How to Enjoy a Long Car Ride
By: Ava Huntoon
Car rides can be very boring and tiring. It’s not fun to sit for hours with nothing to do. I’ve been on very long car rides and I know that sometimes you might question whether or not the trip is worth the ride there. I haven’t met anybody that likes long car rides, but I think that they’re always worth it once you get to your destination. I’m going to give you some tips on how to make your ride as enjoyable as possible.
Preparation
What to bring:
- Car charger
- Headphones
- Blanket
- Pillow
- Movies (if you have a tv in your car)
- Food
- Games
- Books
- Leash (if you are taking a dog)
What to do before leaving:
- Plan what food you are going to need
- Pack food into a cooler
- Pick out the movies you want to watch
- If you are planning on stopping places then picking where you want to go before you leave will be helpful
- Make sure your car is full of gas
- Check to see if your tires need air in them
- Deep clean your car so it’s not a mess before hand
Things to do in the Car
- Watch movies
- Listen to music
- Play games
- Go on your phone
- Bring stuff like slime to play with
- Sleep
- Read
- Draw
- Write
Games
I personally don’t like road trip games very much but my sisters always play them. There is a game called the alphabet game and how you play is you have to find words from places like signs and you try to find words in alphabetical order. You can either play this as a competition or you can be a team. If you do it as a competition then whoever gets to Z first wins. Another game is the license plate game. While you’re on the trip you can see how many states you can find on the license plates, and the goal is to find all 50. Another game we play is 20 questions and what you do is one person thinks of a person, place, or thing and the other people have 20 questions to guess what they are thinking of. You can always do word searches, sudoku, and play hangman as well. The only thing about doing games is they’re not fun unless you have people to play them with you. If there isn’t anyone wanting to play games then you can resort to a book or movies.
Food
When you’re on a road trip you have to be smart about the food you eat. If you go to fast food for every meal then it can make you feel gross for the entirety of the trip and it’s not worth it. When I go on road trips my family always packs wraps for lunch because they are easy to make, they aren’t too heavy but they fill you up, they are easy to pack, and they don’t make a mess. We also bring water, chips, fruit, and gum. I prefer stopping to eat somewhere at least once when I’ve been in the car for a long time, but my parents like to get to the places they’re going as fast as possible so we rarely eat anywhere. When you are looking for food to eat in the car then it’s best to look for foods that are mess free for the most part. If you pick really messy food then your car will be trashed by the time you get to your destination and once you’re on vacation you don’t want to have to think about cleaning your car but you will have to or else you have to ride in the car like that on the way back.
Timing
Car rides are always best when you leave early because it feels like you get to your destination faster. The later you leave the more likely you’ll have to expand your trip to 2 days. I know that some people like staying at hotels, but it’s cheaper and more efficient to avoid them. I like staying up late the night before and then leaving early in the morning so I’m able to sleep in the car for longer. Sleeping is another thing that helps the time go by faster, but if there is only two people in the car and the passenger is sleeping then it makes the ride very boring for the driver. Switching drivers is also helpful because it’s hard to be focused on driving for a super long period of time and some people get tired when they are driving.
Stops
I have never done this, but I know that some people like to find cool places they can stop on the road trip to help make it more fun. You can look up places like historic landmarks and cool restaurants before you leave so you have things to look forward to while you’re driving. If you are on a long trip you’ll most likely have to stop to go to the bathroom pretty often. I’ve seen two different approaches to rest stops. One approach is to go to the fancy rest stops that you can get out and walk at and the other one is to go to gas stations and that way we can get gas, go to the bathroom, and get snacks. Both ways make sense to me so I would recommend doing a mixture of both depending on what you need, but if you are bringing a dog on the trip it’s smarter to go to the nicer rest stops where you can let them out and walk around.
In conclusion, road trips are long and tiring but there are a lot of ways that you can try and make the best of them. In order to make the best of them just make sure to bring, food, games, a blanket, and a pillow. Having people you won’t get tired of is the best way to make a road trip fun.
