Road
Tripping
(Lou Ann's Guide and Thoughts... for all that they're worth.)
[Site still under construction.]
Back to Lou Ann's Place
"The great gifts are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Road
Tripping
"The great gifts are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
During the Summer of 2001, I took my first real "cross country" road trip. It was an awesome adventure. I spent quite a bit of time researching the trip online, and continue to be interested in finding information about road trips, driving, and destinations online. I decided to post my findings, mostly to make them available to myself as I often use computers at different locations ... but I'd also love to help others working on their own road trip plans. Enjoy these links!!
**Note: Since originally posting this page, I have received plenty of e-mail from people requesting information about planning their own road trips. I LOVE getting e-mail like that, and I try to answer them as soon and as completely as possible. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you might have!! I have found that most people e-mailing me are asking the same types of questions, and that I am giving them all very similar answers. SOOOO.... I am re-vamping this site, hopefully to reflect the sorts of things that I would say in an e-mail. (P.S. You can still e-mail me and just tell me that you found my site helpful ... or that you're taking a road trip ... or that you TOOK a road trip and are totally excited about the whole thing ... or even to add me to your travelogue distribution list!!)
Steps to planning a road trip:
Getting
Motivated!!
In my humble opinion, this
is the VERY MOST important step in getting ready for your road trip.
If you are absolutely motivated to do this, you won't need much help planning
it, because your heart will lead you to what you want to do. If you
are not all too motivated to do this, you're not going to be interested
enough to follow through on the research or planning that will be involved.
How does one find intrinsic motivation to do the GREAT AMERICAN ROAD TRIP?? There are LOTS of ways. For my first trip in 2001, I happened to visit some friends who lived a six hour drive from the nearest major airport. The six hours of driving was through Rocky Mountain terrain that was completely foreign to this East Coast girl. By the time I arrived at their home, we had the US map out, and were planning my itinerary for the following summer. For my 2003 trip to Alaska, I happened to read a book called Sitka by Louis L'Amour. That was it. I was hooked. I found a NEED to visit this amazing place called Sitka.
Are you attracted by the open road? Do you long to get away from the East Coast structured lifestyle to the freedom of the West? Do you want to see country that is different from your daily commute? Do you love a song about a place or a road that you've never seen ("Route 66" or "I left my heart in San Francisco")? (I'm starting to sound like a composition for an English class!!) These are all beginnings to the inner motivation needed to do a cross country road trip.
You might start by making a list of the sites in the US that you've always wanted to see, but have never gotten to. Try making a "top 5" list (if you're like me, you won't be able to keep your "top 5" to under 20 items!) Have you seen Mount Rushmore? Yellowstone? The Grand Canyon? The Everglades? The Painted Desert? The Statue of Liberty? The Pacific Coast Highway? The Florida Keys? I could go on and on. Read about these places online. Or go to the library or to Borders and just sit and read books about them (don't bring any reading material home yet ... unless your budget is unlimited!)
Go to an internet search engine, and type in "road trip" or "cross country drive", etc. Or take a look at my list below of personal road trip websites made by common-folk like you and I. I think that after I read website after website made by dirt-poor college students who took 3 weeks to put 12,000 miles with 4 people stuffed in a hatchback and who slept (if at all) at rest areas off of the interstates, I decided that if THEY could do it ... certainly a professional, independent adult in her 30's could certainly pull off something similar. And ... whaddya know ... I did!! And I'm hooked!! [Another note: Lots of these college-student types are MUCH better at putting together websites than I could ever hope to be, and they have some classy stuff out there. You might not even be able to tell their stuff from the commercial sites until you read them closely.]
[Back to the
top.]
[Back to
the steps.]
Finding
Your Time Frame:
Not much to say on this topic
... only YOU know how much time you have. Most people I talk with
say that there's no WAY that they can "take that much time off."
Well, I'm not one to talk, since I'm a teacher ... and I have a built-in
two months off every year. BUT ... I CAN tell you what my mentor
always tells me: "you can always find a way to do the things that
you REALLY WANT to do." Besides, a road trip doesn't have to be two
months long (although that is a VERY different experience than a road trip
that is a week long...) Decide how much time you can spend, balance
it out with how much time you want to spend, and also decide if you have
a limit ... some people can just travel without limits. If so ...
