Landing lights are your friend...
I use landing lights quite often... a few miles out from airports until I'm in the pattern, whenever I hear "no contact," whenever I call "no contact" because I don't have visual with last reported position of other aircraft, whenever I'm on a helicopter route and I know another helicopter is coming opposite direction on the same route (even though we call altitudes and usually each aircraft is on the RIGHT side of the route - usually follows a road), whenver departing airfields while traffic is inbound (I rarely use the flight strip), whenever departing a confined area, etc. When in doubt... whip it out!