[Stories & Tips]

Road Trips. Ah, such a sweet phrase. I am an avid fan of road trips. Since I could drive, my friends and I have plotted various road trips every year. My tiny Mazda Protégé has gotten a lot more miles that I thought it would thanks to these trips. Some are short, just a two-hour drive from Cleveland to Columbus for a concert. Some are long, like the two 24+ hour-long drives we’ve done from Ohio to south Florida for, um, another concert or two. (Concerts are a great excuse for a road trip). I like to think of myself as a seasoned road tripper, and there are five tips that I always follow when heading out on a road trip.

1. Always check the air in your tires, get an oil change, and basically understand how to change a tire and what to do if, say, your car overheats. While my Protégé has only needed to cool down once, if I didn’t take care of it beforehand and make sure I knew what to do in any situation, I’d still be on the side of the road somewhere.
2. If you can avoid getting off the highway, do it. Sometimes, my friends have the awesome idea of stopping for gas not at the rest area, but at the exit that only has one sign for gas and one restaurant. I have ended up in weird small towns at night more often than I’d like.
3. Bring at least two other people with you. It’s more fun that way, and you have two other people to rotate driving duties with. Here’s the method my group of three came up with while driving from Ohio to Florida: Two people stay awake, one driving obviously, the other in the passenger seat making sure the driver doesn’t fall asleep. The third is in the back sleeping, because it’s their turn to drive next.
4. Make awesome playlists. The time passes quicker if you make random mixes with everything from your current favorite song to that NSYNC song you loved in the 90s. Don’t share your playlists with your friends. It’s much better to see the look of sweet recognition when they hear the beginning notes of “Bye, Bye, Bye.”
5. Take pictures, if you can, of the welcome signs to every state you drive through. I’m starting a collection of these pictures. It’s fun to flip through them, and really feels like a document of your time on the road.

Happy road tripping!