[IamNikhil]

Break intervals can be fairly subjective. A few years back, I could manage to drive non-stop for 5-6 hrs at a stretch without any hitch. But now, as I'm in my mid-30s, I prefer to take a break every 2.5-3 hrs. Usually just a loo break, some stretching and a face wash. I stick to this whenever I'm driving at whatever time, be it night or day. Just spending a few mins scrolling through the phone also diverts the mind and acts as a quick refresher. Ultimately, however comfortable the car is, the body has it's own needs and definitely becomes stiff if seated in one position for a long duration.

[GTO]

Short breaks = Every 2 hours. Step out, stretch, catch a nice scenic spot for the view or a good coffee place. Even if you think you can go longer without a break, don't. This 2-hour break will greatly improve your concentration levels & keep you fresher for the long drive.

Long breaks = Every 3 - 4 hours. We usually time this around meal times. Only breakfast, lunch & late afternoon tea, mind you. I never drive on the highway after sunset.

Max driving per day = 9 - 10 hours. I need to call it a day then. Something like Mumbai-Goa is my limit per day. In the USA, the max I drove was Boston - Montreal (also the only time I drove into another country!).

[anandhsub]

Not sure whether the following qualifies as "long distance" but when I break mostly depends on where I am driving to.

I usually do solo drives or night BLR-MAS drives non stop. That would mean a drive of 5-6 hours without a break. Mainly because I am comfortable with the drive, and I dont want my family to break their sleep. The route is pretty much just a commute for me with the destination more important and I just want to get there as soon as possible.

During >500km road trips, like BLR-Goa or BLR-Kochi, I make sure to not cross 200km or 4 hours (whichever is earlier) before a break.

Shorter road trips like BLR-Coorg or BLR-Ooty, I try and break once right in middle.

With the emergence of expressways, I guess the number of breaks will naturally decline. My recent Coorg trip I had to go off the Mysore expressway to take a break. I usually don't mind that but my family felt it to be a waste of toll. Next time I go to Mysore, most likely we will have food at home or pack it and drive to Mysore non stop.

[Oppanna]

I ensure that I take a quick coffee break every 2 hours and also club it with restroom and food, fuel breaks as much as possible.

If it is going to be an entire night drive then I ensure that I stop at a safe place like toll booth before 12 am and after that till sunrise it is mostly a non stop drive as most of the shops serving tea on the highway I drive generally are closed.

[for_cars1]

It is ideally better to time the breaks at the same time as breakfast (around 9 AM), Lunch (around 1 PM) and tea (around 4PM) at a proper restaurant with facilities to get refreshed.

For the above slots, It is always a good idea to stop earlier (for eg: half an hour earlier rather than stopping at the next place an hour later). The more you delay the timely intake of food, it creates a lot of problems for the folks in the car (elevates the risk of restlessness, nausea and stomach issues for example). Eating in moderation is also a key factor to avoid tiredness.

Another key factor to avoid tiredness is to drive at a relaxed speed consistently over long distances, this avoids from being fatigued, maintains higher alertness levels and increases ability to drive with fewer breaks.

Stopping for bio-breaks (typically at fuel pumps) as needed cannot be avoided obviously.
Particularly, if the driver feels the need to stop at anytime, it is better to stop rather than continue driving and resisting the urge to stop. (even for washing the face for example). However, stopping at secluded places can be risky, so its better to stop closer to towns where there is people movement.

[Iva1311]

In my opinion, taking a break is ones own choice.
But it is influenced by numerous factors.

I have a fair travel experience of Jaipur - Moradabad route of 3-4 times for the last 8 years.

1. When there was no Delhi - Mumbai Express way, the usual route is to take The good old NH 48 where hundreds of food outlets are available, and lot of heavy vehicle traffic. Me and my wife who are ardent foodies and share the driving seat, never used to pack breakfast/lunch on our travel day. We always stopped two to three times before we reached delhi( 285 Kms) preferably at Highway King, Vango ,Starbucks.
Also, I have to take bio breaks as I have a habit of drinking 3-4 glasses of water early morning.
Entering Delhi is boring, it changes the mood of long highway drive to busy city traffic. Another break needed right after we exit Delhi at Ghaziabad and reach the famous Shiva Dhaba(near hapur), mandatory stop as per my Dad and Mom. And after that a Coffee break at Gajraula.

So in total, 4-6 breaks and the total journey of 485 KMs. covered in 9-10 hours.

2. Now as we have a smooth buttery NE 4( Delhi-Mumbai Expressway) and a 3 year old daughter onboard, it becomes mandatory to pack lot of items for snacks. This is a new route untill Delhi Peripheral Expressway. The first stop we take is right before we enter the NE at Dausa, take a leak there and hop on to cruise wide, long empty highway. There is only 1 food outlet on this long stretch of 300+ KMs and we only stop there to take bio break or take 15 min break of refueling.
The NE 4 gets converted to Delhi's Western and Eastern Peripheral Expressway, that means no stops there and the huge Delhi traffic is luckily skipped.
The second stop is at Shiva dhaba and then third is again at Gajraula to finally cover the remaining some 60 KMs.

So in total, 2-4 breaks and the total journey of ~500 KMs, covered in 8-8.30 hours

Two drivers on board, makes the journey easy.

[amitayu]

On highway drives, I usually break every 3 hours. I try to club it with fueling and bio break and a coffee break.
Earlier when I used to smoke, I would take a break every 2 hours just for a drag!

But for tricket stretches/ hills/ traffic choked stretches, a shot break every 60 or 90 minutes helps ease the leg muscles (I drive a MT).

I try to keep a break limited to 15 minutes max, except for lunch break whic takes more time.

