Surviving long distance driving

I was just thinking about the distances some of you have to drive, such as between states. Do you have any tips to share about long distance driving? For me I can get to wherever I need to be within 2 hours maximum, so I'd consider long distance something like 4-10 hours of driving.

Use the rest stops, they usually have coffee. Stretch, walk around a little. If you are too tired, pull off and take a short nap on a side street, not under a light. If someone sees you sleeping, you are likely hasseled, someone will report you for a dead/drunk/car prowl etc.

Keep the window cracked, fresh air is your friend.

The longest drive I ever made was from Orlando, Florida to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was about 38 hours in all. I stopped to sleep once. I'm older now and I wouldn't be able to do it again. I found that chewing gum helped to keep me awake.

farthest was for me 650 miles miles from marieta to southern fla. did it in like 9 hours,but only went when car was filling.car.i drove at night trafic made me more sleepy id like to leave at 11 pm or so.i miss driveing but dont iss trafic lol or gas prices lol maybe i dont miss driveing .but funiset thing i ever saw was natanla lampons vacation he is driveing the zoom in on there kids there sound a sleep so is the wife they pan on to chevy chase he was driveing but sleeping i laughed so hard when i saw that lol.so dont do what chevy does i always would leave window wide open and tunes jamming

I used to drive long distance around the West getting to and from geological consulting gigs....ie Denver to Canada non-stop. Once I did DC to Denver non-stop with a few naps.

The most important thing is to be in EXTREMELY close contact with your body. If you feel even the slightest tendency to drift off or lurch, you need to pull off and get a short nap. Do this at a busy rest stop, Mcdonalds, or truck stop. Don't do it at a dark, deserted, or isolated spot.

Windows cracked, coffee, etc are good to a point. But when you feel that drop-off tendency starting to come over you, you need to sleep for bit.

When I first started doing long drives, I remember nodding off on the New York Thruway at 2AM....woke up with my VW heading into a pine forest at 70 mph.

I once did a 1700 km, (1100 miles) trip in one night to spend the next day at a theme park for 8 hrs and turn around and drive back. I stopped on the way back about 4 hours into it to sleep at a motel and then made it the rest of the way back in the morning.

Having other people in the car that are awake lets me drive further as the conversation is the #1 thing that keeps me alert. Also having something like apples and carrots to snack on helps. You don't want to eat too much junk while in the car as it just makes you feel gross.

When ever you stop for meals make sure to time it with gas and bathroom breaks as nothing slows you down more than making an excessive number of stops. The sooner you arrive the less time you spend getting sleepy on the road. Also the same goes for eating out of the car don't eat big heavy trucker meals, they will make you sleepy. Have a soup and salad or sandwich and you will feel much better.

A good size bag of sunflower seeds will take me 1/2 way across the US nonstop. Keeps your brain busy shelling and eating them.

Boston to Miami then Miami to Boston 3 months later, same time as above... ~1500 mi in 26 hours with stops for food and gas. I figure 24 hours of driving...

Yes, it sucked!

Year's later I did Washington state to Massachusetts twice in 2 months... About 3200 Mi both in about 3 days Once was in a car (with Wife and daughter) and once was in a 20' truck towing my car (just me)...

That sucked as well!!! Slept in the cab of the truck 2-3 hours at a time.

My advice, take your time and get rest, even if you just take 20 min to shut your eye's!

And before these trips, 16 hours to South Carolina. Again non stop to and from. Left after a 8 hour work day I was chomping down Vivran like Pez, BAD move... nothing like being wired on the highway!!!

Radio Shack has little lifesaving gadget I highly recommend. It fits over your ear and can be adjust so an alarm goes off when you start to nod out. Really works well, believe me. After a few times, the body seems to wake up, just to avoid being startled. I wouldn't travel without it!

I'm with Chris, take the time out to rest, and break from driving. Stop when you feel the need, activity away from the car such as a brisk walk (any mild excercise) for 10-15 minutes to clear your head and loosen muscles that haven't moved for a while.

I've done my share of long distance driving, every time I felt a bit tired or groggy, I'd pull the car over and literally jog or do push-ups to clear the cobwebs.

Several things help on those really long trips. I frequently drive more than 400 miles (every few months).


1) Set the cruise control within a mile or two of the speed limit

This will allow you to maintain a steady speed and, more importatntly, you never have to be stressed by wondering if that car way back ther is a cop about to bust you. It also does a great job of keeping you from tailgating without noticing it.

2) Don't try to do a marathon run. You might save a day by pushing yourself into a 20 hour drive, or you may end up like my mom and dad, in the hospital for months.

3) As someone said, listen to your body. Stop when you get tired. Unfortunately, the more tired you worse your judgement gets. So if you find yourself wondering if you should stop, thats your first sign that you should stop!

The silliest thing you can do is to keep driving when you are falling asleep tired because you are almost home. The last time I pushed it was only a 300 mile trip, but I ended up in a ditch just 3 miles from the house. I was so tired that I thought the road added an extra lane about half a mile early. Zoom! Airborn at 70 MPH in an econobox. That woke me up in more ways than one.

