The Great American Road Trip should be fun, not so stressful that it’s headache-inducing. Here are 10 ways to make it the trip of a lifetime.
Road trips remain a great American past time — according to the American Express Spending and Saving Tracker about 47% of Americans plan to take road trips. All that traffic (plus your family crammed into a car together for 8-plus hours) can mean a stressful experience – and stress is one of the leading headache triggers.
So we’ve got 10 suggestions for planning a fun road trip:
Get your kids in on the plan.
Family trip? During the planning process, get the kids involved. Deciding the important roadside attractions that are worth a stop or picking the dinner spots may keep them more engaged in the trip — and hopefully less so in their gadgets.
Snack smart.
Part of the fun of road trips is indulging in the local food, which most likely includes a few guilty pleasures. But some of those eats might be migraine triggers for some people. For example, the nitrates found in hot dogs may trigger migraines, and the pickles piled high on your burger or sandwich can be high in tyramine, a compound in food that may trigger migraines. Find out more about diet and headaches.
Give everyone a job.
There are far more roles in the car than just driver and passenger. Assign one person to navigate, another to surf their smartphone for cool stops along the way, a third to be in charge of snack distribution, and a fourth to take photos from the trip. Encouraging the kids to keep a travel scrapbook—collecting ticket stubs, postcards and pamphlets—is also a great way to keep them in the moment.
Go beyond the book.
Guidebooks are great but focusing on them exclusively may cause you to miss out on smaller attractions or local just-for-the-weekend events. Search the internet for mentions of the towns you’re passing through; you may find a festival or parade that’ll help break up the journey.
Drink up.
Salty snacks might be a road trip staple but be careful of dehydration. You know the laundry list of reasons why you should be drinking more water — it helps flush out toxins, maintain the balance of body fluids, and so on. But if you’re a migraine sufferer, you could be more sensitive to dehydration. Make sure to regularly grab water on breaks and have easily accessible water bottles in the car. Lean more about how much water to drink to avoid dehydration headaches.
