The Southern Thing: Night Time Road Trip Essentials

While there are pros to making a road trip at night, such as less traffic, there are also cons. Driving long distances at night can be challenging for you to stay awake, especially if you've already had a long day. Sometimes you might not have a choice but to make your drive at night though, so you might as well make the most of it. Chris and I have made the 8 hour drive to Louisiana at night after a full day at work many times. There were times we made it with no worries, and then there were times where our car became the struggle bus and we had to pull over every 5 minutes just to stay awake. We became determined to never experience the latter again and have learned a few things along the way. Here are our night time road trip essentials that help make those over night drives a little more bearable:

If you're riding as a passenger at night while it's too dark to read a magazine or book and turning on the car light might distract the driver, streaming a movie on your phone is always a good option. If you're driving, consider playing a podcast out loud to keep you entertained for hours.

If you're a daily caffeine drinker, you probably won't want skip out on your intake the day of your road trip. If you don't usually drink caffeine, you may want to consider it this time. Be sure to drink it before you get on the road so it has time to kick in though, since traveling at night can be tricky. One minute you may feel completely awake and the next you can get tired out of nowhere. Since it's dark out, there's not much to see and you can quickly get bored with the drive.

Along with the obvious need for caffeine, peppermint essential oil is a great way to keep you alert and awake while you're driving. The dark sky will tempt you into falling asleep, but inhaling or diffusing some peppermint will perk you up. A mini USB diffuser is a great option for the car.

You can never go wrong with wearing something comfy. A pair of stretchy yoga pants and a comfy tee are always great choices, but you may want to consider a sweater as well since it may be cooler at night while the sun's down. It can never hurt to plan ahead when it's that time of the month either.

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