Road Tripping: The Ultimate Mental Health Escape

When it comes to freeing your mind and your spirit, there are few better choices you can make than a well-planned road trip. Getting out on the open road, with a destination in mind but some freedom to stop along the way, can be a perfect way to leave the everyday behind for a day or so. If you “do” a road trip properly, it can be an unmistakable highlight for you and your family, or whoever comes along for the ride.

So what are the ingredients that make a good road trip? We’ll come to those in a moment, but let’s just get an idea of why a road trip is so pleasurable to begin with. It is a way of experiencing something new, and one of the ultimate examples of the old adage “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive”. Although choosing a suitable destination matters, it’s the getting there that is special. There’s a reason Ineos Grenadier dealers and other car lots sell their vehicles in the context of the open road. With a road trip, that love of the journey is at its best.

The freedom is a fundamental part of it

You can head off for a road trip with no particular destination in mind, if you want – although picking a specific destination can help with providing some structure to the day. There is always a quickest way to get somewhere, but taking that route is rarely the best way. A trip from A to B, when you have time and freedom to get there, is always best if it goes through some more scenic or interesting spots. Stopping in a charming village for lunch is better than picking up rapidly-maturing sandwiches from motorway services for a small fortune. And often, what you really remember from a road trip won’t be where you went, but what you saw on the way,

Make the journey the point of it all

While what is outside the car is pretty crucial to the trip, what goes on inside is also important. The point of taking a road trip to the Peak District, for example, is not solely to be in the Peak District, beautiful though it is. It’s the music you listen to, the conversations you have, the games you play and anything else you do to pass the time between stops. If you’re voyaging further afield, it can even be fun to pick up a local paper from each place you stop off in, making a visual record of the many stages of your trip.

And yes, it’s good to go somewhere nice

Wherever you live in the world, whatever your starting point is for a journey, there are sure to be places you’ve heard about and never seen. When you have time to spare and itchy feet, it’s an ideal opportunity to remedy that state of affairs. Even if you’re already on holiday in Prague, for example, there is the chance to make a 150-mile drive to Vienna. That’s about the same as a drive from London to Cardiff, for reference – but offers much greater difference from your starting point to the finish.

*This is a collaboration post