Behind The Blog #28 – Driving to Nowhere

Behind the Blog is a meme to help bloggers connect their life and interests to the content showcased on their blog. The co-hosts, Faye, Kathe, and Melissa will provide a different topic, idea, or question every week that bloggers can relate to themselves and the books, films, or other media they find interesting!

Travelling is something that happens a lot as we get nearer to Christmas. Relatives going all over the place to stay in touch. So this week we’re talking about Road Trips. Are you someone that likes road trips? Do you have any great road trip stories to tell us all about? What about disaster stories? Do you prefer driving or being the passenger? Is music a must-have accompaniment for your drives? If yes, do you have any specific road trip playlists? Take this wide subject on its journey, and make it your own.
In relation to media; What books or films do you know and like that have road trips in them? Any that you want to watch or read but haven’t yet?

---

Driving is one of those tasks that I would struggle to live without. Ever since I was old enough to get a licence (which was 17 as I live in the UK), I got my provisional licence and learnt to drive. Less than a year later I had a full licence and my very own first car. Ever since then, I’ve been inseparable from my vehicle… or not that particular car as it turned out to be a money guzzler with the amount of times it broke down, but simply inseparable from driving in general. To me, driving means freedom to go where I want to go, when I want to go. No waiting on lifts from others or using public transport which is rarely reliable. But really, what I like about driving is the simple act of doing it. It has a way of just making me feel complete – as corny as that sounds. Therefore, it is no surprise that road trips are one of the things I love most. Me, driving my car for hours on end? It is extremely amazing.

When I was at university, I would often come home for the holidays or for other reasons, and that meant I would jump into my car and drive for three and a half hours straight. It was just me, the road, and my music blaring out full blast and I loved every minute of it! It was great to feel so at one with the road, and to just peter along at the speed limit to get to my final destination. No cares in the world except for keeping an eye on the other vehicles around me and not driving dangerously myself. But road trips alone, while extremely fun, sometimes hold nothing against road trips travelled with others.

My dream is that one day I will fly over to America with a few of my girl pals and we’ll rent a car and road trip across and around the states of America until we’ve all seen what we want to or have time for. We’d have the music blaring, the windows down, and we’d simply have a blast together. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet, but I have been on a few great road trips in my life. The one that sticks out most was one that I took with my best friend, Louise. We were travelling to Cardiff for the weekend and it was a journey that took us seven hours, which may not seem like a lot to some of you Americans who travel for days, but it was my longest car journey – that I was physically driving – and it was also the best. For the entire journey we had music blaring, we sung to each other, we had issues with the AC in the car, we missed our exit, we got lost when we reached Cardiff and we basically just had a lot of laughs. It is one road trip that I think will always stick in my mind.

On the other side of things, when I was younger, our holiday’s were also taken within the UK and that meant long road trips. When we went with our mum it would always be my little sister nabbing the front seat and me and my older sister sharing the back. At first there would be arguments but as the journey got on its way, me and my older sister would actually lie down on the back seat until our little sister would moan that we were more comfortable then she was – bearing in mind, we had all of our sleeping bags and pillows in the back with us too. We also sang, most likely off tune, the entire journey too until mum would turn the music on to “concentrate” on the road. It’s possible she may have had to concentrate, or more likely, she was fed up with our singing. And then, of course, there was always the chorus of “Are we there yet?”. But I also liked the road trips, even if by the end we were all tired, cranky and stressed!

Generally speaking, the best songs to listen to when driving fast down the motorway are fast-paced, loud singing, known songs. They’re usually pop songs or songs you know all the words too that you can belt out. There can be no quiet melodic songs that put you to sleep and certainly no classical ones! While I never have a specific playlist when I go on road trips, I always make sure I stick to these rules when turning on my iPod. The few singers that always happens to end up playing at some point on the journey are Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne. They are the kind of artists that you can belt out, and everyone just knows. They’re loud, fun, and just go so well when you’re driving for long periods of time.

Despite being a lover of road trips, I haven’t actually read many stories that have road trips in. I would love any suggestions that you can give me though!

Saving June by Hannah Harrington; I loved this book, it’s been mentioned in a few other BTB topics but the road trip part of this book was really great, I loved it.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling; I couldn’t go through this topic without mentioning the fun road trip that Ron and Harry take in their second year. After all, a car that flies? That’s totally worth mentioning!

We’d love to have you join us for Behind the Blog!

If you’re choosing to join us for Behind the Blog don’t forget to link up your post by using the Linky list below!

Are you joining us? Here are our rules:

• The hosts’ Behind the Blog posts go live at midnight on Friday, GMT+0:00. Feel free to post before that, just link up on Friday! 
• Feel free to make use of the button shown above, or if it clashes with your blog colours e-mail us or make your own.
• Read, write, and connect! The Linky is there for you. Make use of it!
• Last but not least, have fun!