Be warned: I think I’m Christina Aguilera on the road.

I’ve driven across and around and up and down the length of North America. The road is seductive enough on its own, but part of the fun is in those quirky road tripping habits formed over countless journeys. Sure I can, and have, made a few trips with the sole necessities that I need to survive, but my trips just seem a little more luxurious with the biggest creamiest frappe from a roadside fuel station – and they seem a little freer belting to Christina Aguilera on the top of my lungs with no one to judge my blown notes. How, you may ask, can one eject a Bauhaus CD and switch immediately to Christina Aguilera and reconcile the differences? It’s just a small part of the freedom of road tripping alone. I can wear next to nothing and drive with my shoes off with one foot up on the driver’s seat. I can air my frustrations about Politics and discuss the deepest existential crises to no one but myself, my vehicle, and the wind.

My first experience with road tripping was when I was 4 years old and my aunt buckled me into the backseat of the car to drive from Pennsylvania to her timeshare in Florida. At that young age I realized that there was a whole repertoire of road tripping behaviours unique to each family or individual. A road trip in my aunt’s car could not be forged without an endless supply of strawberry licorice and Pringles. (Ah Pringles, is there anywhere in the world where they are not sold?) It may have been too early for Christina Aguilera, but I can blast you with every Oldies or Doo-Wop tune thanks to those early road trips with my aunt.

There is a personal freedom in solo travel, and it even makes room for those quirky bizarre behaviours that wouldn’t otherwise surface when travelling with a companion. What are your quirky road rituals?