Tips to survive any long haul

Four jet black travel weathered tires, a solid slightly scuffed steel body and three long yawn inducing rows of seats; all painted a bright cheery red, accompanied by an equally cheery coffee skinned driver to top it off.

I knew it was going to be one unnecessarily long trip from the moment I looked at that cheerful red jeep in the completely open  parking lot of the meagerly decorated Tiruchirapalli international airport, Tamil Nadu, India

But I had fabulously underestimated how long it would be   

  

Long story short, after several detours, visits to random relatives who I didn't know had existed before, and over 42 hours of being cooped up in the exact same vehicle- I came out alive!

I endured the mind-numbing task of seeing endless rows of spotted cows and paddy fields, and I braved through the pain my eardrums faced when my brothers screamed at each other, all the while having only the occasional two-hour-long, podcast worthy discussions with my driver as the only form of entertainment.

And I survived! 

Now that my herculean trials are over, I think I have enough experience and the qualifications necessary to help equally unfortunate travelers to get through the brain-draining task of staying in the exact same land vehicle for an ungodly amount of time, while still maintaining the energy to truly appreciate the beauty surrounding you. 

And to help me help you, I have a few tips that could help all of us.

So; what's stopping us? Let's go!

Tip 1; Nope no, absolutely not! Reading is amazing, but a road trip is not the place for it!

Okay fine, I'll admit, I'm guilty of it too, but what can i say? Books around me have a tendency to slip into my hand, seemingly out of thin air, let it be when I'm eating, supposed to be sleeping or even when, uh... fulfilling nature's duty.

But what an immeasurable amount of road trips have taught me is that books+bumpy road multiplied by just even 4 hours of nonstop travelling, always equals to vomit. Literally just, belch. I know its a stomach churning topic, but it's definitely true. 

So what can you do to stop it? Simple

Just talk.

Try to keep your mind off all vomit-inducing topics and just open up and talk about what you know or what you've heard about where you're travelling to; if you're travelling alone, you can strike up a conservation with your driver- I assure you that you might be in for an unexpectedly interesting conversation. 

But it's probably for the better if you make sure that your driver is in a good mood before you start talking, if you wanna stay on the vehicle


Tip 2; If you don't want to talk, then just look



If Tip 1 definitely isn't your style, you can always settle for the good old fashioned count-the-spotted-cows game. Just take a while to look out, admire the beauty of what you're seeing, feel the breeze slamming against your face, and take it back in before a car decides to slam into your face too.

Jokes aside, the next time you travel, make sure you look at as many signs and buildings as possible, compare them to each other and try to see if you can figure out what each of them are; you could also try to compare how wealthy a neighborhood looks compared to the others you've seen. 

These games are really quite interesting (At least in my opinion), and its even more fun if you make this into a group activity. 

Tip 3; Make it noisy, make it loud, make it fun



If you are travelling as a group, being the only ones in your bus then this is something you should definitely try. Ask the pen beaters to tap their pens, ask the table drummers to adapt their art to bus seats and ask the classroom singers to get their vocals ready, because the best way to keep your spirits soaring high in a road trip is to sing, dance, scream and shout (in joy hopefully)

But be warned- do not even think about doing this in a public bus, unless you have a personal preference for prison bars


I hope you enjoyed, and may these tips help you out on your next long haul adventure; Happy Travelling!