Who can hold it the longest in the car on road trips?

[SectorZ]

Car rides I don't know, but I've had some bike rides that I've cleared 8 hours without taking a leak.

As I get older, that feat gets harder and harder to achieve.

[JayhawkCO]

I think it's more impressive you managed to sleep for so long on a plane. Drugs?

I managed to sleep for about 9 of the 14 hours it took to get from Washington, DC to Tokyo, mainly by taking melatonin and staying up all night the night before. 

Also, I was in business class.

You fly United or ANA? (or JAL? Although I don't remember them flying this.)

[abefroman329]

I think it's more impressive you managed to sleep for so long on a plane. Drugs?

I managed to sleep for about 9 of the 14 hours it took to get from Washington, DC to Tokyo, mainly by taking melatonin and staying up all night the night before. 

Also, I was in business class.

You fly United or ANA? (or JAL? Although I don't remember them flying this.)

ANA, but this was about 15 years ago.

[JayhawkCO]

I think it's more impressive you managed to sleep for so long on a plane. Drugs?

I managed to sleep for about 9 of the 14 hours it took to get from Washington, DC to Tokyo, mainly by taking melatonin and staying up all night the night before. 

Also, I was in business class.

You fly United or ANA? (or JAL? Although I don't remember them flying this.)

ANA, but this was about 15 years ago.

I'm flying them in Business from Delhi to Tokyo and then in First from Tokyo to Chicago coming up here in June. My first ever international first class flight was with them and it was amazing.

[dlsterner]

Who can hold it in the longest?

Not me.  Between reaching my 60's and liking to hydrate as I drive, I find I stop every two hours or so.  Which is not a bad thing as it gives me a chance to stretch.  (And I make a point to pee every stop).  The downside is that my days of 550-600 miles are in the past.

[abefroman329]

I think it's more impressive you managed to sleep for so long on a plane. Drugs?

I managed to sleep for about 9 of the 14 hours it took to get from Washington, DC to Tokyo, mainly by taking melatonin and staying up all night the night before. 

Also, I was in business class.

You fly United or ANA? (or JAL? Although I don't remember them flying this.)

ANA, but this was about 15 years ago.

I'm flying them in Business from Delhi to Tokyo and then in First from Tokyo to Chicago coming up here in June. My first ever international first class flight was with them and it was amazing.

Oh yes, the service was amazing! Probably would have been even better if I had done like I was supposed to and called the FA every time I needed something, rather than waiting for them to offer it.

[Ted$8roadFan]

As I've gotten older (just shy of 50), I can no longer hold it in the longest. Every 2 hours is about the norm. The good news is that most of the people I travel with also need to stop every 2 hours or so.

[1995hoo]

What limits me is no longer so much the ability to hold it, nor the capacity of the car's gas tank, so much as my lower back starting to get stiff and requiring me to take a break to stand up. Once I do that, I figure I may as well combine it with a toilet stop. If I don't, I'll wind up having to go sooner than later. I drink more water than I did when I was younger anyway. I have an 800 ml Yeti travel mug. I use it in my home office all day long and I'll refill it at least twice in a day, and I use it in the car when we travel anywhere further than, say, Charlottesville. Great mug, but drinking that much water makes multiple toilet stops inevitable.

[Rothman]

What limits me is no longer so much the ability to hold it, nor the capacity of the car's gas tank, so much as my lower back starting to get stiff and requiring me to take a break to stand up. Once I do that, I figure I may as well combine it with a toilet stop. If I don't, I'll wind up having to go sooner than later. I drink more water than I did when I was younger anyway. I have an 800 ml Yeti travel mug. I use it in my home office all day long and I'll refill it at least twice in a day, and I use it in the car when we travel anywhere further than, say, Charlottesville. Great mug, but drinking that much water makes multiple toilet stops inevitable.

If your back pain is in any way associated with your ribs, recline your seat a degree or two.  Does wonders.

[1995hoo]

What limits me is no longer so much the ability to hold it, nor the capacity of the car's gas tank, so much as my lower back starting to get stiff and requiring me to take a break to stand up. Once I do that, I figure I may as well combine it with a toilet stop. If I don't, I'll wind up having to go sooner than later. I drink more water than I did when I was younger anyway. I have an 800 ml Yeti travel mug. I use it in my home office all day long and I'll refill it at least twice in a day, and I use it in the car when we travel anywhere further than, say, Charlottesville. Great mug, but drinking that much water makes multiple toilet stops inevitable.

If your back pain is in any way associated with your ribs, recline your seat a degree or two.  Does wonders.

