Truck driver lifestyle is nothing if not unique. Constantly moving, not having a fixed workplace, or working hours has its pros and cons. Sure, it can be challenging to spend many hours and days on the road, but it can also be liberating and exciting, depending largely on your specific point of view. Your lifestyle as a truck driver depends on whether you’re a company driver or an owner operator, as well as on what type of driving you do – local, regional, or OTR.
In this article, we will try to give you a glimpse of a typical day-to-day life of a truck driver, debunk some misconceptions, and offer solutions to some of the most common challenges tied with this profession.
What Is It Like to Live in a Truck?
Since your living space isn’t exceptionally big while on the road, you have to master the art of staying organized and neat. This might seem a bit challenging at first, but once you set up everything according to your needs, it’s not any harder than keeping your apartment clean.
The most important thing here is to refrain from accumulating stuff that you don’t need. Only keep the essentials at hand and try to plan out your trips so that you can get everything else along the way.
The comfort of spending your time in a truck has improved greatly so that now there are cabins that contain microwaves, tv mounts, refrigerators, etc.
Source: Freightliner Trucks
What Do Truckers Eat?
It’s another widespread opinion that all truckers have unhealthy diets consisting of truck stop fast food and snacks from gas stations. While this might be true for some truckers, not everyone in the business has the same relationship with food. Many truckers stock up on healthy food and maintain balanced diets. As we already mentioned, trucks today often have minifridges, which makes it much easier to store food of your choice.
Truck stop food doesn’t have to be so unhealthy either. More and more restaurants include healthy options like salads or fish, so it often comes down to your personal choice.
Eating healthy does require more planning when you’re on the road most of the time, but it’s definitely achievable.
How to Stay Healthy on the Road?
Apart from eating right, exercise is the most important aspect of a healthy truck driver lifestyle. It can be challenging for a truck driver to find time (and space) for exercise, but then again, office workers struggle with the same thing. You don’t really need to go to a gym in order to do some push-ups or sit-ups, and you can always take up running or incorporate short breathing exercises into your daily routine.
Source: Freepik
How do Truck Drivers Stay Entertained on the Road?
There are plenty of ways for truckers to keep their mind busy while driving. Satellite radio and streaming apps give you access to all the music imaginable. Audiobooks are definitely underrated as a hands-free way to have fun, and we have a whole other blog on trucking podcasts that will help you get an idea of how rich and diverse this genre is.
What do Truckers do When They Are Done Driving for the Day?
What a trucker does after the driving hours depends on whether they’re a company driver or an owner operator.
Company drivers are pretty much done with work after they’re done driving, except for post-trip inspections and completing the logbook. Owner operators own their own business so they might have to do some paperwork, call some customers, or manage other drivers under their authority.
After that, a driver might stay in the truck, where they can spend time watching movies or playing video games. The fact that many trucks have tv mounts makes this experience even more convenient. When spending the night at a major truck stop, you can also find places like super-truck showrooms, movie theaters, places for dining or dancing, etc.
Where Do Truck Drivers Sleep?
There are several options for truck drivers when it comes to sleeping. Many truckers drive sleeper cabs, which have beds inside the cabin. All it takes for a driver to have some rest is finding a good parking spot at a rest area or a truck stop. Best truck stops also include good sleeping facilities, and this is an option that many truckers use. Some trucking companies have their company facilities along the driving routes, so they might offer their drivers a place to sleep inside these facilities.
Source: Tripadvisor
How Often Do Truck Drivers Come Home?
How long you stay on the road depends on the type of driving that you get into. Local trucking allows you to be home every night. Regional drivers might come home one to three times a week, while OTR drivers stay on the road for two to three weeks at a time.
What Relationship Do They Develop with Other Truckers?
Relationships between truckers aren’t as close as they used to be in the pre-internet world. With so many ways to stay entertained, drivers don’t feel the need to socialize with one another as much as they did in the past. Of course, this is not an issue tied exclusively to the trucking profession – it’s a change that we are witnessing in every part of our society.
On the other side, the internet is making it easier for truckers to communicate without meeting in person. Their conversations have migrated to social media platforms and trucking forums where the trucking community continues to live.
Source: Adobe Stock
Experienced truck drivers will often refer to trucking as a lifestyle rather than a job. This speaks volumes about how much being a trucker influences your everyday life. While this lifestyle certainly isn’t for everyone, there are a lot of perks that only trucking can offer. That’s why, for the right type of person, this is the only career they can see themselves in. For more insights into the trucking business, follow us on our YouTube channel Extra Mile International Inc Trucking Company, and visit our Instagram profile @extramiletx.
Mia is a Fleet Manager and Recruiter at Extra Mile International, based in Chicago. Mia is over 5 years in the trucking industry while driving trucks for more than 3 years.
