Last Chance to Hit the Road!

2. Walkie-talkies. My friend Mary and her husband, Robert, have spent many hours on the road, to and from their cabin in Ontario and, coming up, a trip from Chevy Chase to Nova Scotia. Walkie-talkies, developed during World War II, are what Mary recommends: They’re good for shopping malls and big-box stores, when the two (or more) of you split up for different chores and want to get back together without drama. (Some people don’t like to answer their cellphone or pay for roaming.) The key is operating range: A Hello Kitty walkie-talkie we saw online at Best Buy had an operating range of only 240 feet–but was only $7.99. Quite a bit more useful was the Motorola Talkabout two-way hand-held radio, shown, with a 35-mile range, on sale for $78.99.

3. Cellphone charger. And iPad charger and laptop charger. And, of course, whichever adapter you need for your car. Need we say more? Well, actually, yes. I recently bought a pack of USB power adapters (from Omni Electronics, through Amazon) in five colors and a pack of USB sync cables (from Costyle, through Amazon) that work with the iPhone 4 and 4S and the iPod Touch. . . .

3a. . . . My idea is to assign a color to each of my devices so that I never again leave New Jersey with my brother-in-law’s iPad charger. White is classic and lovely, but .

5. Sometimes your favorite pillow makes all the difference to your comfort. Don’t feel silly: If you can squoosh it into a corner of the car, take it along!

6. An inflatable neck pillow. You know the dorky-looking semicircular pillows people sometimes use on planes? They don’t care how stupid they look because, guess what, the neck support the inflated collar offers is incredible! And just as comfy for a car trip (as long as you’re not driving at the time). Bed Bath and Beyond has a standard gray pillow by Samsonite, shown, for $9.99. Some people prefer neck pillows that are filled with polyester fibers or buckwheat hulls, but I like the way the inflatable ones deflate into nothingtude; I keep my vintage navy-blue PanAm inflatable in my purse because you just never know.

7. An Airstream keychain USB drive. Okay, we just couldn’t resist. The little 2GB darling is $19.95 at shop.airstream.com.

8. If it’s hiking you’re doing, a foldable canvas water bowl for the pup is a good idea, or one of those collapsible rubber-like ones. With a car come more possibilities, such as this Top Paws travel water bottle, with dish that flips out. The 24-ounce size is $6.99 at Petsmart stores.

9. Maps. Navigation systems are great, but they can be like speed-dial: Use them exclusively for a while and you no longer know where you are. Paper maps, on the other hand, are all about memories and context. Hard to fold, impossible to consult on the fly, granted. But when you get to your destination using GPS, the screen goes blank; use a clumsy old map and you have proof right there in your hand that you did indeed travel from that corner of the state to this one. It’s right there on paper. / iStock photo.

10. Tempur-Pedic. This discovery has brightened my traveling mood. Take a river cruise and you have to sleep on a tissue-thin mattress slapped atop a beautifully varnished but hard-as-nails slab of wood. Or, for that matter, just visit a friend who’s somehow proud of how firm her mattresses are. Enter the Tempur-Pedic Travel Set: a memory-foam topper that’s 27-1/2 inches wide and a contoured travel pillow, also of memory foam. They come in a duffel and cost $379.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond stores.