FHM Supplement - How to Plan a Road Trip

About this supplement
STEPPING OUT
How to Plan Your Next Rip-Roarin’ Romp on the Road
by Stephanie Dychiu

So you’ve finally worked up enough nerve to get off your lazy ass and hit the open road. A road trip is the beginning of the unknown and the start of a new dawn, the excitement of the chase and a move into the unexpected. However, before you get carried away with your own poetic lines, there is plenty to do to ensure things remain under your control and you have a good time. Preparation is a good thing and should smooth out the hassle of a bad beginning.


Choosing a destination
You can’t get to where you’re going if you don’t know where to go, genius. Figure this out by asking yourself why you want to go on a road trip. What do you want to get out of it? Are you simply out for a weekend of aimless fun and frolic, or are you searching for something more specific? We suggest organizing your trip around a theme to make it more focused and memorable:

Retrace your roots. Return to the old provincial house where your parents grew up and imagine how life was when they were your age. Look up old neighbors, friends, and teachers who knew them back then and ask what they were like. Unless, of course, you’d rather not know.

Take a food trip. Be a true-blue road hog and make eating your sole reason for traveling. Go on a noble quest for the best roadside bulalohan in Batangas . . . and pray the cholesterol doesn’t kill you so you can live to tell about it. But hey, you only live once.

Pursue a personal interest. Spend your holiday learning a new skill or researching a project. Weekend surfing and sailing lessons are offered in La Union and Subic. Or you might want to get ideas for building your dream house by photographing Spanish-era structures in Vigan and Taal town.

Other practical considerations before deciding on a destination:

Budget. Everything begins and ends with how much money you’re willing to spend. From gas, to food, to hotels, toll, entrance fees and late-night drinking sprees, you’ll be shelling out all the way. Always travel within your means and set aside enough for emergencies—like landslides on a major mountain road that can leave you and your car stranded for a day or two.

Weather. Like we said, landslides . . . oftentimes, they are triggered by heavy rainfall. Floods and blow-your-butt-away winds can also put a major damper on road trips (and on your budget).

Road conditions. Unless you’ve got the patience of an Easter flagellant, it is best to avoid areas undergoing major road construction or repair. You may also want to keep your shiny new shock absorbers as far away as possible from very rough, unpaved roads.

Religious and cultural festivals. It’s really up to you. Some people actually like to join in the crush of merry-making. Others would rather head for the hills and be anti-social. Either way, it would be good to know of any major events in places you plan to visit, especially when the events in question include a mass circumcision-cum-batchoy festival.

Time. Road trips are not exactly the fastest way to get from one point to another, so if you’ve got a co-dependent boss who suffers from serious separation anxiety, you might want to rethink your plans. Save long drives for seasons when you can take longer leaves--no one wants to invest 12 hours of driving on an overnight destination. But then again, you may just want to tell your boss to go to hell. It happens.

Choosing companions
Don’t waste your hard-earned gas money and precious vacation leaves on the right trip with the wrong crowd. It’s better to go at it alone (or stay home knitting) if you can’t find the right travel partner. Sit your comrades down and go through this questionnaire to find out if you’ll still be bosom buddies when you’re tired, hungry, dirty, and trapped in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire and no spare.

1. What is the total amount of money you plan on spending for this trip?
2. What are the places you’d like to see and the activities you’d like to do?
3. How much time do you expect to spend by yourself? With the group?
4. Do you expect the group to eat every meal together?
5. What type of food will you absolutely not eat?
6. How will you feel if members of the group become romantically involved during the trip? (Assuming it’s not with you, in which case check for a big “L” on your forehead.)
7. What type of accommodations and bathroom situation are you expecting?
8. What time do you prefer to wake up in the mornings? Go to bed at night?
9. To what extent are you willing to engage in strenuous physical activity (we mean hiking and carrying heavy gear over long distances, this is not a follow-up to question 6)?
10. In case an emergency situation arises, what can you contribute to help the group (aside from moral support)?

Honest and open communication at the planning stage ensures no one gets voted out by the end of the trip. Especially not you.

Final reminders
Everything’s all set, you’re really raring to go! Make sure you’ve got all of the following before heading out the door:
- First-aid kit with iodine (good for treating wounds and disinfecting drinking water), bandages, anti-histamines, paracetamol or ibuprofen, anti-diarrhea tablets, oral rehydration salts, and no-drowse anti-motion sickness tablets. Stay off the “medicinal” brandy.
- Car toolkit
- Spare tire
- Flashlight with spare batteries
- Cell phone and charger
- Valid car registation, auto insurance policy, and driver’s license
- Maps
- Money and credit cards (duh!)
- Luggage

That’s about it, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Go well and stay well!


EASY RIDERS
Save yourself from grumbling and gripe-fests from the tollbooth to the boondocks. Here’s how to keep your passengers happy during the long ride.

Audio books. Audio books are a great way to help everyone forget they’re cramped and bored in the car. Go for fiction titles, not cheesy motivational tapes. Don’t play the entire book uninterrupted during the ride. Pause periodically to discuss everyone’s thoughts on the unfolding saga, and what they think will happen next. Whodunnits are most fun for this activity. If you have children (or childish adults) in the car, Disney audio tapes are a sure winner (you’ll just have to put up with the singing).

Karaoke Klub. The night before the trip, instruct everyone to bring along a tape or CD for impersonating their favorite singer. They can even dress up like him or her if they want. At the start of the ride, play the DJ and pretend you’re hosting a variety show. Interview your “guest stars” about their latest shows and movies before letting them perform. But ask yourself: which is better, a 6-hour-long stream of complaints, or your tone-deaf friend singing Abba?

Twenty Questions. Let one person think of something that falls under any of three categories which the group can decide on (for instance: NBA stars, action stars, porn stars), then have him write it down on a small piece of paper. The others can then take turns trying to figure out what he wrote by asking questions answerable by Yes or No. For example, if the category is sexy stars, the first player can ask, “Has she been on the cover of FHM?” Whenever the answer is Yes, that same player can continue asking questions that will help him guess the right answer. If he asks a question to which the answer is No, his turn passes on to the next player. The maximum number of questions that can be asked by the group collectively is twenty. Then a new person will begin another round by writing another word on the piece of paper.

(This article originally appeared in Petron Rover, an FHM supplement, in April 2002.)