Long-distance driving should be a lot of fun. After all, you’re cruising on the open road, all by yourself, watching the countryside go by. It’s a great experience.
Unfortunately, it can soon get a little dull. When you have to do it every day, it gets boring and repetitive. And that’s when you stop enjoying yourself.
Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to make driving fun again which don’t involve getting drunk and receiving a 1st offense DUI. Here’s what do to:
Call Hands-Free
Just because you’re on the road, it doesn’t mean you’re out of touch with friends and family. You’re always free to call them, hands-free of course.
Calling hands-free can be a lot of fun. It’s also super simple to do. You just connect your phone to a Bluetooth headset and away you go. Modern devices do pretty much everything for you these days so you don’t have to spend ages fiddling around with them.
Spend Time Admiring The Scenery
Long-distance driving sometimes means traveling through cities. But mostly, you’re on the interstate, well away from everyone else. And that can be a great time to catch up with nature. There’s just so much wildlife and beauty to see in the world, and you can do it all from your car seat.
This experience is particularly rewarding when you’ve never been to an area before. You can just look out of the window and enjoy the views and forget all about driving. It’s like going on vacation.
Listen To Your Favorite Podcasts
Another way to make long-distance driving more enjoyable is to listen to your favorite podcasts. Take some time to learn about a topic or even a new language. Use the time you have alone in your vehicle to upgrade your skills and make them more marketable. Learn as much as you can about your craft so that you can earn more money and get more done.
Those long hours in the cabin can soon add up. If you study hard enough, you could become proficient in a new skill and surprise everyone. It’ll be like you’ve gone to university or college for a year.
These days, there are podcasts on just about every subject imaginable. All you need to do is find the format and show that works for you and then catch up on everything in the series. Look for something in your niche that’s going to keep you interested.
Listen To Fictional Audiobooks
If podcasts aren’t really your thing, you might also want to consider listening to fictional audiobooks. This way, you can get swept off in a fantasy world and leave the boring reality of the highway behind. Novels offer an opportunity to go deeper into your imagination than any podcast or movie ever could give you.
Another great thing about fictional audiobooks is that they last a long time. You could easily listen to them for 30 hours and still not get to the end. That’s enough for even the longest trips.
Listen To Music
If all else fails, you can also listen to music and have a good sing-along. After all, you’re completely alone in the car so why not?
Music comes in handy on longer trips when you want to feel good but your brain is running out of energy. You don’t want to learn anything new or listen to something technical. You just want to enjoy yourself and have a good time while you get the highway miles out of the way. Listening to music can help with this and make the time fly.
Listen To Stand Up Comedy
If you’re the sort of person who loves a good laugh, you can also spend the time listening to stand-up comedy. Entertaining yourself with something funny can be a great way to keep yourself entertained and happy on a long journey.
Standup comedy also improves your mood. After an hour or two of listening to your favorite comedian, you immediately feel better about your life and what it has to offer. It can even make time speed up so you get to your destination sooner than you anticipated.
Ask Roadtrip Questions
If you’re traveling with other people, you can pass the time with some interesting road trip questions. Try to be as creative as you can so you can get the best answers from your fellow passengers.
Sleep
If you’re not driving, you can also pass the time by sleeping. It’s an easy way to cut an hour or two out of your trip and help you feel like you’re getting to your destination faster.
Even if you just nap for 10 to 20 minutes, it can make a big difference and take a huge chunk of time out of your journey. Constantly nodding on and off can make a big difference and leave you feeling energized once you reach your destination.
Munch On Some Healthy Snacks
Long road trips are not the time and place for junk food (no matter how tempting it might be). However, they’re a great opportunity to eat healthy snacks. And, surprisingly, these can keep you entertained and take your mind off the journey. When you’re having a nice, tasty experience, it’s hard to feel bad about the road.
What specifically are we talking about? Well, the best snacks for the roads are nuts. These provide plenty of healthy energy and keep you full. They’re so filling, in fact, that they are proven to make you eat less at your next meal.
You can also take dried fruits with you. These last a long time and are a nice sweet treat after a long journey.
Popcorn, strangely, is another good option. It’s the sort of thing you can munch for hours without really taking on too many calories. Consider it for your next road trip.
Organize Your Emails
If you’re not driving, you might want to spend a long car trip organizing your emails. Many of us have hundreds of unopened and unprocessed emails waiting for someone to sort them out. We’re also close to our storage limits on servers, meaning that we need to delete some of our emails. Otherwise, we might not get any new ones.
Spend some time organizing and managing your emails. Take time to prioritize those that are important and those that you can safely get rid of because you don’t need them anymore.
Plan Your Next Workout
You can’t do a workout in the car, but it can be quite fun to plan one when you’re on the move. Figuring out what you can do to make yourself healthy is a great way to stay focused and be more physically active when you arrive at your destination.
Your workout doesn’t have to be anything complicated. You can either arrange a split routine at the gym or think about which cycle route you’re going to take when you arrive at your destination.
Spend Some Time Meditating
Lastly, you’ll want to spend a little time meditating. Being in meditation can be a great way to pass the time because you steadily lose your connection to the outside world. Meditation doesn’t mean closing your eyes. It just means watching your thoughts and letting them pass by without identifying with them. If something comes into your mind, respond dully with something like “oh, that’s interesting” and then let it pass.
After an hour of meditation, you should find that you feel significantly more relaxed. You can download meditation apps if you are a beginner and need guidance.