[OpenRoads]

My experience with long trips (+1K Km) is limited to three. There is no fixed time for taking a break. But every couple of hours taking a 10~15 break does the job for me.
However, in reality whenever my wife feels like taking countless pics of the surrounding makes me take a lot more break than what is ideal, and that works too

[PrasannaDhana]

A 10 to 20 minute break every 2 hours, specially after diagnosed with back issues.


I avoid driving in the night. During daytime, I never had the need for longer breaks.

10 years ago, I used to drive 6-7 hours without any breaks. Not anymore.

[bblost]

I think everyone is a little different and have their own natural rhythm.

My biking long distances has had a profound impact on my life. On plains with good roads, I generally ride about 2+ hours covering about 150 to 200 kilometers before feeling the urge to take a break.

Except during intense summer heat. When the tiredness can set in much earlier.

While driving my most regular route, Hyderabad to Chennai, there are 3 stops I make.

The first halt is generally around the Dachepally area. Since I keep a thermos filled with hot tea, I have a nice cup while chilling out for about 10 mins.

Next halt is between Ongole - Nellore for petrol.

Last halt is about 60 kms from home. This is the place where the traffic starts getting thick and I feel that this break breaks me out of highway mode into city mode.
I never skip this stop as it helps me stay calm when the bikes and autorickshaw's start coming in like flies.

During my return, I stop 60 kms from my Hyderabad home before getting on to the Hyderabad ORR. This is because of the significantly higher speeds I have to maintain on it.

My only advice or suggestion is that never break your rhythm.

I hate waking up early, so I rarely ever do a 4 AM start. This early morning nonsense messes up my rhythm and forces me to take unnecessary breaks.

[lina]

Since I got my ZS EV, my style has been a break every 200km for 30-40 min. My long drives have been extremely relaxed every since and I look forward to every drive. Earlier I almost never planned and used to stop randomly every 2 hours resulting in bad or inadequate rest stops. I always start early to escape from Bangalore asap.

Following are the breaks I take for my popular long drives:
Bangalore - Guruvayur (500km)
1st stop - Zeon Sankari (230 km)
2nd stop - Walayar/Palakkad. (170 km)

Bangalore - Belgaum (500km)
1st stop - Chitradurga/Davengere
2nd stop - Gabbur/Hubli

Bangalore - Pondicherry/Chennai
1 stop - Pallikonda/Vellore.

The TN routes have enough 50kW chargers to ensure that the car charges up before my family. The KA section (Belgaum) can be a little iffy sometimes but so far I have been lucky.

[ppc_rgs]

I do numerous Coimbatore-Bangalore runs. If i'm driving alone, 4am start leaves me at Thoppur A2B around 7am. After 15-20 minutes breakfast break, i'm usually at silk board by 9.30 am. Return journey usually starts around 3pm from Marathahalli on Thursday or Friday and reach home around 10pm without 1-2 breaks. With family, we break as and when needed (read eating, shopping, site seeing, what not).

I used to do a lot of night drives, but now-a-days, avoiding night runs as much as possible.

[Revvatron]

On my drives to Bangalore from Hyderabad which is around 580 kms I only stop for breakfast which is around 210 kms from Hyderabad. After that it is non stop ride until my destination in Bangalore. Nowadays am travelling during nights so only time am stopping is for toilet break which would be around 5 mins and due to cold weather it would be couple of times. For some reason I don't feel fatigues at all during these drives

[Mystic]

The frequency of breaks depends on the era, country, purpose of trip, age of driver, day or night. It is very important to identify a safe place to park car especially during nights. I have heard of horrific incidents of drivers attacked and robbed by strangers and in some situations also murdered.

Let me share some of my experiences of my road trips from early 60s to present 2023. My father worked for department of roads all his life with Government. We grew up going with him on long drives when ever we had holidays in schools. Most of the time it is Government drivers driving the vehicles and we always treat them as family members. Many times my father himself drives the Government vehicle as he is also a petrol head and loves driving. The roads are usually in jungles and it is the responsibility of his department to lay new roads in places of no roads. The speed of petrol jeeps with left hand drive and a trailer attached for our luggage is usually 25 to 40 km per hour. We used to enjoy the drive in jungles with us cooking food on the road side. Almost every 50 kms on any road, there is always a rest house built by the department of roads in which we used to stay not particularly for rest but for my father’s official work.

Fast forward 50 years, I typically drive very frequently one way 1K kms from Bangalore to Visakhapatnam and back in my cars like Scorpio VLX, Crysta Z and Jimny alpha in last 2 decades. In all cars, I had cruise control which comes very handy. These drives are always done in 2 days with me staying overnight on a road side hotel. I once did it non stop due to the urgency but it became very tedious. The frequency of halts also depends on my condition and if I feel drowsy after lunch breaks. In such cases, I stop my car on a road side dhaba and make sure I walk around. Walking around will remove drowsiness and make you feel fresh to drive another couple of hours.

I have driven coast to coast in USA. My experience in vast deserts in Nevada, Texas etc with hundreds of miles of boring roads with no humans to be seen around for hours is a bit tricky. As I am a civil engineer and in our college days, our professor told us that the roads are purposefully made to wind a little bit as straight long roads will make drivers drowsy. One needs to keep awake from monotony and you need to have a good company of people talking to be awake in car.

[BlackPearl]

In India I used to drive as long as I wanted without a break, sometimes it would be stopping only when we needed to fill up. There were several reasons for this -

1. Concentration needed to drive in India is much more compared to the western countries, so never felt bored
2. Most of my long distance driving were at night, I did not want to stop anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary

After coming to the UK, things have been quite different. Here it is the law to stop every 2 hours mandatorily. So I have to keep in mind to stop even though I don't feel like it. We rented a Jaguar FPace in 2019, it would show a coffee break message every 2 hours.