Making a Long Drive Better

Audio for the road, planning stops, driver fatigue and travelling with children

A long drive is mostly a problem of attention and fatigue rather than distance. What you listen to and how you plan the stops changes the journey more than the route does.

Location-based audio

Apps that play stories tied to where you are turn an empty stretch of road into something worth driving. It works because the content arrives when the landscape matches it rather than at a fixed point in a playlist.

Download content before you leave, since the places where this is most interesting are frequently where the signal is worst.

Plan the stops before you go

Guidance in most countries suggests a break of at least fifteen minutes every two hours. Deciding where those stops are in advance means you take them rather than pushing on.

A stop with something to look at is taken; a service station is skipped.

Fatigue is the real risk

Tiredness contributes to a significant proportion of serious road collisions, and it is worst in the early hours and in the mid-afternoon dip.

The only reliable remedy is sleep. Caffeine and fresh air buy a short window at best, and there is no way to push through safely.

If you find yourself struggling to remember the last few miles, stop.

Travelling with children

Audio stories work better than screens for car sickness, which is caused by the mismatch between what the eyes and the inner ear report. Looking out of the window helps; looking down at a tablet does not.

Stop more often than you would alone and accept the journey will take longer.

Before setting off

Check tyre pressures and tread, oil and screen wash, and that lights work. Have water, something to eat and a charged phone.

Downloading before you go

Save maps, audio and any booking confirmations offline. Rural roads and mountain passes are exactly where signal fails and where you most want the navigation to work.

Bring a cable rather than relying on wireless charging, which is slower than a phone running navigation consumes.

Insurance and breakdown

Check your breakdown cover includes recovery to a destination of your choice rather than only to the nearest garage, which matters a long way from home.

Rest stops with children

Plan somewhere they can run rather than a service station forecourt. Twenty minutes of movement buys far more quiet miles than a ten-minute stop does.

Keep water and something to eat within reach rather than packed in the boot where nobody can reach it.

Sharing the driving

Swap before you need to rather than after, and let the passenger sleep properly rather than dozing upright.