and all of their air pumps were out of order. The tire was getting flatter and flatter as we were driving around searching and in the end, we had to take it into a garage. Dan was getting very stressed.
Our car was really great but since Turo cars are personal vehicles, they aren’t always freshly serviced like standard rental cars. We quickly realised that one of the tires had some kind of puncture which was affecting the air pressure. Most days, we were able to easily pump it up at a gas station but there was one morning, in Mammoth, where we went from one gas station to another and all of their air pumps were out of order. The tire was getting flatter and flatter as we were driving around searching and in the end, we had to take it into a garage. Dan was getting very stressed.
When we got to LA, our Turo host very quickly sent someone to properly fix the problem.
Restaurants shutting early
We really enjoyed the driving days so often, they were quite long. We’d usually arrive at our accommodation for the evening at around 6pm, get settled, shower and then head out. In the bigger cities, this was fine but in more often than not, in the smaller, local towns, we struggled to find restaurants that stayed open past 8:30. It was really quite odd and left us with very little choice when it came to dinner. In the end we would drive to the restaurant with all our stuff still in the car before checking in and just eat earlier.
Mobile Connection
Large stretches of the Mojave Desert, Route 66, and Death Valley had little to no phone reception. At first, I thought this was an awesome opportunity to be fully present, with only my favourite downloaded songs to listen to but actually, having google maps is quite helpful when you are driving 6 hours though a dessert without another person in sight. To get around this, we set off on our route whilst we had wifi, and just had to hope that the map got us to where we needed to go without any changes or updates.
Driving Times
This seemed to happen last year too but we’d plan our route, Google would say it took 4 hours and somehow it took us 6. I guess when you plot a route, you don’t take into account all the photo stops, wrong turns, toilet breaks and the gas refills. This wasn’t a problem for us, as we were quite casual with bookings but it did mean that we often arrived much later than planned so that is definitely something to keep in mind.
These things all made our trip what it was, so they weren’t necessarily bad, just things to look out for!
My recommendation is to just go with the flow and don’t stress, it’s all part of the adventure!
And usually nothing a little snack wont fix.
And usually nothing a little snack wont fix.
