Stranded in the Cold: Essential Tips to Prepare Your Vehicle and Yourself

Even if your vehicle is properly prepared with winter or all-terrain tires and your oil and coolant levels are okay. Even if you checked your battery voltage before you set off, because cold temperatures can affect performance. And even if you deliberately lowered your tire pressure to get better traction on that sandy path that looked so inviting, something can always happen that you didn’t expect. Just when you’re in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception, your battery no longer charges due to a broken alternator. It’s not whether things go differently than expected on a long trip, it’s how you deal with them. How are you prepared for a stranded vehicle in the cold?

Protect yourself from the cold

If your vehicle is a camper or a car with a roof tent, you probably already have most of it with you to keep yourself warm. It could also be that your tent is nicely placed at the campsite and you went on a nice route from there. What clothes did you wear? Did you put warm blankets in the car?

• Make sure that even if you are going to drive a nice day route from the campsite you have a set of warm clothes in the car. Think of a good warm sweater, a windproof jacket and a set of thermal underwear.
• Place some warm blankets in the car or take your sleeping bag out of your tent and take it with you on the day's route.
• Keep a first aid kit with an emergency blanket to protect against hypothermia on hand.

Food and drink

• Bring foods that provide a lot of energy, such as energy bars, nuts and dried fruit.
• Take enough water with you and avoid dehydration.
• Place a water filter in your car so that you have drinking water from the environment.

Stay visible

When it gets dark it is nice if you can still see something yourself, but also that others can see you. For example, you can signal for help with a flashlight.

• Keep a flashlight with extra batteries in the car

Communication

Nowadays, there is coverage in many places and you can call for help. However, you can still be surprised and have no coverage. During our trip in the interior of Iceland, we regularly had no coverage. We then bought a satellite communicator, the Garmin InReach Mini 2, so that we could always reach someone in case of emergency. With this you can send an SOS message to Garmin's coordination center in case of life-threatening situations. But you can also contact people who are important to you, even without mobile phone coverage. You can then send them a message with your precise location, so that they can call for help. Do you want to make it even more luxurious? Then you can even buy a starlink mini with which you have internet almost everywhere in the world, even in remote areas.

• Keep a list in the car with the emergency numbers for the country you are traveling to.
• Make sure you have a satellite communicator or satellite internet if you are traveling to remote areas.

With all these tips, you no longer have to worry about getting stranded in the cold with your vehicle, because you are prepared.

Also curious about tips for camping in the fall? Read our blog Camping in the fall, misery or a must do.