I've done 1500 mile non-stops (well, except for restrooms) at 10 to 20 MPH above teh speed limit and found myself totally worn out. Now I seldom travel more than 600 miles a day, stay at the speed limit and get where I'm going without stress.

Good luck on your trip.

Daniel

I drove from Bay area (near SF), california to London, Canada for 2 and half day non stop 2500 miles. I stop for restroom and excerise/stretch. Important eat good nuts/fruit and water bottle. It helps lot energy during driving. I slept in my jeep from 11pm to 7am then hit road at 730-8am.

Drove from Starkville, MS to the Bay Area, CA twice...2200 miles one way. My advice is to take a short break every couple hundred miles, keep some snacks and water with you. My car has a small gas tank (corolla), so I am forced to take a pit stop every 300ish miles or so. Also this may be obvious, make sure your car is in top shape. I was surprised that there was no cell phone coverage along a long stretch of interstate in many places in AZ, NM and TX.

Butte, Montana to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 2200 miles in 32 hours of straight driving. I drove 21 of those hours, my wife 11 hours. It was rather insane, we had a wedding in Butte on Saturday night and had to be at a family reunion in Lancaster at 8am Monday morning (I hate to fly and I love to drive). The hardest part was driving within an hour or two of our house in Ohio and not being able to stop. I put myself on a liquid diet to minimize long bathroom breaks. We ran out of gas in North Dakota around 2am, no cell phone coverage, no traffic, and no towns with open gas stations close by. We had this gas replacement stuff called "Rescue" in the trunk though which allowed us to get to the nearest open gas station (just barely). We filled the car up with gas five times in one day. Overall, driving from Ohio to Montana to Pennsylvania back to Ohio, we put 5000 miles on the car in a little over a week. This was in my '96 Neon.

Some other nice trips I've had in my '96 Neon: Columbus, Ohio to Sarasota, Florida. 1100 miles in 15 hours of straight driving (I drove the whole way). My sister's family left four hours before we did and I caught up to them one exit before Sarasota. 15 hours is the longest I've ever driven in one stretch.

Columbus, Ohio to San Antonio, Texas, 1400 miles in 20 hours. On the trip down we stopped in Memphis, TN and visited Graceland for four hours and got back on the road again. Elvis ROCKS! Made the return trip driving straight through (with some help from my wife).

Three years ago we took the last long road trip in the '96: Ohio to Maine where we camped for a few days, then we drove to Niagara Falls, Canada and camped overnight, saw the falls at midnight, and drove home the next day.

All told the '96 Neon has been in about 35 different states in the 8 1/2 years I've owned it.

My '01 Neon ACR has been to probably ten different states so far, but the only significant road trip was this past winter. A friend called late one friday night and asked if I wanted to drive to Louisiana and help another friend of ours (actually one of my HS teachers from 15 years ago) pick up a car down in New Orleans. At the time I had one kid and a wife that was eight months pregnant, but she is very understanding, and "let" me go. The three of us left in the ACR at around midnight on Saturday night. We had heavy rain eight of the 14 hours it took us to get down (950 miles), but arrived Sunday afternoon. We went to Bourbon Street Sunday night, got a little bit of sleep, and picked up the car (a VW Jetta TDI) Monday morning, and left a little after noon on Monday (we were in New Orleans exactly 24 hours). I drove the whole way back by myself and the other two drove in the VW. Took 14 hours again and we had snow, sleet, and freezing rain for the last five hours.

I worry less about staying awake and more about efficiency and speed when making long distance trips. I only stop to go to the bathroom when I stop for gas, which tends to be every 5 hours or so in my cars, I go with a liquid diet on any trip longer than 12 hours, and I tend to stay at 10-15 miles over the speed limit in most states. This is usually going with the flow of traffic and I've never gotten pulled over on a long distance drive.

The biggest thing that helps me stay awake on long distance trips is listening to books on tape, usually by Tom Clancy or John Grisham. Listening to the books on tape or CD keeps my mind from relaxing and causes me to concentrate somewhat on the book, to keep up with the story. Many of the books I have or borrow from the library or Cracker Barrel are 6-12 hours long. I didn't have any along on my trip back from New Orleans earlier this year though, so I listened to a couple of hundred of my favorite pop/rock songs from the 80's I had in MP3 format on some CDR's, and sung at the top of my lungs for 14 hours since I was alone in the car. Worked great.

Unfortunately my long distance driving days are over, at least for a few years. With two very young children, we can't just hop in the car and drive to Florida, Texas, Maine, or Montana like we used to. I do look forward to my children being a little older though, so they can enjoy road trips with us too.

-Keith

Ditto for what has been said here about sleeping -- accept no substitutes for sleep! As or more dangerous than drunk driving.

Let's put it this way... Cheap motel room maybe $40 - $60 -- includes bed, shower, coffee in the a.m., TV, etc. = rested & ready to go.

No sleep -- ditch, tree, another car, busload of nuns, etc. Still no sleep, adjustable but still uncomfortable bed, aches, pains, lots of bills, lots of " 'splainin' to do, Lucy." OR... pine box(-es), coffin is probably not real comfy, and pushing up daisies sounds like too much work, with lots 'o 'splainin' to do" but to a much higher authority.

