There’s something deeply intimate about riding in a car on a woodsy road with your friends. I’m speaking out of literal experience—I feel like that’s a weird thing to say just out of the blue. Driving from Westchester to Lake George involves a lot of backroads, isolated diners and sketchy encounters at gas stations. There’s nothing quite like the base fear of being in a deserted dirty bathroom and knowing that you’re in the beginning of a horror movie.
Road trips are almost like summer camp—intense situations and close quarters, that bond you together. And like summer camp, there are right things to do and there are wrong things:
1. You need snacks
I brought a single Kind Bar, and my car-mates were not amused. Pack chips, Sour Patch Watermelons, a couple of granola bars. I’m convinced that you could conquer the world on a hope, dream, and a Nature’s Valley Honey N’ Oats granola bar.
2. Don’t rely on the radio
They always play the same music (I can’t handle eight different remixes of the same song) so you need some sort of AUX cord or Bluetooth situation. Also make sure that the person in charge of the music is a humanitarian, because it’s an act of charity to pick music that everyone will like. Keep it varied, keep it interesting.
3. Word games
Play “Name One” or word association games. Anything to pass the time. The enemy of the road trip is silence, and the other enemy is car farts.
4. Car farts
We all know you did it. Own up. Don’t be coy, just roll down the window.
5. Be prepared with questions
Just like any interview, road trips are a time to dig deeper into your friends’ psyches. Think of questions that are both superficially innocuous and so deep they cry.
6. Switch off drivers
Safety-wise, no one should be driving for more than two hours straight. Pull over at text stops and rest stops, get out and stretch your legs, do some light pirouettes.
7. Driving clothes
Stretchy, breathable fabrics, with as little restriction as possible. I s2g if you wear jeans on this road trip, I will body-roll out of the window.
8. Don’t drink
Obviously don’t drink alcohol, but also go light on the Starbs because your bladder might be calling out for release in the middle of Amityville Horror, USA, and I for one don’t want to see that happen.
9. Road trip hash-tag
How else will your non-road trip friends know that you’re annoying if you don’t develop a roadside hashtag?
10. Bask in the glory
You’re doing that thing that every cheesy teen movie does and tries to make into this big momentous thing. Bask in the fact that you’re adhering to your societal norm and also getting yourself from Point A to Point B with as much laughter as possible.
Road trips seem like a quintessential part of young adulthood—cuz we’re yung adults. It’s when you realize that you don’t need your parents to get you places, and that you’re in charge of your own destiny. You can get McDonalds at every stop—my car-mates refused to let me get McDonalds and I gave them the silent treatment for a minute (poor impulse control)—but you’re also responsible for your own safety. Creepy, right?
