The holidays are upon us. If you’ve got family spread across the country like I do, you understand the sometimes-drudgery of taking the same long road trip(s) over and over again. Sure, the first trip or two to a place can be exciting or adventurous, but have you ever noticed that in road movies, they tend to cut or montage out the hours and hours of driving time? With family in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Michigan and Arkansas, I intimately understand why.
With all this experience, I’ve developed some key tips for surviving long road trips:
- Love your car, and trust your car. Whether it be for its fuel efficiency, safety rating, design, sound system or general reliableness, I love and trust my Kia Optima. (See also: How I Decided on a Kia.)
- Traveling with pets? I’ve got a doggie road trip survival kit for you, and instructions for DIYing a back seat protector.
- Traveling in winter? Pack a human survival kit, complete with jumper cables, water, warm clothing and food.
- Bring things to do.
- When I travel alone, I’m all about listening to my favorite audiobooks.
- When my husband and I travel together, we each burn a few CDs to for the car. Sometimes it’s a themed travel mix. Sometimes it’s podcast episodes we want to catch up on and then talk about for two hours.
- I, of course, always bring a craft. Almost always knitting or embroidery.
- Sometimes I grab my camera too, in case the dogs do something cute or we drive by something spectacular.
- If you’re the passenger, avoid caffeine! You’ll have to make extra rest stops, and napping could be hard.
- Speaking of which, nap as much as humanly possible if you’re the passenger. It’s the ideal way to pass time and work on your sleep deficit.
- If there are two of you and you’re having trouble deciding what to listen to, the driver gets final say. Being behind the wheel for 7-12 hours is an important gig. They get dibs on the sound system. :)
This post is sponsored by Kia.
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