Do you remember the feeling you had when you were first practising for your driving test in a used Peugeot?
In all likelihood, you felt excited, enthusiastic, and optimistic – and were looking forward to all of the great freedom, autonomy, and fun of having your own vehicle and being able to hit the open road whenever you felt like it.
In all likelihood, you felt excited, enthusiastic, and optimistic – and were looking forward to all of the great freedom, autonomy, and fun of having your own vehicle and being able to hit the open road whenever you felt like it.
For many drivers, however, the experience of driving becomes significantly more stressful somewhere along the way – with driving becoming less about taking a hold of different opportunities, and enjoying the experience itself, and becoming more about being stressed out in rush-hour traffic, and trying to make the daily commute on time.
With the right approach, and the right steps, however, you can proactively rediscover the joy of driving and can have a lot more fun whenever you set out for a journey. Here are a few suggestions that might be worth trying out.
Regularly make time to drive to interesting locations simply for the pleasure of the experience.
If you only ever really drive a certain predetermined route – such as to and from your job, and between your house and the local supermarket – it’s natural that the process of driving will just end up being a pretty mundane and unconscious thing that you do in order to handle your daily chores and obligations.
One of the best things you can do to actively rediscover and reconnect with the joy of driving, is to regularly make time to drive to interesting locations simply for the pleasure of the experience.
This could involve anything from weekend trips to an interesting natural landmark, to the occasional road trip with family or friends for an out of the way concert, celebration, or vacation.
Simply driving as a leisure activity rather than as a mundane chore can go a long way towards reminding you of the fact that driving can actually be something that you do for fun, rather than just being a purely utilitarian exercise.
Consider trying out new types of vehicles that you haven’t yet driven.
If you’ve only ever really driven one type of vehicle – or even just one specific vehicle – it might be that trying out other types of vehicles could significantly increase your enjoyment of being on the road.
It might be that driving a different vehicle makes you more mindful of the process of driving again, and that this causes you to feel more engaged and excited. Or it could also be that you find driving a different type of vehicle innately more fun, satisfying, and rewarding.
It could be that buying a motorcycle and investigating motorcycle insurance could cause you to gain a whole new sense of excitement and engagement with the process of driving. Or it might be that upgrading to a larger vehicle that has more room for groceries and passengers makes driving feel less stressful to you, and therefore more enjoyable.
In any case, you don’t necessarily need to buy a new vehicle in order to see whether driving a different kind of vehicle would lead to a more positive and joyful driving experience. You could simply get a rental car when on vacation in order to see how it feels.
Cars – and vehicles in general – often seem to have different personalities all of their own. If you’re not currently enjoying driving, there is a significant chance that the type of vehicle you’re driving just isn’t the right fit for you.
Make driving less stressful by getting enough rest, and allowing enough time for your journey .
In many cases, a major factor that reduces people’s ability to enjoy the activity of driving is simple exhaustion paired with a lack of proper planning, with regards to journey time.
If you are regularly tired when you are driving – and are stressed that you won’t make it to your destination within the required timeframe – you are naturally going to be both distracted and agitated.
Not only does driving when tired make you a significantly more dangerous driver, but researchers have found that sleep deprived individuals are also significantly more paranoid, and more readily rate neutral faces and behaviours as having hostile intent.
When you combine this with the anxiety that comes with trying to make it from point A to point B in a limited timeframe, it’s no wonder that so many cases of road rage regularly occur.
Simply taking steps to get a better night’s sleep, and allowing extra time for your journeys, can help you to manage to “smell the flowers,” so to speak, when on the road.
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One of my favorite drives to take out of town visitors to is near Los Anegles going from the 101(where the exit is is called Las Virgines) South toward the ocean. First you see lots of drop-offs on one side and cliffs on the other side then shoot through s tunnel, then only a couple miles or so you see the last mountain ahead silhouetted by the sea. On that last mountain there used to be a house shaped like a castle and I played a good joke on a Japanese visitor when he said “who’s house is that?” I replied “The King of Malibu” and he believed me for a while,
That drive, where you emerge from cliffs, mountains a tunnel to see the shining sea is always invigorating, no matter what the car. Of course it was best in my long lost GTC/4 trough the tunnel, at 8000 rpm