Save Your Waist & Wallet: How To Bring Your Kitchen On A Road Trip

Eating healthily.

Not spending loads of money on eating out.

Those are two of the biggest challenges you face when going on a lengthy road trip.

They’re also two challenges we’re facing right now. That’s because Shae and I are on a 5 year, 50 state road trip, so eating out can – and does – have a huge impact on both our waistlines and wallets.

To try to mitigate these issues, we created a portable kitchen. To be completely honest – I’m very proud of it! It contains everything we need in order to prepare and cook virtually any meal in a hotel room.

Here’s how we put our portable kitchen together, everything that it contains and why we’ve brought what we have.

Just FYI, we’ve included several Amazon affiliate links below. If you use one of our links and buy something on Amazon, it doesn’t cost you anything extra but it means we earn a small commission which helps support our travels.

All of these items were either paid for with our own money or I received them as Christmas / birthday gifts from family members. None of them were received as freebies from the companies that manufacture the items, so I’m only mentioning them because of how useful they are to us.

1) The Kitchen Carrier

First of all, we needed something to carry all our kitchen items in. We needed it to open at the top and have wheels, so that eliminated most suitcases as they open at the side. That meant only products like rolling briefcases were suitable options.

The other requirement was that it needed to have certain dimensions due to the size of some items it’d have to hold. That left very few products as rolling briefcases were simply not big enough.

In fact, the only suitable case remaining which had decent reviews was the Crop In Style XXL Rolling Tote.

It’s meant to be used as an organizational tote for crafters, but it turned out to be the perfect case for carrying our kitchen supplies.

It opens at the top to reveal a large storage area; inside were several dividers fixed in place with Velcro. That’s useful for crafters, but we didn’t need the dividers so we removed them. The internal dimensions are 16″ x 12″ x 16″ which is more than enough for what we needed it for.

The great thing about this case is that there’s so much extra storage space thanks to additional storage sections on three of its sides.

The front section has a sleeve at the front and several plastic pockets behind. The pockets are different sizes and are sealed with Velcro.

The left section has similar plastic pockets. Rather than having a sleeve on the part that folds down, there’s a row of elasticated holders. Those are presumably meant to be used for items like pens or pencils, but we have a more ingenious use for them (keep reading to find out more.)

On the right hand side, there are a couple of sleeves. For crafters, they’re probably used for paper, stickers, etc. For us, they serve a different purpose.

The Crop In Style XXL Rolling Tote is also easy to maneuver. Its extendable and retractable handle means we can wheel it like a standard suitcase. It also has strong handles on the side, making it easier to load and unload from our car.

This tote is like a Mary Poppins bag as it can hold a surprising number of things. Here’s a list of everything contained in our portable kitchen, starting with the most important item of all.

2) Instant Pot

The Instant Pot is like an oven, stove top, microwave, steamer, rice cooker, slow cooker and more, all rolled in to one. It’s a seriously impressive cooker which is why I called it our road trip savior in my review.

Due to its multitude of functions, you can cook almost any meal in it – even in hotel rooms that don’t have a kitchenette. You can also use it to reheat meals, which has been helpful when our room hasn’t had a microwave.

If you’re still not convinced about how versatile the Instant Pot can be, check out my hotel room recipes. Those are all meals I’ve cooked in hotel rooms without access to a kitchen, simply by using my Instant Pot.

3) The Main Tote Section

The Instant Pot was the reason I wanted a rolling tote with such large dimensions. The good thing is that the tote we bought is so big, there’s space for all kinds of other items inside.

Fitting as much as possible in the main tote section is a cross between Tetris and Russian nesting dolls. Here’s what it looks like when it’s full (a lot of it’s well-hidden)…

…and here’s what it looks like when it’s all laid out.

