This morning I was sitting at my weekly morning breakfast with some of my buddies and we got to talking about car trips this morning. A lot of it was discussing how our wives and daughters slow us down on the trips by needing much more frequent stops that we men do :-) . But then we got to talking about the car trips of our youth. And since some of these guys were, shall we say, MUCH older than me, they remember keeping bags of ice in the car that the air would blow across to help cool the air in the car because there was no AC in those days. Can you imagine, no only no Air Conditioning but no ice chests that plug into the accessory port (its not really a cigarette lighter port anymore is it? – but that’s another post) to keep your drinks and snacks cold?

But as for myself and my younger generation, we remember having the pain of having to watch the same DVD over and Over and OVER on a trip on the overhead DVD player :-) . Well, actually, I don’t have to watch it over and over myself. Before I got a system with headphones I would have to listen to it over and over because I do most of the driving and thus cannot watch the movie while its playing. Now I know there are going to be a lot of you out there that think its awful to have the DVD player in the car and watch movies instead of seeing the wonders of nature as you drive along. But frankly, on the interstate highway system of today we usually avert nature as much as possible and run through major metropolitan areas. But in theory I do agree with you that I’d much rather see what is happening as I drive along than watch a movie, so I do all the driving and I get to see things. But some folks just can’t handle fussy, bored kids in the car.

But my friend we will call James (because that is his name) says that he uses the DVD player much more when it is dark outside. At that point the kids cannot see anything outside anyway, they start touching each other, tempers start to flare, and they run out of happy face. So they pop in DVD’s for the kids to watch. You see, James and his family enjoy some long driving excursions around the country. Heading from Texas out to the mountains for a bit, then over to a cave, then a day or two at a park, and maybe a trip to a theme park for a couple days. But they DO stuff during the day and drive mostly in the nights, evenings, or early in the morning on their way between destinations.

But DVD watching theology aside, further talking to James about this I noticed something really interesting. He has found that the DVD kiosks like Redbox and Blockbuster Express are the best solutions for DVD’s for the trip. On their way out they stock up their little 12v powered ice chest with some drinks and snacks and at the same time grab a couple DVD’s from the kiosk to take with them on the trip. As they stop along the way and restock the cooler every couple days they usually see another kiosk where they can return that movie and grab another one.

In this way they are dealing with several different issues. They aren’t having to watch the same movie over and over, the kids are kept quiet and entertained while driving (again, not judging on whether the electronic babysitter is the right thing to do), they keep the rentals short and inexpensive, and they can turn them in almost anywhere across the country. If there were to rent movies from their local Brick and Mortar store they would be paying significantly more money as they travel about for up to 2 weeks before they can return the movies. Oftentimes, they might find themselves owning the movies after that length of time. With the kiosks they can pay a simple $1/day per movie and they only have to keep them for a couple days at a time and then they turn them in and get another movie.

One of the things I have really noticed at the kiosks is that they seem to stock just as many kids movies as they do new releases. Since the kiosks are very often used for impulse renting when you are at a grocery, convenience store, or restaurant with your kids it would make perfect sense. But it also makes a lot of sense for the traveller who is looking for some movies to watch on the drive or when they are staying place to place.

In my former life as a Director of Professional Services for a large Value Added Reseller I spent about 3 days per week flying to some other city for a meeting. I kept up that travel schedule for 3-4 years. I was always working to grab a movie of some sort to rip onto my laptop to watch on the plane rides. Kiosks in the airport would be another great place to target for the business traveler. He/she can pick up a movie and watch it on the plane. If you don’t quite manage to finish it then you can finish it back at the hotel. If you do day trips like I did then you can take it back home for the rest of their family to watch and drop it at a nearby kiosk or just drop it off at the airport on the other side of their trip.

It sure would be interesting to see the data from the kiosk players out there to see how much they have DVD’s rented and returned far away. Maybe there are some new ways to market to those folks traveling to encourage taking movies with them when they know they can stop at another kiosk along the way and drop that off without huge fees.

I’m headed out on a trip of about 9 hours tomorrow. I think I’ll stop by and pick up some movies to let the folks in the back watch on the way and see how this goes.

What stories do you have about traveling and movie watching?