[dushmish]

Originally Posted by andyonwheels

Come December '13 and we embark on our epic 5k+, 16nights and 17 days roadtrip,

Dear Andy,

I travel with my 2 daughters aged 6 and 10. We face a similar challenge as yours. My take and solution is as below:

It is a road trip. Enjoy the road.
No reading in the car.
No playing board games in the car.
No watching videos or playing video games in the car.

Having said this, what we do to keep engaged as a family is as follows:

We observe and talk about the change in vegetation as we cross states.
We observe and talk about the change in terrain and soil as we drive.
We talk about the farm activities we see.
We stop and step in the farms to interact with the farmers and see the crops closely. We have plucked sunflowers, waded through rice fields, plucked cotton pods, had self plucked corn on the cob (bhutta) in a farm and many more such things.
We talk about the various irrigation facilities and observe the ponds, lakes, rivulets, rivers, canals, etc.
We play word games (many available on net)
We play antakshari.
We tell stories about the areas we drive through. These are either history or political or culture.
We talk about the food habits of the people in the areas we drive through.
We talk about the material used for the construction of houses in villages and how it changes from one state to another.
We talk about the various businesses that flourish along the highway.
We observe the dresses folks wear along the highway.
We listen to some (very little) music. No iPods or personal music players.
We discuss the plan for the trip/drive.
Places to stay/eat/breaks.
We Carry 3 cameras. One canon point and shoot, one in my phone (Galaxy Grand) and one in my daughters' samsung tablet. We cick a lot of pictures. And encourage the girls to click pictures and rcord videos.

The GPS and maps keep us busy at times.
Yes we have tried to make a full flat bed on the rear seat. Works well in long drive.
We do not eat stuff like Lays, Kurkure, etc, No Pepsi/Coke during the drives.
We carry Chakli, banana chips, khakra, mathri, roasted chana, peanuts, dry fruits with us. Carry 3 circular boxes. Keep emptying the munchies in these boxes as they get over. At any given time kids will have 3 options to choose from. We buy fruits along the way. Carry Amul chhaas and lassi. A 20 litre Bisleri carboy with faucet in the boot. We avoid buying 1 litre bottles. Saves money and reduces plastic waste. Whenever the 20 litre jar gets over we exchange it for a new one. There are 4 bottles in the car, one for each member and 2 extras.

Most of the talking is done by my wife and I. The kids ask a lot of questions.
The deal is that it is a family road trip and therefore we have to be with each other and not with books, iPods, tablets, etc. Also if we are going by road, we want to learn about life along the road, else we would just take a flight.

To some it might seem a lot of restrictions. It works for us. As a family we try and learn new things on each trip. We also try and have new experiences along the way.

Hope this helps. Wish you a safe and enjoyable drive!

Cheers,
D

[andyonwheels]

Originally Posted by dushmish

Hope this helps. Wish you a safe and enjoyable drive!

Thanks for taking time to share your views. And I think this does more than just helping. It shares a perspective that I think and feel many should consider and follow. I will pitch these ideas back home.
It is already a great feeling to discuss the long trip like a team with family members and allowing everyone to throw in ideas.

Every morning i step out on the road, i take a whiff and imagine myself embarking on our epic trip and some soothing music setting the mood for things look forward to!

Thanks again! Great post! Infact - should be a thread in itself!

[gadadhar]

How about adding a hammer with a pointed end to the list, thought is after reading about the recent Volvo fires. May help in case of mishaps involving water where power windwos and doors are jammed, but not sure how easy it is to break open a car windshield or other glasses with a hammer

[kishgator]

Originally Posted by gadadhar

How about adding a hammer with a pointed end to the list, thought is after reading about the recent Volvo fires. May help in case of mishaps involving water where power windwos and doors are jammed, but not sure how easy it is to break open a car windshield or other glasses with a hammer

AFAIK, the rear window of a car (or any other passenger vehicle) is the weakest link, during an emergency all you have to do is to lie down on the back seat and kick the rear window out, prefarably with both legs. its designed to be opened (or kicked out) during emergencies by an adult.

[TaureanBull]

I have this nifty thing from Motocop.

http://www.snapdeal.com/product/moto...5-in-1/1410929

For emergency, it has a belt cutter and a pointed corner to break the window glass. Obviously, it has to be kept in the reach and not in the boot.

[us.dash]

Originally Posted by dushmish

Dear Andy,

To some it might seem a lot of restrictions. It works for us. As a family we try and learn new things on each trip. We also try and have new experiences along the way.

Hope this helps. Wish you a safe and enjoyable drive!

Cheers,
D

Great Ideas! I often travel with my one year old. I hope as he grows older, I would be able to practice some of the ideas you have mentioned.
I have the no video games and no videos rule too. If we are taking a road trip, let us enjoy the experience.

Cheers

[nda992]

Great to know that your trip is a ride through our country's culture and a lesson in rural management.
I will do the same the next time I move on a long journey, instead of just driving.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by swapnil.rahate

Off topic: Keep 2/3 2 liter bottles of water in your car just in case if your somebody vomits you can clean them. There is nothing around in chorla ghat.

Moved our discussion here.

The other things you can do:

- Carry those lemon/orange flavored peppermints. They really help in a big way.
- Keep a set of platic bags to be used as vomit bags.
- Three four sets of towels/clean clothes for a change over.
- Over all anything entertainment device which can divert attention

[JoseVijay]

How about carrying fuel (Diesel) in a 20 litre can?

