Another day, another collaborative wanderlust post for y’all! It’s no secret that I prefer to fly when I travel, but sometimes road trips are fun, and ground transportation is more feasible! Whether you’re hopping in the car with friends for a weekend getaway or booking a train ticket to see the countryside, these tips will help make that trip easier!
A big part of traveling is the actual travel part – in other words, getting from one place to the next. That often takes up much of our travels, and yet it is rarely the part we think about when we are looking forward to our holidays, unless that is the whole point of the trip itself (think Interrailing or the Trans-Siberian Express!) But if your travels are going to have any amount of transportation time within them, you will want to make sure that you are as prepared for those long journeys as possible. There are few things worse than having a long journey and not feeling up to it, so make sure that you take on board the following tips for the next time you expect to go on a long-distance journey somewhere.
Know What You’re Getting Into
It is hugely important, first of all, to know exactly what you are getting into. In other words, you need to be clear on how long the journey is likely to last, what kind of distance it will be, and whether it is going to be split in half or anything like that. If you are unprepared in this way, then you will find it much more challenging to be able to feel prepared for it mentally, and you will find that that makes all the difference in the world. By being clear on what the journey is actually going to be like, you can at least get yourself ready in this way, which is the main thing of all.
In order to be sure that you are doing that right, you need to spend some time doing your research. Let’s say that you need to take a long overnight train to somewhere. Have you checked on the timetable what the length of the journey will be? Are you aware of the cabins and whether or not you have to reserve one? If so, are there sleeper cabins, and do you need to pay more for them? What kind of terrain will you be going through and are you going to have to think about different climates and the relevant clothing for that? Will you be passing through a culture which requires you to cover up more of your body? All of this is stuff that you need to think about and prepare for, and the better that you do so, the more ready you will feel for the journey in question itself.
As long as you research all of this and you make a point of knowing what the journey is actually going to be like, you can feel much more ready, and you will be able to enjoy it all the more just for that. But there is much more to preparing for long distance journeys than merely knowing what the journey is going to look like and what it might entail.
Food & Water
You’re also going to need to think about some of your more basic needs, as they are often much harder to meet when you are traveling somewhere for a long time. The most important of all, of course, is water, followed by food. You need to make sure that you are prepared for these, otherwise, the journey could be not just tiresome, but actually physically and mentally damaging. In most cases, you will be able to get water on-board – this will be especially true on public transport, of course – and you might be able to get food that way too. But are you certain? You need to make sure that you have looked into this beforehand so that you don’t get caught somewhere remote without food or water. Even if you have people around you, this will not be a good situation to be in. And if you are in a hot climate, you will need a lot more water than usual, more than you might think, even.
It is therefore imperative that you bring plenty of water along, just in case you should need to use that. You should also think about providing some food, even if it is just a snack, as that can mean that you are much more likely to be looking after yourself. Again, on public transport there will usually be food, but there might not be enough, or you might find that your specific diet is not catered to, and so on. Bringing at least a little something along will really help to prepare you much more effectively for a longer journey.
Entertainment
Chances are, you are going to want to think about having some kind of entertainment with you, especially if it is a particularly long journey with not much to look at. The kind of entertainment you have will depend on how you are traveling. On a plane, generally there will be enough on the screen in front of you, but it’s also worth bringing a book. On trains and other kinds of transport, you might want to bring your phone so that you can play phone casino and other games, and again a book won’t go amiss. It’s also worth thinking about bringing some miniature travel version board games so that you can play with whoever you are traveling with too. With the right entertainment, the longest journeys can seem much shorter indeed, so make sure that you bear this in mind.
Comfort
Finally, make sure that you bring enough with you which you can use for comfort. You might want to be able to sleep on especially long journeys, or at the very least you will almost certainly want to think about being comfortable enough to doze. So you will want to make sure that you have enough with you to be able to do that. That being said, try to pack as light as possible, so that you are not too weighed down, as that can make things much worse indeed. Get this balance right, and it will make all the difference.
This post was a collaborative effort – please check out my disclosure policy page for more details.