• Check all the fluids in your car, and change em / top em up if it’s been a while.
• Pack an emergency car kit. I’m sure there are loads of recommendations online, but I usually have:
  • Flashlight
  • Battery bank + charging cable for phone
  • Spare tire and wrenches (if you’ve got a charged phone, you could instead call for a tow if needed)
  • Blanket (it can get surprisingly cold at night, even in the summer)
  • Spare oil / coolant (water works as well for coolant in a pinch)
• For misc stuff I like to bring on trips:
  • A pack of water. If there’s long stretches with no towns, water is always nice
  • Sunglasses
  • If you’re going to play stuff off your phone, I’d recommend downloading music and a variety of podcasts to go. Don’t just download 10 episodes from the same channel; mix it up. And mix up the genre too. I usually will have a mix of world news, tech news, stories, and self improvement stuff
  • Snacks & other drinks

A shower curtain of a very important, and well known document from your country such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms from Canada, or Declaration of Independence from the US. If you live in a country that still recognizes the British monarch, you could also put up a photo of the king (very common in government and military buildings)

I fully agree - home assistant is the way to go, even if it’s a little more complicated.

It’s much easier to add / remove / replace hubs as needed. A few years ago I switched my main hub from Alexa to HA. Then, a month or two ago, I decided to move away from Alexa due to the speech to text recognition noticeably degrading, they removed features (I forget what the feature was, it was a while ago), and recent policy changes. Super easy to disconnect and switch to a different assistant like Siri / HomeKit.