I am truly surprised at the amount of people who still carry thumb drives. Any reason you all don't switch to Dropbox or even keep stuff on your phone's memory?

2 questions:

This was just covered on Jalopnik. http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-best-ways-to-prepare-for-an-epic-road-trip-458013557

A few things to add:

Another great way I like to put it: you are solely responsible for piloting a multi-ton death machine. Be confident in what you're doing.

Absolutely. If your car is broken down in the middle of the road, you deserve a ticket for failing to maintain and fix your car. Goes doubly so if the damn thing catches on fire (Ferrari owners excluded: it's a feature, not a bug).

I hope this doesn't happen often. It's scary to think that people actually try to stop with so much force on the rears.

Yes. This. I swear I'm going to die half the time I'm behind someone merging on to the highway.

How to operate a car. Seriously. All driving tests should have to take place in a RWD, manual transmission car without ABS, so afterward you can't legally climb into a car that you're not qualified to drive. You should have to be able to:

The Boxster is the perfect car if you have a backup. For me, since I do all my own work, it enables me to be able to park it for a day or so to find time to investigate the check engine light or some noise when it pops up. The car is reliable, but it LOVES it's regular maintenance, and some small, easy, cheap problems…

Oh, and if you haven't yet, see if your insurance agent can link your insurance account to your parent's so you can take advantage of their homeowner's policy and maybe multi-car discount. Before I bought my house, I had my State Farm rep do that and it definitely saves some cash.

Mine is a daily driver. It gets better gas mileage than the truck (99 Dakota), and I can't drive the motorcycle (86 YX600 Radian) year round.

One of the factors that drove my decision was that I do all my work on my own cars, so I pay $0 in labor, and I typically have all the tools required at this point. The IMS is not a bad job to do, and you get to replace the clutch and inspect the dual-mass flywheel while you're at it. Despite the mid-engine-ness of…

Check the local warehouse discount stores before buying online. I'm partial to Costco after being a Sam's Club and BJ's member in the past. I bought one about the same size for $150 or so. It's a Frigidaire too, so it tends to have better build quality than the discount brands. Watch out for discount brands like Danby…

Also, FWIW, the Boxster's original sticker price is without options. Most S's, being the premium model, are near-fully loaded. When I bought mine, it came with the original window sticker in the manual. With options: $75000 give or take. More than half of what I paid for my whole house.

As someone who's made this decision, I feel I can add a few things. So- Pros and Cons of each car:

His work assignment was for Rolling Stone magazine, and they only expected 250 words and a photo, not a full feature. Rolling Stone was the original publisher of the novel; the novel was split between 2 issues - I'd say they got their money out of it.

Aside from my other post, I've found that is absolutely necessary to leave about 2 hours late, still way too early in the morning, and hung over after drinking the night before with your road trip buddies. Be sure to stop at a Waffle House less than 2 hours from the start of the trip, about the time that the guy that…

This is how to prep for a "road trip" in the literal sense, but completely misses the ball in the conceptual. I don't want to go on a road trip that was plagued by planning and schedules. I've done that. It's boring. I want to go on a road trip where you go "somewhere else"; the destination isn't really the reason why…

I actually looked at swapping my Boxster over to center lock wheels. The factory rims (only ones that fit without a chintzy adapter) are $1450 or so each (with rubber), plus $600 per hub for the center lock hubs. Total cost: $8200 assuming you only need 1 set of rims (I have a spare set for autocross) and you don't…