While some people love long car journeys, other people hate them. If you’re the kind of gal who hates a long car journey, you’ve come to the right place. Unless I’m driving, I hate car journeys –  I don’t think it helps that I get seriously travel sick and have since I was two. Although I am never going to love long car journeys, I have learned how to live with them, and you can too.

 

Wondering how you can make long car journeys more bearable for everyone? Then have a read of these useful ideas below!

 

Create a travel playlist

 

I don’t know about you but one thing that actually helps to make car journeys go faster, it’s music. Whether I’m driving or am sat in the passenger seat, I always like to have music playing. While the radio can be great for discovering new tunes, I much prefer my own playlists as then I know all of the songs and can sing along.

 

Before any long journey, I always like to create a travel playlist. Gone are the days when I spent hours sitting on my computer downloading music to sync to my iPod, instead I create a Spotify playlist and use that. Spotify also allows you to download songs to create an offline playlist for times when you end up with no signal to stream from.

 

Take car maintenance seriously

 

Before any long journey, it’s essential that you do some basic car checks and perform any maintenance tasks that need doing. The fact is that various studies have shown that the cars that are more likely to crash are the cars that aren’t properly looked after, which is why performing maintenance checks before heading out onto the road is extremely important.

 

What I always like to do is check my tire pressures, as if tires are under or over inflated they can become dangerous and more prone to being damaged while you’re out on the roads. I also like to check my car’s oil levels and water levels, to ensure that it’s properly stocked with the correct amount of these fluids.

 

Invest in a car with air con

 

There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a car in the height of summer with no access to cool air. Yes, you could open your windows but on the motorway doing so can be dangerous, as the wind can knock your car off course and cause you to swerve unexpectedly. Plus, there’s the fact that bugs can fly in while you’re driving if you have the windows down. As someone who is terrified of wasps due to having a life-threatening allergy to them, I refuse to drive with my windows down during wasp season and require air con because of this.

 

The fact is that every vehicle needs car air conditioning – even cars that don’t come with it already fitted. Every vehicle needs a car air conditioning and there are endless amounts of garages that offer the service like Ossett Tyre House in Wakefield, for instance.

 

Have a tin of sweets (and other snacks) on hand

 

What’s a car journey without snacks? I don’t know what your driving motto is but mine is ‘eat as much food as you can’. I love eating in the car – I think it’s because I get so bored if I’m not driving. I also think it helps with preventing travel sickness. Anyhow, because of this before a big journey, I always pack my car (or any car I’m travelling in) full of snacks, including a tin of sweets.

 

Tinned sweets are a must-have for any vehicle. I never understand why some drivers don’t keep sweets in their car – cars and sweets go together like peanut butter and jam, you can’t have one without the other! There are so many options as well, from mints like Polos and Mint Imperials to Rhubarb Custards and Aniseed Balls.

 

Treat travel sickness

 

If you’re someone who suffers from travel sickness, it’s a good idea to treat your travel sickness to ensure that your journey is as enjoyable as possible. When I was younger, I used to swear by the Boots travel sickness tablets but then they changed their ingredients and they started to make me feel dopey, so I stopped taking them and started using travel sickness pressure point bands instead. (These do work well but they made my wrists a little sore.)

 

Nowadays, I tend to simply sit in the front of the car, suck on mints and not look down while I travel, as I know that doing these things triggers my car sickness.

 

There you have it, a guide to how you can make care journeys more bearable.