How to Enjoy Family Road Trips this Year

Guest Blog #57, Entry #490, April 11, 2011

Whether you are getting ready for Spring Break or you are already thinking about Summer vacation, more and more families will hit the road to take their family vacations. i remember when I was young and the 1,800 mile, 3 day trip from Colorado to Pennsylvania was a regular trip that I dreaded!

Family road trips – plan for enjoyment

Image courtesy of Drive

Today, my Guest Blogger, Holly Adams from Coupon Croc. gives helpful tips to remember when traveling by car. Thank you “‘My Blog Guest” for supplying me with another great article. Use these tips before you head on your venture across the great roads of the world!

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Going on a road trip is an amazing experience. Whether you are making it with a friend, a group of friends, a significant other or maybe even alone, you better be prepared for plenty of time on the road. This may be hard for people who aren’t particularly fond of driving or of being in a car at all, but it is excellent news for people who love to drive, as we are sure many of you do.

How to Prepare for Road Trip Spending

The biggest money guzzle in a road trip is what you spend on gas. You can save on food by eating cheap and bringing food from home and you can stay on cheaper hostels and hotels to avoid spending too much money on your stay along the road. This can be achieved with careful planning – you can book a room online beforehand and get some nice discounts. There’s also the matter of tolls that you might have to pay on the highway but, again, that’s something that you can’t escape.

All things considered, you can’t escape the fact that you will be paying for gas either. What you can is try to reduce your car’s gas consumption in order to get better mileage. Were this an article giving general advice, we would advise you to get a car with better mileage, perhaps a hybrid or a diesel even, since these are known for their reduce gas consumption. We would also talk about how smaller cars tend to have better mileage, and so on. But since this is specified towards road tripping, we’ll stick to operational advice.

Make your family trip enjoyable

Image courtesy of the Cute Kid

Saving on gas starts before you even start driving. Make sure that the tires on your car are inflated to regulation and that there is nothing physically wrong with your car. Something as simple as a spark plug misfiring can have a negative effect on fuel economy.

A better fuel economy can be achieved simply by making small changes to the way you drive. People say that their mood affects fuel economy, and that is true to an extent. If you are stressed or in a hurry you tend to have harsher accelerations and push the car a little more. So drive in a relaxed way: ease the car to the desired speed instead of flooring the gas pedal. And remember that the faster you go, the more gas you’ll use up, and this is exponential to the speed you are at. For example, a car going at 200km/h will use up almost twice as much gas as one going at 160km/h – so, yes, keeping with the speed limit does pay off. And be smart when you’re in heavy traffic. A car will use up a lot more gas going from a standstill to moving than it will if it’s moving very slow. So instead of being right behind the car in front of you in traffic, try giving it a little more room so you can just continually drive very slowly and stop a lot less.

This post was written by Holly Adams from Coupon Croc. Check them out for a John Lewis discount code before you take any road trips.

For more family vacation ideas on Stagetecture, click here.