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Best Car For Road Trips? Top Car Features to Ease Family Travel

Family road trips are exciting! Let’s go over the top car features that make up the best vehicle for road trips.

To make your family road trips indeed enjoyable and to travel at ease, a vehicle with balanced family-friendly features must be chosen. Are you wondering what those ‘family-friendly features’ are? If yes, then you have landed on the right post. We are happy to share everything you need to know about choosing the best car for road trips, including some really cool car features for comfortable family travel.

A family road trip is usually one of the most awaited and exciting experiences. When finally it is all set to take place, you will for sure want your car to have the top of the line features to ease long drive experience. Therefore, your car plays a major role in your family travel diaries. 

Whether your goal is to purchase a vehicle to drive locally, or you are looking to rent the best car for road trips at your family vacation destination, here is the list of cool features to be looking for. 

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Coolest Car Features for a Comfortable Family Road Trip

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Voice Enhancement Feature

Going on a road trip is a great way to connect with your family. Maybe you want to enjoy a meaningful conversation or to play road trip games with your kids. Yet you happen to be the driver. It is simply unsafe to turn your head around all the time. We get it, you definitely need to be heard. By everyone. 

These days’ car companies are trying their level best to develop features that will successfully reduce the efforts of the people sitting in the front row to make their voice audible to back-seat passengers. Toyota's Driver Easy Speak and Honda's Cabin Talk Feature are no less than a bliss. There is a microphone attached near the front row of the car that amplifies your voice to the people sitting in the second and the third rows. Isn’t that A-mazing?!! There is absolutely no doubt, this little simple feature adds to the comfort as there is no more yelling needed during your family travel adventures.

COOL FEATURE: The best car for road trips will surely have a voice enhancement feature. 

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Car Wi-Fi

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Always staying connected on the go is a deal-breaker when it comes to a road trip done right. The built-in Wi-Fi car feature will surely add a spark to your family to travel. Your kids will love this feature too. They can connect the Wi-Fi to their tablets and laptops and enjoy them during the ride. The car Wi-Fi will also help you to navigate the traffic. 

Make sure that you choose a connection that will provide you with the network in remote areas too. If your vehicle does not have the Wi-Fi feature inbuilt then you can also buy a Wi-Fi USB stick for your road trips. You can easily plug it into your car any time you need it during a road trip (and disconnect once you think your kids had enough screen time).

Worst case scenario, you can use one of your phones as a wifi hot-spot feeding off the cell network. Just make sure you have a very large data plan, unlimited is the best.

FUN FEATURE: The best car for road trips will benefit from an in-built car wi-fi feature. 

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Adjustable Seats

Car seats play a major role in determining the comfort of family travel, especially during long road trips. Your vehicle must not have stone-hard seats that hurt your back throughout the journey. Hence, the seats need to be soft and comfortable. They must also have the folding feature so that whenever anyone feels tired can take a quick comfortable nap. This is true for kids’ car-seats too! 

If your car has a third row and you do not use it often then there is an added perk. You can store your kid’s toys there, or use it as extra cargo space. But make sure that your comfy seats are well covered with a good quality car seat protector. Well, actually if you have kids I suggest all of your seats must be covered.

COMFY FEATURE: The best car for road trips will have adjustable seats covered with a good car seat protector. 

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Built-in Vacuum

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More often than not, especially when you have kids, cleaning inside the car is a tough task to do. It takes time, patience, appreciation for treasure-hunts, and an open mind. Yes, you can find many unexpected little things on your trip to the car wash! …only to test your patience once again when your kids are getting back into the vehicle after a hike with dirt on their boots, sand in their hair, and rocks in their pockets. Ok fine, huge smiles on their faces would probably balance it all off 🙂    

Can you imagine how much comfort can a built-in vacuum add to your road trip?!! Honda Odyssey Minivan and Chrysler Pacifica come with this amazing feature, and surely it is the favorite of many families. 5 minutes spent on dusting the vehicle at the end of a busy road trip day, and voila! You are ready for your next day’s adventure. Even better, teach your kids to vacuum the car and make them take turns. Maybe next time they’ll think twice before starting a food fight in the middle of the road! 

PARENTS’ MOST WANTED FEATURE: the best car for road trips should have a built-in vacuum.

