Road Trip Food in the USA : Tasty Traditions

It’s no secret, but I have had a love affair with road trips across the USA for as long as I can remember. Visions of the motor car era, road side motels, Route 66, and the evolving road trip food adventures that came along with it.

From fast-food joints, to favourite car snack adventures, there are many kinds of road trip food. I always associate it with food able to be consumed ‘on the go’, but have included some roadside diners here too, as these are a revered institution in America. There is such a multitude of road trip food across the USA, and such interesting history that goes with it…

Road Trip Food Across the USA

Road Trip Snacks

Now, this is a very subjective topic – everyone has their own favourite road trip snacks. Items that can be easily munched while driving, small packets that fit into cup holders, nothing too messy and definitely moreish!

According to some of my travel pals on Twitter, here are some of the perennial favourites:

• Sunflower seeds – especially when purchased from gas stations in those long thin packets
• Carrot sticks – this one was a popular answer amongst my health and fitness-loving friends
• Chocolate – albeit a bit melty, chocolate certainly makes the list of road trip snacks, and has the added advantage of making it feel like a vacation – chocolate for breakfast, anyone?
• Pretzel sticks – I prefer salty snacks over sweet, and pretzel sticks fit into cup holders perfectly!
• Slim Jims – these are similar to the jerky addiction I mention below. Not something I ever eat when not on road trips, but for some strange reason they are great on a road trip!
• Ice cream sandwiches – I adore ice cream, but on a road trip it can be messy! But an ice-cream sandwich is the perfect way to eat ice cream on the go.

Gas Station Food Favourites

Gas stations are places you will see a lot of on a road trip. I quite enjoy seeing how different they are around the world – the different brands, snacks and road trip food on offer. I love the gas stations found in the southern states of the USA, like Stuckey’s and Love’s – these places have regional snacks on sale. The Pecan Log Roll from Stuckey’s was one of our favourite finds on our BBQ road trip.

A guilty pleasure from gas stations are a curious thing called a ‘tornado’. This strange concoction is apparently a battered and fried tortilla of some kind… and can be found on the rollers alongside the hotdogs and egg rolls. Are these things processed and probably entirely bad for you? Yes. Are they a hilarious novelty that tastes awesome? Heck yeah!

Fast Food For Road Trips

We LOVE to try fast food brands when we go to a new country. There is a novelty about it, and a natural foodie traveller curiosity. And given our huge road trips, we often find ourselves on the road for many days at a time. Fast food is relatively boring in the UK, so the options in the USA are endlessly interesting to us!

I have a fascination with the evolution of road tripping in America – from the technological advancement of the motor car, coast to coast highways, drive-ins and then drive-thrus. The infrastructure that popped up around this road trip culture helps to form the experiences that people flock to from around the world. It’s easy to be pejorative about fast food, but in the context of road trips, I prefer to see it as part of the fabric that makes it interesting!

Some of our favourites, Cook Out (a southern staple), Taco John’s (a western tex mex chain), and In N Out Burger (an east coast gem). What’s your favourite US fast food?

The DIY Picnickers

Picnicking on a road trip is a great way to stick to healthier food options while on the road, as well as save yourself some money. If you can fit a cooler box in your car, your picnic options are greatly extended too. Stock up at a supermarket before you embark on your journey and make DIY sandwiches with all your favourite picnic food sides.

If you take a small detour off the highways and find parks or green rest stops, it makes the picnic experience so much nicer. In fact, I recommend taking more back roads and exploring the USA away from the highways if you can!

Our favourite road trip picnic foods are:

• Charcuterie and cheese board ingredients – ham, salami, olives, carrot sticks, apples and cheese cubes.
• DIY sandwiches – a loaf of bread and some filling options are a great way to feed a bunch of people on a budget. We ate mostly DIY sandwiches during our 4 days in Yellowstone and saved a lot of money on in-park dining. Although we did supplement our sandwich diet with apples and rest stop ice-cream sandwiches!
• Tubs of salads – If you have access to a fridge or cooler, tubs of potato, macaroni and other salads are great for picnics.

Roadside Stalls

Since the increase of large highways, roadside stalls have decreased, but they are still a joy when you find them. Fresh fruit is a common roadside stall pop-up, so this very much helps to counteract the fast-food-factor!

One of the most strangely addictive roadside discoveries we made in Georgia and South Carolina was boiled peanuts! This distinctly southern delicacy isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but after a few I found them weirdly irresistible! I recommend the cajun spiced boiled peanuts if you get a chance.

Roadside Diners – The American Dream

The wide open roads of modern America are all about quirky roadside diners, weird attractions, and low-slung hotels where you can drive right up to the door. The culture that emerged from transcontinental highways has a nostalgic magic to it.

Booth seats, bottomless coffee, stacks of pancakes the size of a small car, and an inexplicably large selection of pie. These are the staples that you can find in every diner along every road in every state in the USA. The coffee isn’t great, the food is perfunctory (although tasty and filling), but the stories are always fantastic.

Some of our favourite diners include The Roadkill Cafe on Route 66 in Seligman, Breakfast King in Denver, Times Square Diner in New York, and The Breakfast Club in Tybee Island.

Foods that only seem to get eaten on road trips, never in real life

Why is it that road trip food is entirely unlike food you eat normally? I mean, I don’t go round chewing on slim jims and jerky, or bags of sunflower seeds… but on a road trip, I can’t get enough of them! Jerky is particularly satisfying because the chewiness makes it last longer.

These kinds of snacks are good when you have a long haul road trip on the cards. Sunflower seeds are obviously the healthier option, although I did find them fiddly to snack on while driving.

What’s your ‘only on road trips’ food?

Road Trip Food Across the USA

I love hearing stories of road trip food experiences, often found along the back roads or the original highways. Roadside attractions like Carhenge in Nebraska add to this road trip mythology. And while the road trip dream can be a parody of itself sometimes, it’s easy to fall in love with road tripping in the USA and all the food experiences that go along with it. Tell me about the road trip food you’ve enjoyed in the US, in the comments below.

Check out our North American content and road trips for more inspiration!

All photos & content © Hannah Henderson and may not be used without permission (sharing this blog post is fine, though!). Images shot with a Canon DSLR T3i Rebel + Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM; and an iPhone.