Very often that Malaysian would travel back to the hometown or Malays would usually say ‘balik kampong’ especially during festival time. Most of us will choose to drive with our own car, which will be more convenient and economy. Some of us might complain that travel on the road could be a nightmare when come to the situation of traffic jam on the road, which could make you stuck in the middle of highway for 5 – 10 hours.
So what are the things that you could do with your car interiors, a space that you spend so much of time, throughout the driving journey? Here are some ideas that could help you at least to lessen your frustration and killing your boredom. Here are some suggestions of using few gadgets and some DIY tricks to improve the quality of your drive time.
- USB Power Multiplied
What to do with a USB Power Multiplied in our car? Nowadays tablet and smartphones replaced the traditional paper maps and directories, which is really convenient and beneficial. With just a simple search with WAZE app you are able to estimate the time to reach your destination However, we are still facing a problem that tablets and smartphones gulp down battery power on a long trip when the phone GPS. Most cars have just one USB power point for recharging your gizmos, and that’s not going to be enough for 10 hours and above road trip, or if you have a carload of people playing Poke Mon, COC, Candy Crash etc.
You can, however, add two additional (and more powerful) USB points to a cigarette lighter socket. There are a lot of shops out there sells plug-in unit with two 2.1-amp USB outlets, enough to charge even Apple’s power-hungry iPad. Cigarette lighter sockets can handle more than 10 amps, so this is a convenient way to make sure your camera, video game, MP3 player, and tablets stay charged during hours on the road, so you could to enjoy your long car travel journey.
- Floating Phone Holder
Since most of the people use WAZE or Google map apps for navigation, you will need to keep the phone within reach to limit the time your eyes are off the road. The best way we’ve found is to use a dedicated phone mount on a gooseneck, similar to the placement of a console shifter. Some of these mounts use flexible hydraulic tubing, but the ones we like use true gooseneck tubing. Some of them even have plastic conduit that can cover wires.
- Convenient Cup Holders
Many people would stop by petrol station or rest area to get a cup of hot coffee after few hours of driving to keep them awake while continue with the remaining journey. However, most of the default car cup holders are found annoying: Center-console-located cup holders block your arm during shifting, and door-pocket cup holders are too low to reach.
Hence to get a gimballed drink holders that you can mount high on the door panels of your car, which you would find is the most convenient place while you’re driving.
- Moveable Shade
Malaysian always complaint about exposing under the hot sun specially when driving, the UV could make us tiring and the sun light can temporarily blind you and you just can’t block it no matter you are driving a SUV, MPV or a truck. Get a windshield’s surface static to hold tinted plastic sheets to areas where the sun is shining in, where you could get this easily from car accessories shop. You can place these small, moveable sheets on the windshield or side windows to knock down the intensity of sunlight and save your eyes some strain.
- Cockpit Cargo Carriers
Most of the time you may have prepared gadgets, snacks, notepads, and other miscellany you want at the ready during a road trip. To make everything easier and handy, get a cockpit cargo carriers could always help you to keep extra stuff accessible which could be placed just under your knees; trunk cargo bins are too big for this space, but the kind of covered cargo carriers meant for the tiny cockpits of small airplanes fit perfectly here. Get the one which is designed to fit between the narrow seats, where you could fit to the front of your car’s seat to keep it in place.