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Charging Ports

If you decided to go on a road trip, chances are your plan is to make many stops, enjoy many outdoor activities, take many pictures, film family videos, post on Instagram, and otherwise record your best memories.. you name it! This is so true for our family living in Beautiful British Columbia, traveling to Alberta, taking a road trip in Maui, or anywhere else in the world. We usually bring so much filming equipment, it is not even funny! 

Will your phones, your cameras, your drone batteries, your GoPro your power banks survive throughout your road-trip? No, they definitely won’t. Are you going to be a family who is fighting for the right to use that single USB port in your standard car?… Hope not. 

That is the reason why many USB charging ports in a car is a must – the more the merrier. 

More car companies are taking the matter seriously and adding charging ports in their car models. The Ascent three-row SUV has emerged as the new hero among cars for its charging ports – they have six! 

If that is not enough and you want to have even more ports on the next road trip, you can get a USB hub for your vehicle.

ESSENTIAL FEATURE: the best car for road trips must have many charging ports.

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These are some of the modern features that make your family travel enjoyable. But apart from the car enhancements, there are a few more notable things that every vehicle and every family should have in place for not only the comfort but also the safety of the trip. 

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Best Car for Road Trips Safety Features

Whether you are having too much fun with your family, or are getting tired of driving on a long road trip, it is becoming extremely easy to get distracted and lose focus. 

To help mitigate the chances of getting into an accident, you should choose a vehicle that’s equipped with the latest safety features, including proper mirrors, blind-spot warning, rare view camera, lane-departure assist, and fully tested and functioning airbags. 

EVERYONE’S SAFETY: the best car for road trips must have the latest safety features

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Kids Car Seats

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Your child must be firmly buckled-up into an age-appropriate car seat – it is both the common sense and, in many places, the law. Did you know kids’ car seats can and booster seats expire? Check your baby car seat expiry before each road trip. 

It is also a good idea to validate manufacturers’ specifications vs. your child height and weight to assess if it is time to upgrade the seat to the next age group. Don’t forget to properly recycle the old car seat – HERE is how!

If you are renting a vehicle for your road trip at a family vacation destination, you can request a child car seat to be provided by the rental company. Note that in some places they can provide it, but are not legally allowed to install it – you have to install it yourself. Make sure to give detailed specifications on your kids’ age, weight, and height so an appropriate car seat size is delivered. 

Yet some international destinations may not have car seats at all, even if you offer to pay them. For example, when visiting Cuba, I dare you to find a single child car seat on that island! We could not. So bring your own baby seat from back home. Would you take chances on your child’s safety? I would never do so.

KIDS SAFETY: the best car for road trips with kids must be equipped with proper child seating

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Car Insurance and Health Insurance

Unless you feel safe, you cannot feel comfortable! So to ensure your peace of mind we highly suggest you make sure that your car is adequately insured, and also everybody traveling with you has travel health insurance. Gods forbid, if a mishap takes place, your damages both material and physical will be in safe hands. And nothing in the world can be more comfortable than feeling protected. 

PEACE OF MIND: the best car for road trips mus have a comprehensive insurance policy in place

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Conclusion

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A family road trip is usually a fantastic experience and a different level of satisfaction. It gives you and your family privacy and a truly unique opportunity to connect. 

Yet it is the vehicle you use, and the features it has that can definitely add value to your journey and lift up the time spent on the road from good to excellent! 

To ensure nothing distracts you form creating beautiful memories, to guarantee the ease, comfort, and safety during your road trips, we suggest you choose a car that is equipped with all the latest cool features the market has to offer.

So which car are you planning to get for your family travel? Do let us know!

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Did we miss an important car feature that made a real difference on your road trip with your family? Bring it up in comments!

Cheerfully yours,

Alexandra, Alex and Cosmos

This post was prepared in partnership with a guest-writer – Amalia Liberman
Amalia Liberman is a wife and a mother of two as well as a novelist and writer for Top Mom, the author has been featured in Women's Health magazine and also written different articles in lifestyle magazines. Her passions lead her to search out knowledge with all her searching and she doesn’t mind sharing her findings.  

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Share your next road trip's pictures on social media! tag #PerfectDayToPlay to be featured on our Instagram! 

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