5 Tips for Traveling by Land

This is my entry to Techie She Lucky Blogger Weekly Giveaways Week 17. This week’s prize is $10 paypal credits from Mys of Written by Mys.

In this post, I will write about our 3-days weekend break. Last week, my family, together with 4 other family and friends, packed our bags and traveled out of our city. I would like to share some of our pictures and tips for traveling by land

Tip #1 Choose what is the best time to travel.  For me, I would like to travel by night or after midnight. One reason is the kids could just sleep through the duration of the trip. They are not as fussy, you know. Another reason is that it is colder to travel at night and there are no traffic. But then, be sure to consider that the one driving, in this case my husband, should have had time to sleep prior to the trip. Otherwise, he might fall asleep while driving. If you like sightseeing though, you may want to travel by day.

We left our house at 2:00 am. The kids immediately went to sleep because they felt like being rocked/swayed to sleep in the car. The trip was 4-5 hours long traveling at an average speed of 100-110 kph. My husband tried hard not to fall asleep. Stopping at intervals in gas stations, sipping a cup of coffee, helped keep him awake. At sunrise, this is the sight that awakened us. It's very rare that I get to see this and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Sunrise

Tip #2 Be sure to know your destination.  People used to rely on road maps when traveling. But today, there is a more high tech solution to knowing the way to your destination. Using a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, a person can know the twists and turns to get to his destination.

Two of our friends have a GPS gadget. They only need to input the coordinates of our destination and it shows them where to go. With this gadget, for sure, you will reach your destination. If you make a wrong turn, it will automatically recalculate and direct you back to the right way. The only downside is if you don't know the place you're going, even if you have this gadget, at times you don't get to use the shortcut. We actually went through different paths during our travel even if we're supposed to go to the same destination simply because we followed the lead of the GPS receiver.

GPS receiver. Image from Wikipedia.

Tip#3 It is better to travel in a caravan. If you can get other people to join you in your getaway, it is much better. Not only would it be twice the fun bonding with other people while visiting new places, but also, if ever something goes wrong, you can have someone to help you.  It happened that one of the vehicles in our caravan had a problem with its alternator. It is a good thing that we are together because the passengers of that car got to ride in the other vehicles.

Tip #4 Bring what you need in the car. For a long drive with kids on board, it is a must to bring food and drinks in case they get hungry in the middle of nowhere. We also brought some pillows to make lying down more comfortable. For emergency calls of nature, we also brought a portable urinal and potty. You just don't know if you will reach the next gas station before the kids say they have to go. Stopping anywhere along the way may not be advisable also.

Tip #5 Don't forget to bring your camera. Who wouldn't want to take shots of the beautiful places visited with the wonderful people in your life? Also, there may be some really interesting sights to see. Here are some of the shots I've taken along the way using my Olympus Point and Shoot camera. You don't get to see desert mountains everyday. We also visited one of these up close and went inside its caves. It was really an awesome work of nature!

Desert mountains.

The teens who went with us to see the desert mountains up close.

The kids enjoyed going inside the caves.

Exploring the caves. Some people call this Judas' caves.

We also went to the beach but since I enjoyed myself playing in the sand with my kids, I didn't take any pictures. My husband did with his camera but he hasn't had the chance to download them.

This is not the beach we went to but one that is along the way.

By the way, you might want to know the features of your camera so that you can take better shots. Most of my shots are very poor. I just edited it using Lightroom to make it look better. I wish I had used my husband's DLSR to take some of the shots like this far-away group of camels.

Yup! These are camels. They are so far away that they were so blurred. Got it to look better-using Lightroom.

Lastly, don't forget to charge your camera batteries. Our weekend was tiring, but we had great fun.