Cost analysis is pretty easy on this.

Longest trip was 650+ solo highway miles at night. Bad music, bad radio, bad roads, bad tolls, bad coffee, bad mojo, bad idea. Never again. Also, once dozed off for three seconds (no poop, three whole seconds) on the way home one night & woke right up to the red lights behind me. Spent ten minutes explaining that yes, I was just tired, yes, the ONE beer was four hours ago, and yes, that really was my house 500 yards away. Deputy was only beiing careful, and I was kinda glad he was, but then I couldn't get to sleep for four more hours. Take a nap before you take a dirt nap.

Now for long drives I take plenty of fluids, but not too much caffiene. I get too jittery and need to see a man about a horse too often if I do. Good food helps -- edible snacks (not made out of too much plastic), fruit, and a sandwich or two. Coolers are great, even the small ones.

Beg, buy, or borrow an XM radio. Satellite radio is digital quality sound, no or at least very few dropouts as long as the antenna can see the satellites to the south. That means you can listen to any or all of about 130 channels with no fading in almost all of North America. Check out XM411.com for info., if you'd like. Not just for road trips, but what a difference!

AAA+ is great and using it once pays for it. OK maps, but really good info on road construction, vehicle laws from state to state, etc. Unless you do the GPS thing, and even if you do, I suggest a DeLorme Atlas & Gazeteer for the states you'll go through. About $16 - $20 per state, but they show very nearly every road in the state. They have much more detail than any other map except the USGS topographical maps, and many of those are very out of date. DeLorme also does CD maps. Check them out and you'll see. Very handy when the detour or need to get out of traffic thing happens.

4-10 hours isn't that big a deal--your butt gets a little sore but other than that it's just a longer version of a 3 hour trip. Drink plenty of water (have a bottle in the car), and don't forget to stop and eat. I would stay away from that thing that detects nodding off. If you're sleepy enough to need that thing, you shouldn't be driving. Pull over and take a nap.

I never felt the need for an XM radio. An mp3 cd player is real nice. Or you can get a radio or cd player (JVC makes some) with a front panel aux input that you can plug your ipod into. Best is to have another person in the car to talk to.

In what seems to be many lifetmes ago, I used to travel a lot by car.

I've travelled 20 hours some days, and for certain it can exhausting. Once, I was 20 minutes from home, and was spent. So I pulled into a truck stop for a couple hours, as I knew my energy was gone.

So, rule one, know when to push your body, and rule two, know when enough is enough.

Also, I always brought a lot of music to choose from. In addition I layered my clothes, so it could easily be adjusted for increases or decreases in temperatures.

A good idea is to bring a pillow, not only to nap with, but to sit on for longer trips.

Bring power bars, and liquids. Even if you do not use them, they are good to fall back on.

If possible, a cell phone should you break down is a good idea.

And lastly, off the top of my head, a map. And in case it is dark, you will need a FLASHLIGHT to help see it!

Hope That Helps,
John

Once upon a time, in a 1988 Mustang Coupe pulling a trailer with a motorcycle on it...

Buddies car and he was driving. We had some "music to kill people by" pretty loud going, and windows partly down.

It was the wee hours of the morning, we were near Texarkana on I20 coming from Memphis.

Next thing we know, we are in a small ditch between the East and West bound lanes. We didn't hit anything, but DID find a motel room!

A bit over a year ago another buddy and I went to Chicago in an '01 Dodge 250 pulling a tractor hauler trailer. No motel room for this guy! We sleep in a roadside park. Get out every now and then to walk around.

I drove from Southern Illinois to Texarkana without doing a single thing to wake my buddy. We no more begin moving again after getting fuel, and I try to sleep. He keeps putting the wheels over on the shoulder "drunk buzzers". A$$hole!

Anymore, if I am going to drive anywhere (and I am because I sure am not going to fly!) I am going to do about 300 miles at a time, get out and smell the roses, and do maybe 900 miles a day.

Dad and I are going to drive to Vegas in a couple months, and between the two of us, we'll do it in one go...

But alone, I ain't taking any chances!

Something that has helped me is to play with the heater, make it a little too warm then a little too cold, roll the window down for a while and up for a while. Take the cruise off for a while.
I used to drive around installing specialized equipment for 911 systems. Drove 9 hours straight in my 88 S10, manual transmission, no cruise, no A/C, no carpet, plain jane truck, but I think the new more confortable vehicles make long trips harder as you get too confortable.

This may sound funny, but I stay awak by drinking lots of water. That way, my bladder will be so full that I won't be able to fall asleep /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif For long trips, I usually have a camelbak strapped to the back of the seat. I may have to go to the restroom more often, but I won't be /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sleepy.gif

Also, I found that talk shows keep me awake, while music does the opposite. On my first trip to CA from MS, I didn't have XM radio, so I ended up talking on the phone (with handsfree headset) all the time...feel sorry for my friends /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif now I have XM, it's going to be much better.