Listen to books on tape

Revised on Friday, June 27, 2008 by Herb

Since the driver and navigator can't pass the time on long drives reading a book, a great way to have those long hours fly by is to listen to a book on tape. We try to select something about the area we are traveling in--such as Tony Hillerman mysteries when we are traveling through the Southwest.

We're now using an IPOD to power the tunes throughout the motorhome and have changed updated our approach to the books on tape as well. Before a big trip, Lorry will search the local library for good books on tape, or more likely CD. I will load them on the computer and convert them using EAC and LAME to an MP3 files of a quality suitable for spoken voice. They then get loaded onto the IPOD. There is a little work involved, but we don't have to worry about getting them back to the library before they're due on the longer trips.

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Garth on June 26, 2008

Great idea that I think all road travelers should at least try this at least once. I am a marathon driver (1100 miles is a good day of driving for me) and my wife loves to keep me company and enjoy the scenery. We just got a travel trailer and can't wait to combine that with our bug to get out and about. My wife bought some audio books on one of our first long road trips when we were just dating and we have continued getting new ones for each trip we take. Everything from mysteries to histories to learning a new language. There is nothing like laughing with one another trying to get down the hardest words of a new language to keep you entertained. This is especially the case during some of the more monotonous stretches (i.e. El Paso toward San Antonio) or at night when you can't see that much.

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Herb on June 27, 2008

Hi Garth, I couldn't imagine 1100 miles in a day. My longest daily mileage was 900, and it was only because of a family emergency. I'm going to update this tip with our current approach which is converting Library books on CD, to MP3s, which then get loaded onto an IPOD. Thanks for the comment and safe travels with your trailer.

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Rob on July 18, 2008

We also bring the Mac along and download podcasts of our upcoming destinations, not to mention all sorts of other interesting spoken word audio content. Helps pass the time on the long drives getting out of Texas. WiFi seems to be in many cafes, Starbucks, commercial campgrounds and even some Colorado State Parks so its easy to update while we are on the road.

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