Planning a road trip? Take along a wide mouth water bottle filled with ice
Are you planning to take a road trip in the not-so-distant future?
If so, you'll need to make sure you stay hydrated on your trip in order to maintain your health and stay alert while you're driving.
I take frequent 2-3 hour trips and I often find that I get thirsty along the way. I'm guessing you do as well.
You might be tempted to stop along the way and pick up a soft drink to sip on while you drive, but I have a suggestion for you...
Take along a wide wide mouth water bottle filled with ice instead.
As the ice melts it will turn into ice cold drinking water, which has the following advantages over soft drinks:
1 - Ice water is better at quenching thirst than soft drinks.
Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other soft drinks contain sodium. And guess what? Sodium makes you thirsty.
That's why drinking a soft drink to quench your thirst doesn't really work.
Yes, it'll take away the thirsty sensation for a short while, but the sodium you just ingested will make you thirsty again in no time.
2 - Ice water doesn't contain caffeine.
As you probably know, caffeine is a diuretic. That means drinking a caffeinated drink will cause you to have to stop for a bathroom break sooner than if you'd drank the same volume of water.
3 - Your water will remain ice cold until it (and all the ice) is all gone.
Ice tends to melt slowly when there's a bunch of it and it isn't completely submersed in liquid. That means you'll be able to sip on cold water from the melted ice for a good long while.
In fact, if your drive will only last a couple of hours you'll probably have ice water to sip on throughout the entire trip!
4 - Ice water is (almost) free.
If you fill your water bottle with ice from your own refrigerator you'll end up paying close to nothing for it.
That means you'll have virtually free ice water to enjoy while you're cruising down the highway.
And guess what? Virtually free ice water is a LOT cheaper than a $2 soft drink!
Note: If you don't like the taste of plain ice water, you can always add a packet of fat free, sodium free and sugar free flavored water mix to it.
Bottom line: I know you probably love drinking your favorite soft drink. I'll admit that I do too.
But I can tell you that my frequent road trips are a lot more enjoyable overall when I leave the sodas at home and travel with an ice-filled water bottle instead.