You see – I told you the tote was like a Mary Poppins bag! Here’s a list of everything in that main section (from top to bottom and left to right):

• Instant Pot
• Two collapsible colanders
• Two 7-cup Pyrex bowls with lids
• Two large microwaveable Sistema soup mugs
• Four silicone collapsible containers (the yellow one fits inside the blue, while the red one fits inside the green.)
• Four melamine bowls (bought 8-9 years ago at Target.)
• Instant Pot steam rack (comes with the Instant Pot. This gets stored inside the Instant Pot.)
• Cooling rack (for use in the Instant Pot – see more here. Stored in one of the Pyrex bowls.)
• Vegetable steamer basket (for use in the Instant Pot. Stored in the same Pyrex bowl as the cooling rack.)
• Expert Grill chicken roaster (for use in the Instant Pot – see more here.)
• Set of measuring cups (Stored in the other Pyrex bowl.)
• Small paper plates
• Two disposable plastic bowls (Stored in the Pyrex bowl with the steam rack and cooling rack.)
• Two silicone egg poachers (Stored in one of the Sistema soup mugs.)
• Five small plastic tubs from the dollar store (we have a few others of these which are being used and so aren’t in the photo. Stored in the Sistema soup mug with the egg poachers.)
• A handful of trash bags
• Aluminum foil
• Cleaning pad to wash dishes
• Tub with dishwasher tablets
• Small bottle of dishwashing soap (Stored in the Pyrex bowl with the measuring cups.)
• Two cooking spoons*
• Two cooking turners*
• Rice paddle (comes with the Instant Pot.)*
• Wood spatula*
• Nessie ladle*
• Silicone tongs**
• Set of three knives with protective sheaths**
• Pair of scissors**
• Peeler**
• Tide Pods (for laundry, not eating.)

* Stored together in a bag
**Stored together in a bag

Even the tote’s cover has some storage space, so here’s what we store in there:

• Grill Heat Aid heat resistant oven gloves
• A bag of reusable plastic bags

4) Front Section

As I mentioned earlier, the front section consists of two parts. There are several plastic pockets that are different sizes as well as a separate sleeve. Here’s what they look like with our stuff in them…

…and here’s what that stuff actually is:

Going from top to bottom and left to right:

• Seven cutting boards
• Corkscrew
• Portable hand sanitizer
• Slow cooker liners
• Tall and thin sealable bags (they’re what I store the cooking utensils in.)
• Ziploc sandwich bags
• Ziploc quart storage bags
• Another pair of scissors
• Measuring tape
• Box cutter
• Phillips screwdriver
• LED flashlight
• Tools to fix glasses
• Small set of screwdrivers (probably from Christmas crackers years ago.)
• Two bottle stops

The tools obviously aren’t used for cooking. To be honest, they’re not actually used at all! I brought them along on the road trip though just in case and because we had a couple of spare pouches in the front section.

5) Left Section

Similar to the front, the left section has multiple plastic pockets, although most of those ones are smaller. Here’s what that section looks like full of stuff…

…and here’s what’s actually in there:

Going from top to bottom and left to right there’s:

• Sewing kit
• Emergency sauce rations
• Lighter
• Toothpicks
• 14 small sealing clips from Ikea
• Can opener
• Yet another pair of scissors
• Another couple of bottle stops
• Four metal folding sporks
• 6 larger sealing clips from Ikea
• Silverware set from Ikea (we seem to have misplaced a small fork and small spoon somewhere along the road trip. Edit: we found the small spoon!)

I mentioned earlier that we had an ingenious use for the elasticated loops. Rather than using them for pens and pencils, they hold the silverware which is perfect as there are 20 loops.

6) Right Section

Finally, we have the section on the right. Unlike the front and left sides, it doesn’t have any plastic pockets. Instead, there are just a couple of sleeves.

Here’s what it looks like when it’s full…

And here’s what we actually have in there:

• Four melamine dinner plates (matching the set of bowls from above we bought years ago from Target.)
• Collapsible microwave cover
• Instant Pot recipe book that came with the Instant Pot

7) Additional Kitchen Stuff

Being British, I need a cup of tea or two every day. Using the coffee maker in a hotel room to boil water isn’t always a viable option as the water sometimes ends up having a coffee taste.

We’ve therefore also packed a small Bodum Bistro electric kettle. The kettle’s proved to be helpful for not only tea, but also preparing instant food like ramen noodles, garlic mashed potatoes and stuffing.

Due to all the other items in the tote, we couldn’t fit the kettle in there. However, it’s an important part of our kitchen arsenal, so I wanted to mention it here.

Question

That’s everything we’ve included in the portable kitchen for our road trip. So far, it’s proved to be sufficient, but at the time of writing this we’re only two months in, so we’ll see.

How about you though? If you were going on a five year road trip, what other kitchen items would you want to bring along? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.