5 Necessary Things If You’re Going Road Tripping By Yourself

After finally convincing my parents to allow me to drive to vacation in Topsail, Island by myself after completing my week of work, it hit me, I realized that this actually meant 7 hours in a car by myself. While the longest I’ve ever driven was 2 ½ hours to Ocean City for Senior Week, I have spent plenty of time in the car on the biggest highways  during rush hour this summer already, so what was I-95 and a couple of backroads going to do?

  1.    SLEEP -- While I am very much known for my frequent naps, I knew I had to go through my 9 hour shift at work, 3 hours at my internship, pack my car, take care of my dog, feed myself, do some homework all without a nap, to insure that I would be exhausted enough to break my awful sleeping habits and be in bed by 10pm, and asleep by 10:15. Waking at 4:40 and leaving my house at 5:00am exactly, I felt excited and eager to get to the beach, my gps estimated that without any traffic or any stops I would get there in a short 6 hours and 45 minutes, this had me stoked to be able to think that I would be on the beach by noon (which I’ll tell you now, it didn’t happen). By the time 7 am rolled around I was already at the first Wawa I could find getting a large coffee and some breakfast. Which leads me into my next necessity…      

2.    Food, Water & Coffee -- This was the biggest factor into my ability to continue to drive with minimal stoppage. While only stopping twice during the 7 hour trip, I managed to drink 3 large cups of coffee, and snack on anything and everything to keep my mind off of the fact that I had hundreds of miles to drive. The extra shot of espresso in my 10 am coffee at Starbucks is probably what got me through to the last 3 hours.    

 3. Music -- This one, is one I didn’t prepare for. I figured I would have my radio and if I needed I could use Apple Music to shuffle some songs around for me. The radio was great until about halfway into my trip and I found myself with absolutely no radio signal. I was sort of relieved because the station I was listening to had repeated the same 15 songs the entire trip. This is the point where I turned to my Apple Music to save the trip, but since I had forgotten to download songs, none of them would load currently. 


4.    Call People -- Once the radio decided to let me down, I had to pick up the phone and start dialing, I talked to my mom a couple of times, my dad and even some friends just trying to pass the time. Talking about anything and everything possible to get the hours to feel shorter. This was the best thing to pass time because this allowed them to talk about anything and me to actually pay attention and listen to them because the other alternative was to listen to static radio. 
  
 5.    Enjoy The Time Alone-- Although I listened to music, or talked to people on the phone I still had plenty of hours alone to just drive and think about anything. I thought I would get so bored but I honestly found it relaxing and calming that I could just be by myself and just cruise to the beach.