Sure a plane can get me to my destination much faster, but there’s so much more too see and experience on a good old fashion road trip.
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I love the unexpected things road trippers can come across. Last fall I roadtripped from Oregon to Illinois and back. On a whim we decided to see Custer State Park in South Dakota and just happened to be there when the bison herd was being checked over by vets, branded, sorted etc. We just pulled in and wondered what was going on. It was absolutely fascinating like nothing I’d ever seen before.
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That sounds super fun. I think we’re going to visit the east coast this year to commemorate our college bound daughter turning 18. We get the road trip, and she gets the house all to herself. Win-win situation.
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H and I have done 4 to 5 road trips a year since 2020. Most of our road trips are here in the west heading to places to ski. We stop at many National Parks along the way to break up our trips. Last February we drove from San Diego to Canada to ski at Revelstoke and Banff then headed to Montana to ski Big Sky and Wyoming to ski Jackson Hole. It was a wonderful trip.
Next February we will be skiing all over Colorado and once again it will be a road trip.
We normally do a fall road trip somewhere in the west, but H decided he didn’t want to drive this fall so we are headed to the UK and Portugal the middle of next month.
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After we get through our Quebec City trip, I’m going to start planning Xmas. Last year we took both S’ and their GFs to Austria, so this year both will be spending it with their GF’s families. I’m not quite ready to be alone with H for Xmas week. One family has invited us to come up, but I don’t plan to completely invade their holiday. I plan to spend an afternoon/evening or two around Xmas with them.
Long story short, we plan to spend 1 week to 10 days driving up toward Boston. Doing what and where exactly I don’t know. There’s an odd museum in PA H wants to see.
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The route we’re taking takes us through Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester. Last road trip, we went west and there was a whole lot of nothing on I-10. You can’t argue with the desert scenery, though.
Going to Philly from NC for a wedding thing. Does that count as a road trip?
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We have done some long road trips in recent years, primarily between OH and AZ. Some of our favorite stops have included Memphis, Albuquerque, Taos, Waco, and Austin.
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It’s our turn to close the camp in Maine, and we’re so tired of going the same way we are inventing an entirely new route that goes thru the Hudson valley, just to change what we look at for the middle part. Not sure if we are warriors, but def a trip!
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Since we were not able to plan an overseas trip for the fall, we are planning a road trip through DC, to see family and friends, and onto Charlottesville VA to see friends. Probably then go to Shenandoah NP and circle back up through DC.
Any good suggestions for must see in those areas?
We think we will repeat our Great Vaccination Tour of 2021 by driving to Richard! Will make a stop at the winery where we celebrated our first Covid shot by drinking bubbly about an hour after getting Pfizered. 
There is a Supercharger in Yakima now making the trip a breeze!
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For those taking long road trips: What type of lodging do you typically choose for overnight stays? Do you plan and reserve in advance, or just pull in wherever you happen to be and hope to find something?
Hotels/Motels have become SO expensive.
Half the time we reserve a place in advance and half the time we will drive until we’re tired. Driving until tired has backfired a few times, as there have been cities/towns that have no vacancies, causing us to drive to the next city. My advice is to check hotels in advance on places you might want to stop. I check hotel rates and reviews on tripadvisor.
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We use Marriott points.
The one time I tried to be spontaneous… H & I were newly married and driving from southern VA to a wedding in Ohio. I thought we would just find a room along the way in WV… Only to find everything was booked. And no phones/internet. We had to keep driving and stopping everywhere. Finally, a Marriott (I think) took pity on us and called around. We found a honeymoom suite - far more $$$ than we need to spend - somewhere down the road that we got to at 2am. H was so mad. never again have we tried that…
Usually we drive until tired and find a rural place off the highway near a small town. There’s normally no problem with vacancies. The big cities tend to be a lot more expensive. And it might be a shady side of town, or sold out because of a convention.
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I have road tripped all over the east coast and some in other parts of the country. 2014 went from South Carolina to Prince Edward Island in the summer and South Carolina to Miami (for a cruise) in the winter. The summer one was over 2 weeks. My 3 sons were early teens and when we were in the last 100 or so miles I honestly could have kept going for another few weeks. We’d gotten into a great travel rhythm and actually were all having fun. I usually book places to stay ahead of time for the first few days and anything “special” - National Park lodges for example. Then I have ideas of where to stay the other days and I book a few days out once I know exactly how long we want to stay in a particular place. From early years of road tripping with just my husband and driving to one full hotel after another when super tired, I never do the drive and then just stop when tired anymore.
When we moved from NY to CO in 1993, the kids were ages 1 and 4. We opted to spend our last days at a family reunion weekend camp out and then flew. It was not until 3 years ago, when retired with lots of time and wanting to minimize covid risks that we drove. With detours to see family in MA andTN, it was over 5000 miles. Repeated similar trek the next summer. But this summer for son’s wedding we decided to fly.
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Almost always book in advance with cancellable reservations. We have had that no vacancy situation before and it’s just not worth it. I will book a hotel with cancellable day of or day before reservations so if we change our minds we are not locked in.
I use a lot of points from our Chase Sapphire credit card for travel (either plane tickets or hotels or both). We use that card for everything and build up points. Got us two plane tickets to Ireland last fall and a free hotel room in the spring.
For our upcoming trip to Philly we are splitting an AirBnB with friends. Booked it months ago.
Cancellation policies are getting tricky. In the past we always booked rooms that allowed cancellation by 4:00 p.m. the day of reservation. This year, those are hard to come by. Some are asking for 5 days ahead, but 48 hours was pretty common for our recent trip.