I'm jealous!! :-)
Finding
Your "Must Sees":
Is there something that you've
ALWAYS wanted to see or do that hasn't happened because it is so far from
where you've lived? An example is that I have ALWAYS wanted to drive
the Pacific Coast Highway. From Seattle to San Diego. Always.
So ... I planned my first road trip around getting from home to Seattle,
and then on down the PCH to San Diego, and back home again. I made
a point of planning to stop and see friends and family in several places
around the country. After I had plotted a map from here to there
and back, and included my visits, I noticed that my route took me past
places like Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone NP, etc. So, I included those
on my list of destinations. The route seemed to work itself out quite
nicely!
Amount
of Planning:
Are you a planner? I
am by nature. But, when it comes to traveling, I find that if I do
a lot of reading before I leave, and if I familiarize myself with maps
and destination information, I am happier to leave the planning pre-trip,
and then sort of "go with it" as I travel. Some thoughts: there
are some (very few!) destinations in the "lower 48" where you absolutely
need reservations. Now, that doesn't mean that you can walk into
the hotel or campground of your choice at 9:00 p.m. of the night that you
arrive in town and get a room/site. No! That means that if
you arrive in Green River, Utah at 9:00 p.m. on any given night, you WILL
be able to find a hotel room. That also means that you have to be
flexible. Maybe be willing to sleep in a room that isn't as clean
as your house. Or maybe that you'll check out the Holiday Inn Express
because the guidebook really DOES say that the price is within your price
range ... and, surprise!, the rooms are really nice at that price.
That also means that around the typical summer hot spots (Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, Rushmore, etc.) you may have to drive a bit to find a place
that has a room left. And, you may need to try to avoid those places
on the weekends (fewer available rooms). But, you WILL find a place
to sleep eventually. But ... if that STILL makes you uncomfortable,
it is rather easy to use MapQuest or AAA maps, etc. to get an idea of how
many miles/hours it is between towns. You could almost plan your
morning departure times, your lunch times/stops, and your overnight stops
for every single day of your trip. (And, again I ask ... but WHY!?)
What
can you afford?
This is the most common question
that I get. Please remember that you have costs involved in living
in your own home. Compare the cost of taking a conventional vacation
(fly there, rent a car, fly back) to an estimation of your road trip.
You will probably be surprised!! There are three major areas for
your budget.
The first is, of course, the vehicle! You want to do a pre-trip maintenance check (including new tires!), plan oil changes for every two to three thousand miles, and have a slush fund for any repairs that may be needed along the way (or, just drive a Nissan, and don't worry about repairs ... Nissans ROCK!), and ... of course ... gasoline. Now, the gas may not be as expensive as you would think. In fact, you will probably find that the gas costs will be less than what you'd spend on airplane tickets (unless you're flying Southwest!) Do a MapQuest approximation of your total number of miles and multiply by 1.1. That should give you a good approximation of your total driving miles (the extra 10% is for the driving that you do once you've arrived at your destinations). I've been able to come within a few hundred miles of my actual mileage on both of my two-month road trips. After you have an idea of your total expected miles, take the gas mileage that your car gets (use a number closer to your highway mileage than your city mileage, as that will be the majority of your miles) and figure about $2/gallon of gas (ugh!, yeah, but it will give you a high-end approximation ... and is more realistic when you hit the big-time tourist spots like Yellowstone and San Francisco.) Here's an example: I figure that my trip to/from Alaska will be about 13,000 miles round trip. So, 13000 times 1.1 is 14300 miles. My truck gets about 18 miles to the gallon. So, that means that if I divide 14300 by 18, I'll need about 800 gallons of gas (actually, like 795). Eight hundred times $2 a gallon (it really was that much and more in Canada and sometimes in Alaska!) means that the upper end of my gas budget was $1600. There were two of us, so we split it two ways, and so I only spent about $800 on gas. That's not too bad for a two month trip!! There were three $30 oil changes, and a new set of tires, and a $60 air conditioning problem that would have happened at home anyway. Not bad!!
