Travel in comfort: tips from the winner of the iPad Lifehack contest

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Denis Maltsev, the winner of the "Send a Lifehacker for a Weekend and Get an iPad mini" contest, spends a lot of time behind the wheel and knows how to make the trip better. All you need is a good car, pleasant conversation and savings. Denis tells the readers of Lifehacker how to find a combination of these factors.

BlaBlaCar is a service that helps the driver to find passengers and recoup the cost of gasoline, and passengers find a driver and save money. BlaBlaCar focuses on long-distance travel.

In the spring, I moved my wife and daughter on vacation from Yekaterinburg to Serov, then I thought about trips to them for the weekend. This is 700 kilometers of track and one and a half thousand rubles, poured into the tank of the car. The solution was to register on the BlaBlaCar website.

For the first time, I created a trip on the BlaBlaCar service website on the eve of departure and did not hope to find fellow travelers. But in two hours, three free places were occupied. Over the next four months, I saved 17,000 rubles and traveled 6,000 kilometers. Carried 40 passengers - so much can be accommodated by a regular bus.

Road stories

I use BlaBlaCar as a driver and go to visit my family. I know that I will get from Yekaterinburg even to Vladivostok, or even to Kaliningrad and not spend a dime on gasoline. Each time I ask myself the question: "Who will keep me company?" Traveling is like traveling with friends. Most of my fellow travelers are pleasant, sociable people; gloomy silent people rarely come across.

On the first trip, 18-year-old Ilya was traveling with me. He plays defense for the youth team of the football club of his hometown Ural, whose matches I have been watching for nine years. We talked about the limit on legionnaires and football agents.

Another time I was taking my girls home to Yekaterinburg. My wife asked to take a fellow traveler, because we had one free seat. I drove up to Oleg's house and saw a tanned man with a snow-white smile. By the standards of the provincial Serov, he looked bold: fashionable trousers and brick-colored moccasins. The wife said that Oleg is a local entrepreneur. Two years ago, he sold off assets, immigrated to Italy and took up gardening. From a conversation with him, I learned that buying a house on 2 hectares of land in the vicinity of Rome is cheaper than buying a house on 20 hectares in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg. We talked about ways to clean swimming pools, the tourism business and breaking the Russian mentality abroad. Oleg, as a token of gratitude, gave me a lemon from his Italian plantation.

Fellow traveler Nikolay has been using BlaBlaCar as a passenger for a year. Every weekend he travels the route Yekaterinburg - Serov - Yekaterinburg. During this time, he only bought a bus ticket three times. The BlaBlaCar service has become a self-sufficient way of transportation for Oleg.

Advantages and details

Whenever necessary, I will travel with the service as a passenger, because it is more profitable than using a bus or train. A trip from Yekaterinburg to Serov by bus costs 850 rubles and lasts five and a half hours. During this time, the back becomes numb, and the smell of diesel fuel begins to dizzy. A trip by car with BlaBlaCar costs 450 rubles and takes four hours. You will drive a Mercedes with a leather interior or my Volkswagen with air conditioning and heated seats, enjoy the coolness in the 30-degree heat or warm up in the cold.

Not all drivers and cars are perfect. Passengers tell tales about 40-year-old VAZ "sixes" with faulty brakes. About drivers who listen to chanson in such a way that their ears are wrapped in a tube. To avoid such incidents, the BlaBlaCar service has developed a protection: after each trip, fellow travelers leave feedback to each other. Read them, and you will understand how adequate the fellow traveler is, whether he is punctual, what kind of music he listens to, whether it is interesting to talk to him. And thanks to the option “For women only”, girls travel without the presence of men in the car.

To make your trip enjoyable, I've compiled tips for both drivers and passengers. Catch!

7 tips for drivers

1. Complete your profile. Passengers will see who and what they are traveling with. You will gain an advantage over the faceless offers of other drivers.
2. Set a competitive price. Cheap offers look more attractive. Be flexible with your pricing. If there is not much time left before the start of the trip, reduce the price.
3. Upgrade your profile. If you don't have travel, put the price below market. In one or two trips, you will receive the first reviews.
4. Leave reviews. This will increase the chance of a response.
5. Describe your trip. Where are you leaving from, where will you pick up your fellow traveler, arrival time, whether you will stop on the way. Be concise and informative.
6. Know how to negotiate. Agree on the time and place, tell the number and make of the car. Call the passenger the day before your trip to confirm your plans.
7. Become conscientious. Arrive at the appointed place on time. If you are late, then warn about it.

7 tips for passengers

1. Complete your profile. Experienced drivers pay attention to the presence of a photo and prefer passengers who do not hide information.
2. Subscribe to notifications. You will be notified as soon as the driver publishes a ride along your route.
3. Read reviews from other users. Reviews are your protection. You will imagine a portrait of a driver: what kind of person is he, is he punctual, how he drives a car.
4. Call the driver. You will determine its adequacy and seriousness of intentions.
5. Find out more about the car. This will help you understand the level of comfort, which is important when traveling long distances.
6. Find out the number of passengers. Sitting three of us in the back seat of a Daewoo Matiz is damn tight.
7. Become punctual. Arrive in advance so that the trip will definitely take place.