While flying is great, sometimes it’s just more fun to take a road trip to your final destination. If you haven’t yet take one with your close friends or family, we suggest doing so before summer is over. Here are some simple tips to help you get through the long hours and make the experience better:
Whether it’s a road work area, a traffic accident, a bridge that’s out, or some other type of delay, you’re most likely going to run into one on your trip. Leave some extra time between destinations for delays and try to keep a positive attitude. Take the opportunity to play a game while you’re stuck in traffic, or find a song to listen to that has to do with your situation and belt it out.
If you have some time to spare during your trip, find some of the world’s largest attractions and make a pit stop. You’ll not only get to see some large oddities, but you’ll have some pretty funny pictures to go with them.
Road trips are about bonding with the people you’re traveling with, so put the cell phone down for awhile and enjoy your time together. Play 21 questions, have a sing-along, recreate your favorite movie scenes, and more. Get creative – just don’t spend all your time on Facebook and Twitter.
You never know what may happen on your trip, so it’s important to be prepared. Keep a First Aid kit in your car at all times as well as extra water and non-perishable foods like granola bars, dried fruit, nuts, cereal, etc. If you’re traveling during the winter, keep extra blankets and during the summer, some battery-powered fans. Also make sure you’ve got a spare tire and jumper cables.
If you know the cities you’ll be stopping in to rest and to eat, look into available deals for those areas. You can check coupon websites like Living Social or Groupon or you can use a third-party website (like Priceline) to book your hotel stay. You can also look into deals for attractions.
Plan to take your bathroom breaks when you stop to fill up your gas tank. This way, you’ll kill two birds with one stone and can stay on the road longer before your next pit stop.
A plan is a good idea if you’re taking a road trip, but you don’t need to plan so much that you over-plan your adventure. Make notes of where you’d like to go and things you’d like to see, but leave some time to simply explore – you may want to follow signs to a roadside attraction, stop by a local honey stand, or watch the sun set over a river. After all, impromptu experiences are often the most fun.
When packing, do your best to pack light. You’ll not only stress less about what to wear, you’ll also make the car lighter. A lighter car means better gas mileage, and better gas mileage means less money you’ll have to spend.
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