Would that be any problem in case of police/RTO checks, especially in interstate drives?

I will be leaving for Chennai tomorrow. I am planning to take a 20 litre can filled with diesel in case of emergency.

[pratika]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

5) Keep checking the fuel level:Very important check fuel level & refuel it as & when possible unlike in city where you fill up at 'E' mark, also keep asking people how long is the next fuel station.

I often face a dilemma on long drives about whether a particular petrol pump may be safe to fill or if their fuel would have kerosene mixed. After all COCO pumps are rare on highways. And on some highway stretches petrol pumps dont show up for tens of kms so sometimes you have no choice to fill up at pumps even if they seem suspect.

So I started to use law of averages in my favour. Which means if my fuel gauge shows the car has 1/4th tank level of fuel and I spot a one off pump, I fill up to the point where the tank is half full. This means my car may, at worse, have 50% adulterated fuel as against 75% if I were to fill full tank at a suspect pump. Then later when I spot a good pump, I'd fill up the entire tank to bring down weightage of adulterated petrol further.

[Pottermore]

I faced a peculiar problem during my last road trip to Kerala. I wanted to badly stay in a beautiful resort amongst the cardamom plantation in Munnar , but as luck would have it , there was no phone connectivity( having no data is fine but even your phone did not work)

And with a heavy heart I had to look for an alternate accommodation.
In future, will always check for the same.

[virgopal]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Here is my stock of car medicines. All chosen, keeping the driver in mind - none to have a soporofic effect or leave any strong side-effects such as disorientation, etc.

Please see attached file.

HVK Sir,I am not able to open the cars medicines excel file.Has it been removed? Please repost,if you dont mind as it would be very useful
Thanks

[Saanil]

Hello,

I am posting here one of my posts from another thread as I found this thread later and I am not able to delete my earlier post. Below is the post from the thread:

Hello,

I will be making a Mumbai-Pune trip on Thursday and will be returning back to Mumbai the next day. I will be travelling with two friends of mine and will be driving my Sx4. My query is not related to the route but more on the lines of precautions to be taken for long drives. I do not drive a lot and do so mainly within the city, although I have done Mumbai-Lonavala route a few times. Not sure why but I become a bit tensed when I think about what would happen if my car were to break down on the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

I know it is a bit irrational for me to think so but probably I have never been in such a situation (where I am stranded on a highway), hence the stupid thoughts. I just wanted to know from experienced people here about the things one should do in case such a thing happens on the highway. Are there any contact numbers which I should keep in handy? Any other tips/suggestions on how to deal with the hypothetical situation would be greatly appreciated.

[deepv]

Originally Posted by virgopal

... medicines excel file.Has it been removed? ...

Virgopal,

Just checked out the post, the link to xls worked fine for me.
Saved the file from the link to my system, then used it.
Please try again.

Nevertheless, thanks for pointing out the post, its got great collection.

-Deepankar

[saket77]

Originally Posted by Saanil

I will be making a Mumbai-Pune trip on Thursday and will be returning back to Mumbai the next day. I will be travelling with two friends of mine and will be driving my Sx4. My query is not related to the route but more on the lines of precautions to be taken for long drives. I do not drive a lot and do so mainly within the city, although I have done Mumbai-Lonavala route a few times. Not sure why but I become a bit tensed when I think about what would happen if my car were to break down on the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

I know it is a bit irrational for me to think so but probably I have never been in such a situation (where I am stranded on a highway), hence the stupid thoughts. I just wanted to know from experienced people here about the things one should do in case such a thing happens on the highway. Are there any contact numbers which I should keep in handy? Any other tips/suggestions on how to deal with the hypothetical situation would be greatly appreciated.

Hello!

It is always there in the back of our minds that what if the car breaks down on the highway. Let me share some experience of mine of the days when my father used to drive a Fiat 1100D. We as a family used to frequently take the car to highway drives like Ranchi-Patna, Ranchi-Varanasi, etc. I have some memories of the car breaking down. Once a steering tie-rod joint broke on the highway which was one of the most frustrating breakdowns we ever had. My father had to get to the nearest city my public transport and get a mechanic and he carried the spares and all the required tools to change the part. Apart from this, we had fuel pipe leakages, charging systems failing, headlight piano switches burning, a steel rim giving up, and probably more. But hey, this was a 1967 car and all these happened in the 90s, which means the car's age was about 30 years by then, which is abnormally high. Plus, the technology today is much more advanced and reliable than what was in 1967. And to top that, you have got a Japanese car which are known to be reliable to the core. Just let me tell you, we got a Zen in 2002, and it has never failed/ broken down ever. I have clocked most of the miles on the highway and never it has let me down. Just last week, I completed over 1500 kms on my cars on higways with zero problems. Just carry basic stuff, drive safely, keep the number of service centers and helpline (written at many places on highways) and do not worry. Mumbai-Pune is relatively a short drive. Just keep a check on your speed.

If your car has a relatively trouble free history, just carry:

1. Basic tools,
2. Air compressor and a puncture repair kit if equipped with tubeless tires,
3. Fluids like brake fluid & engine oil.
4. Check if the spare tire is in good shape.
5. If you have some DIY skills, it's always a boon in all realms of life.

Check all fluid levels like coolant, engine oil, brake fluid, etc before embarking on the trip. Avoid a service just before the trip if the car is okay. And you should be fine to go. Have a nice drive and do let us know when you are back.

Regards.