Last summer, I embarked on a road trip from Washington, D.C. to Charleston, South Carolina. Of course, I thought long and hard about how to pack for this car trip -- especially the snacks.

When you’re in a car for more than two hours, it's essential to plan ahead with road trip snacks. (Otherwise, good luck with truck stop dining along the way.)

The key to a good spread of road trip (or camping) snacks is variety -- in both textures and flavors.

Sweet: I have a salty tooth and my road trip buddy loves chocolate -- so we combined our snack preferences and got chocolate- and yogurt-covered salted pretzels and chocolate-covered honeycomb. Perfect snack harmony: check.

Crunchy and bite-size: Most of the snacks we packed (pretzels, honeycomb, trail mix, and mini graham crackers) fell under this category. These bite-size snacks provided some crunchy contrast to the fruit we packed and allowed us to eat with one hand on the wheel or while flipping through local radio stations. (For more on feasting on the road, check out this week's Sporkful podcast -- featuring The Two Man Gentlemen Band's tips for eating while driving a tour van.)

Sour: Knowing that we would be driving into the hot and humid South, we packed cold water bottles and chilled, fizzy lemonades -- perfect hot weather refreshments.

Cool and fresh: Depending on the time of day and climate of the place you’re driving to, sitting inside a car can be sweaty and humid. I packed a small carton of cantaloupe and honeydew. The cool, fresh fruit balanced out the sweet chocolate and salty trail mixes, and it was still easy to eat in the car. (Grapes and berries also make great road trip snacks.)

Eaters, where are you planning to travel in 2015? If you're hitting the road with an arsenal of travel-friendly snacks, share your travel eating strategies with us in the comments or by tweeting @TheSporkful.

Elite Truong is a support manager at Eater.com. In 2015, she plans to travel with a fully stocked backpack of snacks wherever she goes.

Image: Elite Truong