It's not so much "pain" as it is just general stiffness. At this time of year, the seat heater is a glorious device for that sort of thing (especially tomorrow night). I get the same sort of stiffness from extended slow walking. Had I gone to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my wife last week (I didn't because I had to work), I'd have had the same problem due to the very slow pace associated with exploring a museum, reading the explanatory signs, etc.

(Sorry about sequential posts, but I wanted to keep my reply to a respected user separate from dealing with the troll.)

[CtrlAltDel]

I've never been known as a large bladder person. I remember, at college, there were a few times at the bar, where I'd be going to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so. Which I hated.

That said, it's never been quite so bad on road trips, where I stop usually about every 200 to 300 miles or so. It works out pretty well with gas stops, since I don't let the gas tank get below half full.

The one exception I can think of is when I thought it would be fun to get a Diet Doctor Pepper at the gas station. Now that's a diuretic. I had to stop quite a few times until it passed through.

[hbelkins]

[kphoger]

Car rides I don't know, but I've had some bike rides that I've cleared 8 hours without taking a leak.

During extended physical exertion, if you aren't hydrating yourself to match what your body is using, it is indeed easy to go quite a while without peeing.  I've had those days when we were doing roof demolition in Mexico in the summer months.  Take the roof down with mattocks, breaker bars, and axes; shovel the debris into wheelbarrows, dump them in pickup trucks, shovel the debris out of the pickups at a dump site...  I've probably gone most of a day like that without peeing.


On road trips, I hardly drink anything.  I don't get thirsty just sitting there, and I don't like extra pit stops.  So, on a 700-mile drive, I could easily do with only a single potty break.  Stretching my back multiple times, though, is more of a requirement.

[zachary_amaryllis]

I used to own one of those Toyota minivans, an '89. Those weird ones that were sort of ... trapezoidal.

The engine in these is literally under the driver's seat. You release a latch, and tilt the driver's seat back, to do things like check the oil, coolant, etc.

Anyway, it had a coolant leak, and at the time I was experiencing diabetic weirdness, causing a lot of ... output.

I didn't do this at the time, but I was on a road trip, thinking to myself 'well, all the parts are here..rig up some sort of hose.."

[triplemultiplex]

I used to own one of those Toyota minivans, an '89. Those weird ones that were sort of ... trapezoidal.

The engine in these is literally under the driver's seat. You release a latch, and tilt the driver's seat back, to do things like check the oil, coolant, etc.

Anyway, it had a coolant leak, and at the time I was experiencing diabetic weirdness, causing a lot of ... output.

I didn't do this at the time, but I was on a road trip, thinking to myself 'well, all the parts are here..rig up some sort of hose.."

Hell, I knew people growing up with cars so rusty you wouldn't even need some kind of hose.  Just lift up the floor mat.

[kphoger]

Hell, I knew people growing up with cars so rusty you wouldn't even need some kind of hose.  Just lift up the floor mat.

Like passenger trains from the 50s, except no toilet seat.

[abefroman329]

Hell, I knew people growing up with cars so rusty you wouldn't even need some kind of hose.  Just lift up the floor mat.

Like passenger trains from the 50s, except no toilet seat.

I'm pretty sure there was equipment like this that lasted into the Amtrak era, and I'm also pretty sure the big drive to replace them with a better solution was spurred by the fact that waste dumped on the tracks was attracting wildlife in search of food-and they would, in turn, get hit by a train.

[1995hoo]

Hell, I knew people growing up with cars so rusty you wouldn't even need some kind of hose.  Just lift up the floor mat.

Like passenger trains from the 50s, except no toilet seat.

I'm pretty sure there was equipment like this that lasted into the Amtrak era, and I'm also pretty sure the big drive to replace them with a better solution was spurred by the fact that waste dumped on the tracks was attracting wildlife in search of food-and they would, in turn, get hit by a train.

I rode on a train like that in August 1986–the Ontario Northland's Polar Bear Express from Cochrane to Moosonee. You could very clearly see the ground rushing by when you "flushed."

[abefroman329]

at the time I was experiencing diabetic weirdness, causing a lot of ... output.

Sorry to hear that.  When my diabetes was uncontrolled last year, it wasn't the amount of output so much as the fact that I would go from "don't have to go" to "have to go RIGHT NOW" in a millisecond, leading to at least on occasion where I wet myself while driving a car.

[zachary_amaryllis]

at the time I was experiencing diabetic weirdness, causing a lot of ... output.

Sorry to hear that.  When my diabetes was uncontrolled last year, it wasn't the amount of output so much as the fact that I would go from "don't have to go" to "have to go RIGHT NOW" in a millisecond, leading to at least on occasion where I wet myself while driving a car.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (and every other item of clothing). Zero to Niagara Falls in -snap-.