The second is the lodging. This is where I think that you have the most flexibility. I first started contemplating taking road trips when I met another teacher about my age who would spend her summers driving around the country and sleeping in her car. That's about a $0 lodging budget. Well, I'm a bit too nervous about strangers to sleep in my car ... and I like to wake up in a BED and like to take showers. So, that option was out for me. But ... it might work for you! ;-) Once you escape the "East", out west, there are lots of little niches where you can pull your car off the road over night. In fact, along many of the roads in the north (Alaska Highway, and some of the remote highways in Alaska), that's what MANY people do ... it's expected. Another low-cost option is camping. I've never tried it myself, but I have a tent, and plan to do so some day. Again, I'm just a bit nervous around strangers so far from home when I'm alone. Next, there are many, many low-cost motels and smaller hotels when you're not in major U.S. cities. I often stayed for between $40 and $50 per night. Occasionally even less than that would get me a decent room. If you don't need an in-room phone or two beds or a refridgerator or an interior hallway, etc., you can really do quite well. Again, when you multiply the number of nights that you'd be staying by how much the campsite or average hotel stays cost, it doesn't come out to TOO much. Especially if you spend some of the nights of your trip with friends. Of course, if your budget is limitless, go for the $200 hotel rooms every night!! :-)
Finally, you need to feed yourself. Food is something that you would be purchasing at home, so I'm not so sure that you should budget 100% for it. Consider how much you spend on food on a normal day-to-day basis. Especially for a LONG road trip, attempt to practice some self-discipline and not eat much differently than you would at home. You can find grocery stores in any small or large town. Many have salad bars or pre-made salads that will help you to eat healthy. You can keep lots of things in a large cooler (just about every motel and hotel has an ice machine ... or you can buy ice sometimes at the convenient or grocery stores) and limit your eating out and your fast foods significantly. Or, if you have a little more flexibility in your food budget, you can plan to eat breakfast and lunch from your cooler/stash and find a modest restaurant for dinner each night. Most towns have wonderful little "local" places that will give you a true taste of the town!!
Now ... the only other financial considerations are any "special" spending. You might want to get some gifts for family or friends ... or you might not. Also, some of your destinations might require an entrance fee. If you'll be going to more than one or two National Parks, you can get a year-long pass for about $50 that will get you into most of them. It pays for itself in about two parks. If you're going to Alaska or a similar place, consider the ferry costs. Plan to treat yourself to one rather nice touristy thing, like maybe a helicopter ride over the Badlands in South Dakota. And, if you're into taking travel pictures, be liberal ... buy lots of rolls of film (400 speed is great for its flexibility!) at a discount store like Wal Mart and go nuts ... you can develop it little by little at the same Wal Mart when you get home. You'll be glad you did!!! I took about 30 rolls of film (give or take...) on each of my two-month road trips. I don't regret either sets of shots for a second!!
Reading
Material:
Be careful the temptation
to purchase every book that you see on road tripping or about your destination(s).
Again ... unless your budget is unlimited. Some ideas include:
(1) Spend lots of time
in your local library. I found LOTS of amazingly helpful books, gathering
dust on the shelves of the local libraries. I don't care if the book
about Route 50 is 35 years old. It's still going to motivate me to
want to drive 50 from Ocean City, MD to Sacramento, CA. The library
will always have more resources than I for collection purposes, so I will
rely on them.
(2) Where the library
may not have ALL of the NEWEST books, make a couple of field trips to your
local Borders or Barnes and Noble. Grab a cup of coffee at their
cafe, and spend an afternoon in their travel section. Bring your
notebook, and just be sure not to bend back the bindings. As you
flip through book after book after book, ideas will fly through your head
faster than you can write them down.
Going
to AAA:
Start some of your planning
by going to AAA. (What!? You don't have a AAA membership!?
Get one NOW!! There are a MILLION reasons why!!) Go to AAA
and get one of those big map books that has all of North America with each
state on its own separate page. It also helps to get some individual
state or regional maps. Use these books, maps, and the internet to
dream about your route, and then to do a reality check on mileage and driving
hours as compared to the time that you have available to travel.
