Work and sight seeing

My experience was that my FM pretty much did not want me to take a 34. I ran off recap hours for 3 weeks and then took home time. Honestly I think you will find that after wrestling with the truck and the stress of it all, after 12-14 hours on duty you will want to get your rest. Besides most of the area's you will be driving are pretty much truck lanes and won't be close to somewhere you can go site seeing.
Now that said, if you go lease, then you pretty much do as you want, with limitations of course, like load and delivery times, and such things as paying the bills LOL

 

What Highway said. You won't be taking any 34s.

 

34s are often taken close to the receiver for early am monday deliveries. Usually in a truckstop 20 miles from anything. I didnt know about uber while I was OTR but that could be used to get you to a ballgame or whatever. Some companies will allow you to take "hometime" wherever you want. So you could do a few days off anywhere you want. Provided you could legally park the truck. I thought there was a thread about "cool places to take a 34" or something like that. But like others have said it wont be your decision as a company driver. I saw a driver with an app that allowed him to read qualcomm messages from his phone, that would help greatly.

 

Are you driving teams with the wife? If so, probably won't be much down time.

If only you are driving, yes you can do a good amount of sight seeing. I drive solo and I always check out the area where I take my 10. I keep my bike and skateboard with me at all times so I look for bike trails and skateparks first. Many times you can find parks nearby. And if you're in or around a big city, just use Uber or Lyft to go wherever you want.

 

It's not Qualcomm, but our company uses peoplenet, and they advise us to get the Driver app. It syncs with our peoplenet unit, and we can read messages on our phones. Unfortunately, no reply option, but we can also see new dispatch information, trip mpg data, and current hours available. (Not accurate to the minute, and not in real-time)

 

I was on the flatbed side and this is like a year and a half ago, but I never went home, instead, I just took 34's here and there. Not necessarily in places that were cool or near any sight seeing. A few times at truck stops near hotels so I could get out of the truck for a day or two. (i went home for a job interview, lol)

Most notable would be the long weekend I spent in Spokane, WA... It was a holday weekend and I got into Spokane a little too late to deliver, so I had to sit. Fortunately there was a motel near the truck stop and Uber/Lyft to get me around town. Similar deal in Fargo - Hotel across from the petro, shoping nearby, etc.

I also live in a place that wasn't a big freight area for Prime. It was less stressful to take my time off at a terminal or somewhere on the road. Better than taking 2 or 3 crappy, heavy, low mileage loads...

I did take a bunch of 34s though.

 

You will come across lots of places that would be nice to stop at... or avoid.

You can get out and do something on your 34 or request your "home time" to be somewhere else.

 

At prime you can take your hometime wherever you want, it doesn't have to be at your home. The prime app that you can download from the apple store or Google play allows you to receive all your qualcomm messages and reply back in freeform to your dispatcher. So you're not stuck having to be at the truck checking for messages every couple hours.

No, when I was a company driver, I didn't take to many 34hr resets, but mainly that was by choice. You can always run your clock down so you have to take one. Since I would spend 6-9 weeks out at a time I would probably get a 2 resets in that time period. Usually because I would ask for it and need to do laundry. If I wanted to take a long weekend off someplace at a certain time I would just let my dispatcher know a couple weeks in advance.

As a lease driver, it's a completely different story. You can take all the time off you want but you have a weekly truck payment and fixed costs that don't go away when you do take time off. Your goal as a lease driver is to drive as few miles as possible each week at a good average per mile rate. You are on a percentage contract not a rate per mile contract.

For both company and lease you need to understand how the computer system works when it comes to hometime or specific location requests. When you use your dispatcher as your travel agent,it will cost you revenue or miles, just like if you went to a real travel agent to book a vacation. When you set a "hometime" counter, the planning system sets that as priority number 1 and overrides everything else. What that means is you'll be sent in the most direct set of loads to get you there on-time regardless of revenue or miles.

Plan the week before and he week after your hometime to be small to no paychecks, that's why I strongly recommend company drivers and lease ops to stay out 6-8 weeks at a time. Week 1 and 8 week suck for revenue as you exit and enter the freight lanes to get to and leave your hometime location. That means you'll be making good revenue in the freight lane for 4-5 weeks each time.

The moral of this story is the longer you're out staying in the freight lanes the better you do on making money. The drivers that complain about going broke are the ones that go home every 4 weeks. That means small paycheck weeks 1 and 4 and good strong paychecks only for 2 weeks.

Best thing to do is if you get a load going to someplace that you want to visit, let your dispatcher know you need a couple days once you deliver or maybe if the place you want to stop at is along your route, see if your dispatcher will set up a relay. That way if you don't set a hometime counter and just take the breaks at random, you should have better revenue.