I've been looking at lots of guidebooks lately. Guidebooks that give you more details than you could ever use about faraway places, even on an extended getaway. They're fascinating. I'd love to own most of them. 

But until I can (and save up the money to buy the trips that are supposed to go with them), I stick to a short list of ways I can feel like a tourist, even in my home state: 

<strong>Don't drive home the same way every day</strong>. Or, if you insist, turn the speakers down. All the way down. 
<strong>Try a restaurant, shop spot, or other excuse to visit a part of town with which you're not familiar</strong>. For some of you, this means venturing to south Tulsa. For others, it's the west side. Either way, get used to leaving your neighborhood.  
<strong>Buy some good camping equipment</strong>. Oklahoma is a wealth of state parks. For the vast majority of the time, there's a campsite ready and waiting for you. And the fee, which is usually somewhere around $11, is much cheaper than a night in a hotel. Plus, you get stars on your ceiling. 
<strong>Keep up with your car's maintenance schedule</strong>. It's hard to go on a road trip with a car that sputters and wheezes—or, worse, leaves you stranded on the side of the road. 
<strong>Buy a map</strong>. You take your cell phone out of its service area and its maps app is useless. Better to have a tangible one made of paper or some such material substance on which to rely as a backup. 
<strong>Use Instagram</strong>. Helping you see differently things you see every day since 200_. 
Use Audioboo. With this mobile app you can you can record up to three minutes of audio. I've recorded the sound of a dead cornfield in a strong wind, the sound of bats' wings during the animals' exodus from a cave, and my son telling backseat k