How do you keep yourself entertained on a long drive?

In the car, I enjoy the radio.

On a plane, I read magazines or watch TV.

Music. Lots of music.

When I went to school in the ‘70s, 6 hours away, we used to plan the cassettes out before we left so that we knew what we’d listen to. I do that know with CDs. And on a road trip, I’ll even burn a few mix CDs.

And nowadays, I listen to podcasts, too.

@zenvelo What podcasts do you like?

While driving, it’s primarily the music. I’ll try out local radio stations sometimes, but mostly I end up listening to CDs. I also take time to stop and enjoy where ever I am as much as possible. Instead of just grabbing something at a drive thru and continuing to drive, I try to plan stops in new areas and check out new restaraunts and local stores.

While being a passenger, I read a lot of books and listen to music.

How about a remote controlled cattle prod attachéd to my corider’s nuts? I really need to find a lighter place don’t I?

@Adirondackwannabe… Or, you know, read the OP that says assume you’re alone. Put that prod on your own nuts, sir, and snap out of it! ;-p

Ouch. I guess I need to pay more attention to the details.

When I’m traveling to far away places by car, I like the radio because I like to get some local flavor from the DJs and the type of music that I may not typically listen to on my daily work commutes.

It depends on which vehicle I use.

Car: music!

Train and plane: the scenery. My favorite sceneries are the sea (if I travel by train) and the cloudy sky (if I travel by plane). I never travel by train at night, but once by plane. And the blackened sky somehow looks mysteriously exotic :p

By motorbike: my thought, or the thought of a self-reward when I arrive.

@Mimishu1995 you have a bike? I have a motorcycle specific playlist and one headphone in. The right music helps me let my brain go and my body get in tune with the road and bike.

I celebrate milestones on the GPS.

@Judi My dad gets all crazy with the milestones. He will figure out gas mileage, and also constantly calculate to the exact minute when we will hit a certain exit or town, based on miles per hour. Asking to stop to pee really messes up his game.

I used to drive like a maniac and get a rush out of the adrenaline. I made a 65 mile drive over really twisty roads in 55 minutes on the way over, and 50 minutes on the way back.

Podcasts, audio books, and iTunes Radio (or Pandora).

In my car I like to listen to FM stations on the radio and music from my CDs that I have loaded into the Jukebox (hard drive). On FM I enjoy NPR talk and music stations, and on Sirius Radio I listen to classical music and music from the 1960s through the 1980s.

When not traveling in my car I read and I watch whatever video the airline provides, and on trains and planes I play games on an iPad. Also, when possible, I strike up conversations with strangers.

@GloPro The long podcasts I listen to are:

WTF Pod (Mark Maron)
Car Talk
Savage Love (Dan Savage)
Stuff You Missed in History
History Extra (BBC)
New Yorker Poetry
The Moth

@GloPro You can both listen to music and ride? I truly can’t do that. If I put on my headphone I’ll focus only on the music and not the road, and… RIP @Mimishu1995, you die so young :’(

Everything mentioned above PLUS lots of rest stops to stretch your legs, chat with people to stir up your brain, and check out the scenery.

Lots of loud music, to stay awake. I’ve always been mystified by people who love listening to podcasts and books on tape while driving. Listening to someone talk puts me right to sleep, even if I’m perfectly fine when I start.

I listen to the local radio. I prefer NPR.
Sometimes I’ll brrow a book on CD from the library. Listening to music is nice for a short while but I feel like I’m not learning anything and soon get bored.
Sometimes I will look for a geocache in the area. Most rest areas have one cleverly hidden.

I find the Garrison Keillor thing entertaining – I forgot what it’s called.

Car ride I drive and have a killer MP3 play list to keep my eyes on the road, my hand upon the wheel. Plane trips I read, organize photos in my laptop and sketch

@Mimishu1995 When on my bike I wear only one headphone so I still have one ear on my surroundings. For me, if I listen to the right music it helps me become one with my bike and the road. Being on a moto is somewhat instinctual. Your body learns to lean and react to the bike and the road. Finding music that helps me lean a little farther, cruise at a nice pace, etc actually helps me. It focuses the distracted part of my brain.

Do you think listening to music on a motorcycle is any different than in a car? How? I do, but don’t quite know why.

@GloPro
1. My dad drives. And I ride myself.
2. I never use headphones when in a car. We just turn on the car’s CD player and that’s it.

Good music usually. I love driving long distance generally. I find it to be quite therapeutic and use the time to think and clear my head.

@GloPro Your experience is common for people with ADHD. A little background stimulation helps concentration. My son constantly listens to his iPod. He even plays music when he takes a shower.

When I am driving, I will stop occasionally at a local spot (a park, a lookout spot, a local “thing”). It helps me break up the trip, feel connected to the local area and hopefully, learn or see something new.

@jca Garrison Keillor’s show is called: A Prairie Home Companion.

@GloPro I listened to music on my bike before the days of CDs and MP3. I put small speakers in the cheek pads of my Bell Star LTD II helmet (with full cam lock face shield and neck seal) and ran the wires down inside my shirt and into my Walkman clipped to my belt. I was in another world. I still remember blasting Invisible touch and singing at the top of my lungs while screaming down the highway. I rode the 500 Kawasaki Mach III triple, 2 stroke, called “The Widow-maker.”
I am lucky to have survived.

The activity of driving itself.

The experience can be augmented with a triple latte and “The Narcotic Suite” by The Prodigy played at unreasonable volume. Usually the sound of the whining intake and throbbing exhaust and road are satisfying enough.

Any other answer is missing the point.

I can’t read in vehicles. Makes me sick. So, I get audio books. I listen to them as I drive. My commute is about 50 minutes each way, so I listen to audio books all week. They help me relax and I tend to drive within the speed limit while listening. Luckily, I can check them out of the library for free because they are not cheap to purchase.

@Juels Not to mention you shouldn’t be reading behind the wheel ;-)
I like audio books, too. I used to play my medical technology CDs over and over and over, too. Even if I wasn’t actively listening I thought it might help.

”the sound of the whining intake and throbbing exhaust…”

@SecondHandStoke: I drive a Hyundai. There is no “throbbing”.

Lurving an eminently worthy jelly into an undersea mansion really helps me keep my mind on my…yikes! Where’d that tree come from! ;-)

I have a great free app on my iPhone called Mixerbox 2.

It enables you to set up various playlists of YouTube clips which I can play consecutively just like on a regular computer.

This can be music but doesn’t have to be. It can be lectures, standup comedy specials, the original Cosmos episodes from 1980 or whatever else one can find.

The nice part is that you save battery life by just turning off the screen while the sound still plays fine.

And it just keeps going from one clip or episode to the next in the Playlist so no need to do it manually for each clip.

You can have multiple playlists already created by you or create one specifically prior to the trip.

It does what the iPhone should do but isn’t configured to do. When I first got my iPhone, I was so disappointed that I couldn’t play any of the lists I already had set up in YouTube on my computer.

So someone created it. Terrific. And its all free. I like free.

I used to carry myMP3 player or iPod and listen to my favorite songs. But now I can’t do that because of my hearing issues. Sleeping or reading a book is now the best way I pass time, especially on long flights. I also love to daydream and watch the clouds or scenery. When travelling by car, I normally listen to FM stations on the radio.

Looking out the window, always. I won’t get tired of looking at endless woods or fields, and when we’re in a town or city, I really like checking out the people, stores, houses and everything.
Music is also an option, usually coupled with the scenery watching, but I can do without. If I don’t have access to a window, it’s books or hand held gaming, but these two things I really don’t enjoy doing very much unless I’m all comfy in my own house or bed.