What sort of things would you do to amuse yourself during a car journey?
By patootie
@patootie (3592)
April 12, 2007 6:11am CST
Generally I rarely go on very long car journeys .. well actually you can't in England or you'd quickly drive into the sea heheheh .. but from time to time I do go on longer journeys and as I have problems with keeping my concentration centred on the job in hand I try to find ways to 'amuse' myself and keep focussed ...
I play games like .. seeing how many cars I drive towards before meeting with a lorry/truck .. looking for horses in a field .. anything really that stops the monotony of a long'ish drive when you are on your own ..
One of my favoured 'games' is to talk my way through my journey .. something like ..take care 100 metres ahead staggered junction .. or slow moving vehicle ahead check rear view mirror to make sure I can slow down properly ..
Sounds daft I know .. but I really do find that it helps me to stay focussed on my driving ...
Do you have any quirky little things that you do to help break up a long and dull journey??
4 people like this
22 responses
@wolfie34 (26771)
• United Kingdom
12 Apr 07
Doesn't sound daft to me, I talk to myself a lot mostly when I am driving, and when I go on my retreat it is a long journey usually taking 2-3 hours depending on the traffic, I will have my music on and will either sing along (I only do this if I travel alone) believe me no one wants to be in the car with me if I sing! Or I will analyze life and where I am and where I want to be and trying to be positive and weighing up stuff. That's why I find driving so therapeutic and relaxing, but only when I drive alone.
@polachicago (18716)
• United States
20 Apr 07
It depends. When on long trip in USA, I usually listen to audio books. I was on the road yesterday in Poland; all I was doing is thinking to get my destination safe. Drivers are crazy over there.
@ladysurvivor (4746)
• Malaysia
11 Jul 07
One time when I was on my journey to my hometown, I had to go through a waterfall. suddenly on my way there was a group of monkey from all generations at the side of the road. I stopped by. Luckily I had a loaf of bread with me, which I intended to give my mother. But I gave it to the monkeys anyway. After eating it all up, they wanted some more. They looked angry, as if I had done something wrong. I was amused at their look, with ugly lips pouting out like that. They were getting angrier, and after a while I continued my journey and said goodbye to them. So funny!
@Naomi17 (624)
•
11 Jul 07
I always have the music on and sing and sometimes pretend i'm dancing i'm a bit mad but as hubbys driving it really doesn't matter lol
@nancygibson (3736)
• France
13 Apr 07
We usually just talk about things we see as we drive along, plans we have, things we want to start work on. Often we just sit in companionable silence. My brother likes book tapes to listen to, but we like old rock music in the car, seems to help pass the time.
@brokentia (10389)
• United States
18 Apr 07
We would try to name certain categories of items in alphabetical order.
Such as, we name foods each person taking a turn.
A - Asparagus
B - Banana
etc.
Or we would name movies...desserts...anything you can think of. :)
Great thing is, we have played enough online games, like Neopets, that allows us to name foods that are Neopet foods. ha ha :)
@altair_dip (807)
• India
13 Apr 07
long drives are monotonus..when driving alone.. try the radio .. music is nice.. and specialy when i can sing aloud, with no care as to who is listening...
@mattier (111)
• United States
13 Apr 07
well i dont drive, i dont have my liscence, but to amuse myself during trips i look at road signs trying to find the letters in abc order, or i sing the song that gets on everybodies nerves, or the song that never ends. everyone usually tells me to shut up after a little while!
@emeraldisle (13139)
• United States
16 Apr 07
Besides the usual of listening to music and signing with it, although badly I might add :) I usually play a game. It's very simple. You go by the alphabet and you try to find signs where the first letter in a word on the sign or billboard is the letter you are trying to find. You have to go in order and it has to be the first letter. Trust me some letters are very hard to find :) But it's fun and for young kids it can reinforce learning their ABC's.
@er_gagandeep (261)
• India
13 Apr 07
there are plenty of things i do during a long car journey
.The first and the most common is that some kinda of music is always running at the back.It does not matter even if i am actually listening or not .it just makes me feel somewhta surrounded and no silence around.
Then ofcourse seeing around the surrounding .seeing left or right .Seeing each of the building ,shops anything which comes into way .Then sometimes i just start counting the number of say red car i encounter in between my way or vehicles having number starting with 1 etc
oh i forgot to mention this .have u ever noticed the white line to the left of the road which is actually made for some light weight vehicles where people on cycled etc drive .I just try to drive with one of my vehicle tyre on that line as long as pssible ....
@LordGregoroftheSith (667)
• United States
17 Apr 07
When I was a young kid, I would play games or play on my gameboy. Now a days, I have to watch the road. I will try to listen to some good music, or think on life. I also try to enjoy the view. Not much to do when you are trying to pay attention to the road it seems.
@ElusiveButterfly (45940)
• United States
12 Apr 07
On long journeys, I usually bring along my knitting to keep my hands busy. Other times I bring along a book. But, truly, there is nothing I like better than napping. The trip seems to go by faster when you nod off. My husband finds it humorous that I do this. The indicator that it will happen is when I put my face to the sun and close my eyes. It takes only a few short seconds for me to go off into oblivion.
@sylvia13 (1850)
• Nelson Bay, Australia
12 Apr 07
Have you tried audio books? I never have, but a friend of mine buys them for her kids, although there are many for adults too. If you dont want to buy them, I am sure you can borrow them in your local library. A good way to catch up on your "reading", I would say! I just finished watching Michael Palin's collection of 7 classic DVD series and it was absolutely fascinating! He travels around the Pacific Rim, the Sahara, from Pole to Pole, around the world in 80 days, the Himalayas and he also follows Hemingways steps. I am not sure whether that has been put in audio, but the series also comes in normal book format, as we have most of those books too!
@sunup13 (420)
• Canada
12 Apr 07
I know how boring long car rides can be, we used to drive to Florida from Nova Scotia when we were kids and all we could do was listen to music, read and snack!
My grandparents, my daughter will be going on a long trip to Ontario in a month. It will take 3 days but we will be stopping to shop and sleep. My daughter will be 6 almost 7 months then and I hope we can find some fun things to do to keep her entertained.
Thats what I plan to do with Brooklyn. She'll have toys and books to look at and we'll stop at parks along the way.
@xfahctor (14118)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
12 Apr 07
I travel to Ontario pretty regularly and depending on which rout i take, its betwwen a 5 to 6 and a half hour drive. If i have my girlfriend with me, we talk alot, she points out interesting or humorous things for me in the scenery. We often stop so she can take pictures as well. A long ride is often much shorter if your not alone. When making the trip alone, i usualy just listen to public radio. I would like to start getting a series of books on cd, a friend of mine who travles alot uses these and he says their great for passing the time.
@magicalmerlin (1623)
•
12 Apr 07
Car journeys in England are long enough for me. We don't have the monotony of vast open countryside though where it would probably be a good idea to 'talk' to yourself to stay alert. Here we have to spend quite a lot of the time map-reading but the motorways can get a bit tedious. We used to play eye spy with the children and it was great to adapt it with their age. We had to start with the sounds as they could not spell. It is a bit difficult finding different things to choose that did not disappear before being guessed. They mostly ended up having to be in the car and then we had clues about who could actually see it. It was very funny thinking back.
@r0131n (357)
•
13 Apr 07
I usually listen to audio books while driving. It is the best way of spending your lost time on travels. I also learning Spanish while driving. I usually alter the learning to listening to audio books to listening to music depending on traffic. A car cd changer is a great gadget to have on long journeys on my own. When I'm with kids, the usual games of I spy, counting how many odd colour cars there are on the road and a few more.
