These are the Rules of Amazing Road Trips

Quickly, which are the moments you'll remember the most? I bet it won't be the moments that you spend sitting in your cushy tour bus looking out a glass window, having your tour guide announce the sights in front of you. No - I bet they'll be the moments you spend out in the middle of nowhere, looking out into vast fields of absolutely nothing, spent in silence with people who you have somehow come to know, love, and trust.

The best travel moments aren't even the most iconic ones.

The best travel moments are the ones that you know can only belong to you.

This is why a lot of people consider road trips the best way to see the world. You're off somewhere - often in the middle of nowhere - and there doesn't seem to be anyone near you for miles and miles around. There's the earth - vast, wide expanses of lush, green grass and trees - and the sky - so endless, so infinite and boundless. And if even for a fraction of a second, you realise that we humans are so small and tiny and insignificant, and our insignificance is beautiful.

Perhaps one of the most unbelievable things about your particular situation might be that you are in a country in Central Europe, better known for its gruesome WW2 history than its surreal green summers. You might even ask yourself, "What did I do right that I wound up here?"

Have a fantastic partner

One of the most essential things to a great road trip is, of course, having a fantastic partner. Partners are crucial - these are the people you'll be spending 24 hours a day with, for however long your road trip takes. It is essential that your partner get along. (It also helps if you have the same taste in music, especially if your taste in music is similarly ridiculous, like playing Le Festin from Ratatouille on repeat even though you're nowhere near Paris.)

Here is my Polish road trip partner, Adeline. There are many like her, but this one is mine.

Adeline sometimes runs off into the tall grass and sunsets.

We spent our entire road trip sleeping in our car, shielding the windows with clothes hung up like laundry and spending more time than I'd like to admit searching for gas station showers so that we could have at least some semblance of hygiene.

Having a great road-trip partner is so important because travelling together can make or break your friendship. If you aren't better friends by the end of your trip, it's probably because your friendship fell apart doing it. But if you find a travel partner who's willing to be sticky and stinky and sweat it out in the middle of a Polish summer with you, you better hold on tight cos you got yourself a treasure.

Don't follow all the rules

Okay, I know this post is called 'Rules of Amazing Road Trips', but really, aren't all rules kinda made to be broken? If your map tells you to turn right, turn left; if your GPS tells you to take a particular road but your gut instinct figures there must be a short-cut, take the short cut. Yes, it's sometimes a stupid thing to do - more than once we've gotten ourselves stuck in tall grass and almost unable to get out of a pretty frightening situation - but it's only when your adrenaline starts pumping that you realise you must be well and truly alive, because your fear takes over and you start thinking you might just die.

Just make sure that you're smart about when to follow the rules and when not to. Sometimes it's okay to get yourself stuck, but always - always know when to turn back when it's time to turn back.

If you're lucky, your risk-taking might be rewarded with beautiful views something like this one.

Sometimes, driving wildly off-route can lead to picture-perfect ponds.

Treat yourself

Even the most hardheaded of roadtrippers needs a coffee break. Go ahead and take one. You've been driving for easily 10 hours, you're tired and exhausted and your legs need a stretch. Pull up into the next town and take a couple of hours away from the wheel, looking out into the harbour in silence. You deserve it.

While you're there, you might as well take a stroll around the harbour too. Road trips are awesome, but sometimes when you look at other modes of transport, you might find yourself wondering if a boat trip on your very own private yacht might not be such a bad idea either. Boat trip next time, maybe?

Just remember to feel guilty when you return to your car afterwards and think about how loyal and trusty she's been, getting you from one place to the next. Almost every road trip involves a slightly overenthusiastic degree of fondness for your rented vehicle, who you by now have no doubt named and talked to on numerous occasions.

Take it as it comes

This is probably the most important one of all. Road trips are all about letting go, and this means that it's perfectly okay if your drive gets suddenly blocked by a herd of cows standing in the centre of the road. Yes, really. And if that happens, it's perfectly okay to make silly mooing noises, wait for the cows to move, and generally be quite amused by your drive being stopped by cows instead of heavy downtown traffic.

If you have a great road trip partner, you may even start checking out cow butts, just for the hell of it.

Probably some of the most memorable moments of my Polish road trip involved, in no particular order:

Sleeping under the stars in a rural area so dark you could see the Milky Way,
Driving towards the primeval European forest Białowieża near the border with Poland and Belarus in the middle of the night,
Seeing deer by the roadside just as we we're talking about the improbability of seeing deer on our drive,
Later becoming totally lost in said primeval forest while looking for European Bison (we didn't find any), and
Endless hours talking about life, the universe, and everything with my awesome road trip partner. (More on this later.)

Sounds crazy? Awesome, I thought so too. But the crazy randomness of these moments is what makes them so great. After all, you're not really rushing anywhere are you? So go out there, get lost, have fun. and watch the different colours of grass paint the world a work of art.