Four Tips for Comfortable Driving On Road Trips

A Comfortable Driving Experience

Arguably, the worst part of road trips is how it gets more uncomfortable the longer you’ve been in the car. If you’re the driver, it can be infinitely worse. To have a great trip, it’s important to have a comfortable drive! And, there are many ways that you can improve your driving experience. You can use gadgets, backrests and many more to improve your car’s comfort. Take a look at BMW Car Mats for the best car mats to rest your feet on. Ergo, in this article, I’ll be talking about the top four tips and tricks for making your driving experiences better.

1. Making Your Seat More Comfortable

One of the biggest discomforts when driving is your seat. Soft cushions are great at first. But past a few hours and it’ll feel like you’re sinking into the seat. It simply becomes too uncomfortable after a certain number of hours. In particular, you might suffer from lower back pain and this can greatly affect your mood. Even after you’re done driving, your body will still be aching and often, you’ll want nothing more than to collapse into a bed and rest. This isn’t ideal if you’re just starting out a trip. So how can you make your seat more comfortable? Well, there are a few options!

Get a good lower back support cushion

As mentioned, soft cushions aren’t great for long trips. If you have soft cushions, you can invest in a cushion for more lumbar support. Such cushions can be easily found and fitted to your car seat. These cushions will then help by keeping your spine in a better position when driving. It then means that you’d have lesser back pain. These cushions are also washable and that means you won’t have to use the same sweaty cushion every drive. Instead, you can take it out for a wash whenever you like! If you choose to get a cushion like this for yourself, you should look for memory foam cushions. These will mould themselves to your back and be perfect for you!

Your driving position matters too

It seems obvious but your driving position plays a big part in ensuring that you’re comfortable. Slouching is a big no-no and it can quickly cause back and neck pain if you do it. Instead, you should always sit straight up against the car seat. However, this can be difficult if you are too tall as you’d inevitably have to slouch a bit. If that’s the case, you can try to keep your head back against the headrest too.

When it comes to your legs, you’d want them supported too! If not, you’d end up with both back and leg pains. Therefore, try to sit such that your legs are parallel to the road. Don’t have your thighs at an angle. Your knees should not be higher than your backside either. This will put a strain on your lower back and cause back pain. Try to ensure that they aren’t.

Passenger comfort

Backseat passengers often can’t lower their seat and have much less space, as such, they may often have their knees higher than the backside. As a result, they often end up with horrible lower back pain. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to improve the back seating. There are only two options to improve passenger comfort. Firstly, take frequent breaks. This ensures that passengers can get out and stretch their legs. This can help prevent or alleviate back pain. Secondly, don’t let anyone hog the front passenger seat. Let everyone take frequent turns sitting in the front so that they can sit upright and stretch their legs out a little more.

2. Insulating Your Car Against Outside Noise

Another annoyance on car trips will be the ambient outside road noise. It may be negligible at first. But with all things, as the hours go on, it quickly becomes an irritant. Thankfully, there are many different ways you can insulate your car from outside noises. Here's a list of the best options:

3. Comfort Accessories

An absolute need when on a long car trip is music. If you want to play your own music throughout the trip, you’d need an audio jack or a Bluetooth receiver. Both of them would allow you to connect your smartphone to your car to play music. Additionally, you would also want an in-car charger because your phone is bound to run low on battery. If you need your phone for navigation, you might also want to get a mount to hold your phone up.

If you’re travelling with kids, other great accessories would be an iPad headrest mount. This can serve as a placement for your kids’ iPad. You can then play movies or cartoons on it for them to watch. A travel tray is another great idea as it can serve as a place for your child to play with his toys on. Or they can do colouring on the tray. Lastly, window shades would be a great idea too as they can protect them from the sun.

4. Taking Frequent Breaks

Breaks are an important way to keep everyone in the car sane. Getting out of the car and moving around will help to ensure everyone doesn’t end up with aching backs. If you have children with you, this is also important as they’d need to expend some of their energy. Therefore, a good gauge is to have a fifteen-minute break every two hours. During these breaks, always remember to use the toilet, stretch and move around. If you stop at a gas station, it would be a good idea to get snacks too!

Conclusion

Road trips are meant to be a fun time. With these tips, we hope you can make your road trips more comfortable and hence, turn them into enjoyable experiences with family or friends.

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Published: 25-Feb-2021

Author: Jake Hughes
photo of Jake Hughes

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