• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Being Tazim

Vancouver Food, Lifestyle, & Travel Blog

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Interior Design
  • Travel
  • Organization
You are here: Home / Lifestyle / Road Trip Ready: An Ode to Boredom

Road Trip Ready: An Ode to Boredom

by Greg

Sharing is caring!

  • Share
  • Tweet

Road Trip Snaphsots

If I’m honest: one of my favourite things about long road trips is the boredom.

Staring out at a prairie horizon that’s coloured by the setting sun, or climbing up series of mountain switchbacks, I feel like my mind tunes into a different frequency.

At first it seems like nothing but white noise and fuzz—but invariably, lightning strikes.

And I know that some people meditate , and that this guy swims, but the road has a special place in my heart.

Even where memories of the destination have faded—I remember hours spent on the road as a kid. Not playing Gameboy, or even reading: but staring out the window, thinking, sometimes even talking with my folks. And I wonder what this generation of kids with seat-back DVD players and smart-phones is missing.

Sometimes boredom is soul crushing, and sitting in traffic is rarely all that interesting.

But the right kind of boredom grows our creative capacity and recharges our batteries

Here are five tips for keeping your kids bored on the road so that you can be road trip ready:

1) Know where you’re going: not in the sense of having the route plugged in to your GPS, but in terms of the culture and environment you’re passing through. Point out things as you go by—it’ll direct there attention outside of the car, and away from the destination. Also, it will help calm their inevitable fear that you’re completely lost or taking them somewhere terrible. I don’t know why kids think this—but it must be a primal fear (even today, I surreptitiously keep track of where I am on a map when I’m driving with my parents—though they once followed their GPS across a farmer’s field, so I have some justification for this).

2) Give that kid a camera: nothing encourages a kid to look out the window and engage with the environment like the chance to use the grown-up camera—or at least the grown-ups’ old camera. Obviously, this requires a kid of a certain age—but your camera is also a lot less at risk in the confines of your vehicle than it is in the world outside.

3) Keep them fed, watered, and ambulatory. Stop often. It may add minutes to your trip, but keeping physical discomfort at bay is the key to making a long trip bearable: for everyone. Explore curious sites like abandoned gas stations as well as state parks, and you may even win some ‘cool’ points.

4) Tell stories: trips to family reunions or old stomping grounds are the perfect time to talk about all of your relations. Kids love knowing where they’re from, even if they pretend to be to cool for it.

5) Engage them in conversation, on their terms, with lots of pauses. Look-they’re strapped in, and there’s no getting away from you—avoid nagging, sure—but it’s the perfect time to really try and dig in to what’s going on in their life. Just—given that they are strapped in—make it as little like an interrogation as possible.

It’s true what they say⁠—sometimes, it’s all about the journey. But even the longest road trips will reach their inevitable destination. When you finally get there, and everyone is scrambling out of their seats to bask in the sun and the fresh air, remember the one thing that will get you back home: your car. Park it in a safe location, and make sure the windows and doors are secure. Bring a trusty car cover to keep it safe from the elements if parking indoors isn’t an option.

Store those vacation memories in your camera rolls and Instagram feeds, and make your way back home. As you do that, think of the ride back as one last chance just to be happily bored and be in the moment before you ease back into real life.

Related Posts

  • Winter Car Prep ChecklistWinter Car Prep Checklist
  • 4 Things you Must do to Prepare for a Road Trip4 Things you Must do to Prepare for a Road Trip
  • A Different Kind of Budget Travel – Thrifty TravelA Different Kind of Budget Travel – Thrifty Travel
  • 10 Creative Summer Boredom Busters {Guest Post}10 Creative Summer Boredom Busters {Guest Post}
  • Safety Tips For Preventing Vehicle TheftSafety Tips For Preventing Vehicle Theft

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Travel Tagged With: adventure, cars, road trip essentials, tips, travel essentials

About Greg

Raised in Calgary, Alberta, Greg is a freelance travel writer who enjoys reading, technology and the outdoors. Find more articles written by Greg on his World's Best Vegan blog. Read more posts on this blog written by Greg.

Previous Post: « Outdoor Eco-Friendly Lighting For Evening Entertaining
Next Post: How to Choose the Right Bedding »

Reader Interactions

A beginner's guide to growing herbs

Comments

  1. Wendy says

    at

    Great tips for road trips! In fact, our last vacation I gave both of mine a camera and we had some amazing vacation pics, things I didn't see that they did!!
    My recent post Winners: Sweet Baby Moon

  2. Angela says

    at

    I love road trips! They can be a lot of fun if you keep the kids engaged. Great tips!
    My recent post New FRANKENWEENIE Poster & Fun Facts!

  3. headant says

    at

    Now I really need to go on a road trip! My daughter loves the camera–that is a great idea.
    My recent post Communicate with Your Child with Hidden Meaning Symbol

  4. melissa says

    at

    These are some great ideas and trips! We love road tripping!

  5. Bonnie says

    at

    We used to love to just load up and take a long drive on the weekends. We need to do this again soon. Have fun!
    My recent post Jump – or at least give it a good ole fashion try! #BlogHer

  6. royalegacy says

    at

    When I was young, I never got bored on a trip. Every turn of the highway was some place I had never been before, and was just exciting to see. My kids have turned out to be like me. The only time the road gets boring is when they have seen it millions of times already.
    My recent post REVIEW & GIVEAWAY 4th of July Games Package from Python Printable Games 6/15

  7. Melissa S.O.S. Mom says

    at

    We will be having a few some sort of road trips coming up when we go camping in these new places… First time camping with our son actually… he's 16 months old so should be interesting! 🙂
    S.O.S. Mom
    My recent post "Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies" Children Book Review & Giveaway – USA & Canada

  8. Naomi says

    at

    Great tips! I always prepare trip journals and activity sheets for them to do along the way.

Primary Sidebar

About:

Being Tazim Blog Vancouver Canada Lifestyle BlogI'm Tazim, a 40-year-old Vancouverite who is passionate about adventure, learning new things, and making connections. Content on Being Tazim ranges from smart ideas for plant-based cooking and baking to ways to enjoy life's experiences, to inspiration and information on attractions and travel destinations near and far. Read the full story here.

some tips on how to combat holiday season stress and anxiety, it’s time to take action. The holidays are a wonderful time of the year, but they can also be extremely stressful. 
How To Warmly Welcome Holiday Houseguests
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Footer

Let’s Connect!

Hey there! I'm Tazim and I'm a lifestyle, food, and travel writer and photographer. I inspire, motivate, and encourage my audience to explore their immediate surroundings and those further afield. I do this by sharing plant-based food recipes, ways to enhance my readers' homes and lives, and local and other attractions/travel destinations I experience. You can find my stories and adventures on my other blog Celebrate Life's Adventures Read more about me. . .

Being Tazim contains advertising banners and some contextual affiliate links. An affiliate link means I receive commission on sales of the products or services that are linked to in my posts. So, if you click on a link and make a purchase from an affiliate site, then I may make a commission from that purchase. I only work with affiliates I genuinely love and fit my brand.

Amazon Associates Disclosure

Tazim Damji is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by · Shay Bocks Genesis Framework · Built on the WordPress