When traveling by car, there are very few things more frustrating than being caught in traffic for long periods of time. Accidents and roadworks can lead to extensive delays and regularly bring traffic to a standstill. If you’re traveling far, this can be even more frustrating as your journey time was already long. Adding a few more hours to this time, hardly moving anywhere, or even just being stationary for this time can be mind-numbing for both a passenger and a driver. At times like this, where there are no solutions, such as being able to turn back or turn onto another road and find another route, you’ll want to find something to occupy your mind. To help you with this, we’ve listed seven things you can do while stuck in a traffic jam to help pass the time and reduce stress.
Read A Book Or Magazine
Reading is a great way for you to pass the time, and it’s recommended to always
have some form of physical reading material with you when going on long journeys in the event that something like this happens. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere also means that there’s a chance that you’ll have no or limited internet access too. This means that you won’t be able to download a book to read or even browse the internet. If you don’t have a book, it may be worth stopping at a gas station along the way and picking one up or, failing that, a selection of magazines.
Update Yourself On The News
If you have internet access, this process may be a lot less boring as you’ll have plenty of things to do. For example, you could browse the news and get updated on traffic news to better plan the rest of your journey and learn about what’s going on in the world, taking your mind off of the delay you’re experiencing. You could turn the radio on and get updates there if you don’t have internet access. If you tune into a local station, you’ll likely receive updates on when traffic will start to ease up and even find out what might be causing the problem in the first place.
Listen To Some Music Playlists
A great way to pass the time would be to sit back and listen to some of your favorite music. Whether connecting your music to the car’s sound system via aux or Bluetooth or simply putting your headphones on and listening quietly to yourself, you’ll find that the time can fly by much quicker if you focus on something like this. You can also use a playlist as a sort of timer too. If you know roughly how long the traffic jam will last, you can do some quick math to figure out which song you’ll get to for things to start moving again. This can alleviate some of the stress of sitting around waiting for things to progress.
Play Some Online Games
Another way in which you can cope with the waiting is to focus on something like a video game. If you’ve got a handheld games console with you, then that’s perfect. Alternatively, your smartphone can access a myriad of different games via your app store. You can also find lots of browser-based games which you can play, including online casinos, which can even lead to you winning some money. It’s important to know when you quit when playing online casino games, whether it’s blackjack or online slots. However, you can also find a number of great deals when signing up to an online casino, such as free spins and deposit bonuses, essentially providing you with free money to play. Find out about some of these deals via
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Play A Game With Other Passengers
To help everyone to make it through this traffic jam without being too bored, you could include everyone in a game together. You can find plenty of games online that you can all play together, such as quizzes and puzzles. These can keep the mind focused on something other than the stressful traffic jam and keep everyone entertained. You could make things more interesting by creating a reward of some kind for whoever wins the quiz. For example, whoever wins could be exempt from paying for the next meal you share, or everyone has to buy them a drink at some point in your journey. You could also just make up some games to play with everyone, too. You could ask each other trivia questions to see who can catch everyone else out or even classics like I Spy.
Plan The Rest Of Your Trip
You can also spend this time planning out the rest of your journey. If you’re on a road trip, for example, there may be lots of things you’ve planned to do as a group, but you might not have fleshed out the details yet. Spend this time getting a better understanding of what you’ll be doing and when. You can also look into booking things that need to be booked in advance and also spend time finding other interesting detours on your trip which might enhance the journey. Making an in-depth plan will also help you save time, increasing your plans’ efficiency. This could also help combat the time lost being stuck in a traffic jam.
Tune Into A Podcast
Sometimes you just need to break the silence, and one way of doing that is to listen to a podcast. Listening to a podcast with the other occupants of the car can also help stimulate conversation and somewhat take everyone’s mind off the delay. There are a lot of
benefits of listening to podcasts, and there are so many different types of podcasts out there, ranging from true crime to comedy and everything in between. Find something that everyone will enjoy listening to, or similar to listening to your music, listen alone via your headphones. Either way, the discussions had on these podcasts can quickly suck you in and stop you from thinking about the long traffic jam.