You could spend eight months on the road, and still not feel like you've
seen all you want to see.
It helps to have a good idea of your route about a month or two ahead of time. Take your list of cities, and maybe even the maps that you've been using to plan, and head back to AAA. They like to do trip tiks for longer trips ahead of time. They'll type all of your info into the computer, discuss the routes with you (this is where you tell them that you don't want to take the interstate, but you've found this nice little scenic alternative...) You might spend a couple of hours at the office, but it will all be worth it. If you don't wait until the last minute to order the trip tik, they'll mail it to you within a couple of weeks (they really will!!) Not only that, but get new regional and state maps (if your others are out of date). AND ... get all of the guide books that you could possibly need. What!? Too much paper and books in your car!? Throw out some of your address lists or leave the golf clubs home (I know ... I'm skating on thin ice here!!) BUT ... you will really find a couple of times when those guide books come in more handy than life itself. Like when you find yourself in the middle of Nebraska and can't drive another mile without falling asleep. How else are you going to figure out if there are any places to get a room in Alliance, even though you had planned to make Omaha? The AAA guidebooks are priceless!! Don't leave home without them!!!
Packing:
You will always bring more
than you need. It may not be a problem, depending on the size of
your car and the number of people trying to occupy that same small space
for the duration of your trip. But ... if you're interested, here
are some links about packing. I hope that you find some to be applicable.
There are a couple that include lists that may just help you remember everything
that you might want to bring. I like to read websites about packing
a back pack or packing for a bicycle trip because these people really know
how to minimize the necesities. I always need to learn more about
minimizing my packing!! :-)
My "To-Do" lists
(which include informal packing lists)
Planning for my first cross country road trip (DC to Seattle to San Diego to DC, Summer 2001)
As my Fall, 2000 activities began, and I started pondering such an excursion, I spent some time surfing the web. I did searches on key words such as "road trip" and "cross country drive" and so on. I gained invaluable information about how to plan a cross country trip just from reading the mostly novice web pages created by other cross country travelers.
Now that I have completed a couple of my own trips, I would love to present my own version of a web page about a cross country drive. My desire would be for anyone who is surfing the internet while planning their own road trip to stop at this site and gain ideas to add to their experience. Please feel free to e-mail me asking any quesions or for any recommendations.[Back to the top.]
Planning for my second cross country road trip - (Alaska)
[Back to the
top.]
[Back to
the steps.]
Other
People's Road Trips
I could have planned my entire
trip by reading other people's road trip websites. They were invaluable
to me. Here are some that I've enjoyed.
Where you see a heart beating
, it indicates some of my very favorites.
[Back to the top.]Road Trip 2003 - Jen and Rick move from Boston to Los Angeles so that Rick can work on a Ph.D. Me Across North America 50 Cups of Coffee - Boston to Vancouver, May 2002 My Cross Country Trip - May, 2002 My 2.5 Day Cross Country Drive - How in the world did he have timeto take pictures in 2.5 days ... May 2002 There and Back - LA to Montreal to NYC and back, June 2002 Cross Country Drive, June, 2002 Two on the Road - A guy named Antwon travelled in the summer of 2002 Road Trip, August 2002 February, 2001 - Ranjeewa from Rockville, MD Summary of Cross Country Trip - Twenty two days, Thirteen states, 32 National Park System units, 6500 miles, two flat tires, and one speeding ticket. That just about begins the description of our cross-country across the U.S., from Washington, DC to Stanford, CA. Scott's Home page - Alaska, 2001 Summer 2000 - Jeff Wass' Road Trip June, 2000 - A website about a road trip made by students for students Shannon & Dave's Cross Country Trip 2000 - Some couple named Shannon and Dave! Cross Country Driving Trip, Summer 1999 - A good, comprehensive trip plan by a novice just like me!! ;-) April, 1999 - Thomas Andrews National Parks Trip, 1999 Ari and Yani - December, 1999 Mad, Mad Dan - pictures from an album website Cross Country Drive, 1999 US Trip, '99 King of the Road 1998 - Scroll down to "Charge Across America" to read about a trip from LA to Detroit Martin & Bee's Road Trip across the US 1997 - Some couple named Martin and Bee! Jim's 1996 Cross Country Bike Trip - Some other guy named Jim! Jenn & Steve's Cross Country Odyssey - Some couple named Jenn and Steve! Perry Road Trips - Several road trips... Jim's First Cross Country Trip - Some guy named Jim! Great American Road Trips - from the movies North By Northwest and Easy Rider Road Chix Recommendations - The Road Chix (see above) have made a list of some of their favorite Road Trip sites... Lonesome Traveler - Dedicated to the Solo Traveler Laura & Jeff - these folks live in Alaska, but have pictures from their travels around the state Jim Teresco - Several road trips he's made, cross country, and one to Alaska(!!) Sir Richard - to whom Road Tripping is a way of life. Mike French - Okay ... so this isn't really a road trip site, but this guy has some great pictures from his professional travels! Winter 2001/2002 - Albert's trip from Boston to Seattle after the dreaded pink slip Leatherwood Trail - a Canadian man, Walter Muma, took his moped across the continent in 1978, from Toronto to Alaska and back!! Not Another Person's Road Trip - This is one of those company's who will let you drive someone else's car across country. So You Wanna Drive Across Country American West Travelogue To Alaska by Road Billy Bob's Road Trips Google Listings - Another commercial site, but lots of great resources.
| Laptop | Take a laptop with you if at all possible. You can usually program your dialup software to use a calling card (REALLY!). Collect a list of addresses of friends who only wish they could roadtrip. With their prior permission, of course (except in the case of your parents, who really want to hear about all of your adventures), send out a travel journal when you have a chance to sit down and type. Including digital pictures is also a bonus for them (they'll feel like they're travelling vicariously through you!) I have an uncle who followed my progress road for road each time he got the next "chapter" in my journal. |
| Daylight Savings Time | There are some places that have different
Daylight Savings Time practices than others of us are used to (like Indiana
and Arizona). If you give a hoot about the time, consider being more
flexible ... or make sure you know ahead of time where you'll be crossing
into a different time zone.
|
| AAA | I can't say it strongly enough. AAA can be your very best friend! Before, during and after your trip. Join up today!! AAA all the way!!!!!! Their Travel Guides are amazingly useful! They have maps of cities, and locations and descriptions of sites. They are totally worth the membership dues, even if you don't need the lock out help (like I did at Twin Peaks in San Francisco) or a tow or anyother kind of emergency service!! |
| NPR | I NEVER listen to NPR at home. NEVER!! But on this trip, NPR was pretty much the ONE consistent radio station that was easily found in my car in any location. They have news, national and local, and fun "other stuff". Radio surf for them! |
| K-LOVE | This east-coast gal had a blast listening to K-LOVE when she wanted Christian music on the radio. They're a network through out the West. You can find their stations all over the place. (And now, in some places out East as well.) |
| Stay off the Interstates!! | If you've got the time, stay away from the interstates. The scenic "back" roads are sooooo much more enjoyable. Do a little research before you leave, if possible (or just follow the dots along roads on the AAA maps), and you'll have a wonderful time looking at the scenery!! |
| I LOVE road signs | I REALLY love road signs. I don't mean pictures of the average "I-95 North" sign with an arrow ... or the "55 mph State Speed Limit" sign. I'm talking about road signs that are amusing. Like a sign that said, "Skulls" in the middle of Wyoming (an East Coast city gal finds that sign VERY amusing!!) Or when I look out the window and see two signs lined up, one saying, "Days Inn" and the next saying, "Knights Inn". Or ... or ... or ... or ... But ... I (foolishly) didn't take pictures of the signs that I loved when I traveled in 2001. Next time, I will, and I'll post them on their own little "Road Signs" place. :-) For now, I've got some links to other peoples' road sign pages. Enjoy! |
[Back to the
top.]
[Back to
the steps.]
Other interesting Links that I've found...
[Back to
the top.]
[Back to
the steps.]
Other important information:
[Back to
the top.]
[Back to
the steps.]
Other notes:
Get in touch with me if you'd like: louannaepelbacher@gmail.com