Last week I offered some tips related to travel courtesy. This week I give you the first of a two-part series of my tips for assuring your travel comfort.
Travel Comfort
- Most RV mattresses aren’t as comfortable as your bed at home. Adding an eggshell foam mattress, placed with the smooth side up, makes sleeping more comfortable. – Louis and Ann Beeler, Salome, AZ
- To decrease the heat/cold transmitted through the bath skylight, solar windshield covers for cars can be trimmed and attached with Velcro. Clean the area for the Velcro with rubbing alcohol to increase the adhesiveness. – Karl M. Green, M.D., Westminster, MD
- If your bed mattress shifts on its wood platform while you’re traveling over bumpy roads and during sudden stops, place a piece of rubberized matting between the platform and the mattress. This will eliminate your having to push the mattress back into position after a day’s travel. You can buy the matting at carpet stores and RV dealers.
- When riding through monotonous rocky formations that go on for miles, challenge your and your children’s imaginations to identify images such as cathedrals, whales or pyramids. Or if a highway runs on for miles lined with trees, look for hues of green and other colors, textures, shadows, and lines as if you wanted to paint the details of what you see. It will bring interest and excitement to even a “dull” scene. Look for wildlife, too.
- Take breaks—whether that means stopping at a rest area, taking a walk along the beach, or having lunch.
- Be sure to include some no-travel days. Don’t try to crowd too many miles or activities into the time available. You need time to rest and catch up with chores (and yourself).
- A shopping center or Wal-Mart parking lot is a good place for a rest stop on a secondary road that does not have designated rest or picnic areas.
- Passengers can do many things to keep from getting bored during a long day of travel: do handiwork such as knitting or crocheting or cross-stitching, listen to the radio, play games that don’t distract the driver, write in a journal, browse tour books and maps, or listen to audiobooks from the library (with a headset, if desired). You may even voluntarily give the driver a neckrub or backrub. Sitting still and putting off doing activity creates fatigue and boredom.
Stay tuned for more tips on travel comfort in this series next week.
Happy travels and I’ll be back with more.
Bernice