Go For a Ride Day

What the day is

Go for a Ride Day is observed on November 22. The instruction is to travel without the trip being about arriving anywhere.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented.

The practice it describes had a golden age. The Sunday drive was a fixture of mid-century American life, when fuel was cheap, roads were new, and a car was novel enough that operating one counted as the entertainment in itself. Families drove loops with no destination, and the scenic road network built in that era, with parkways laid out for the view rather than the travel time, exists because of it.

It faded for reasons that are easy to list: fuel costs, congestion that turned driving into a chore, and a steady supply of cheaper entertainment at home. Driving reverted to being transportation.

What the practice offered is still worth having. Undemanding, semi-automatic activity of the sort a familiar road provides is reliably associated with mind-wandering, and mind-wandering is where a stuck problem often comes unstuck. The effect is modest and easy to overstate, but the broader finding, that stepping away from a problem beats grinding at it, holds up better than most productivity advice.

The ride does not have to involve a car, and there is a reasonable argument that it is better if it does not. A bicycle, a bus to the end of the line, or a train with a window seat all deliver the same thing without the attention cost of driving. The passenger also sees considerably more than the driver does.

How to take part

• Pick a direction rather than a destination and follow it.
• Take the slower parallel road instead of the highway.
• Leave the navigation off, within reason.
• Go as a passenger if you can. Driving occupies exactly the attention you were trying to free up.
• Stop when something looks interesting. That is the entire point of the exercise.
• November light is short, so set out earlier than feels necessary.