8 tips for your next road trip

After 8,235 miles on the road over 4+ months, we have a few opinions about how to take a road trip. “How hard can it be?” you ask. We know you thought that all you had to do was point the car in the right direction, turn the volume up on your favorite tunes, get on the highway, put your pedal to the metal, and GO!  Well, that is one way to do it, but listen up.

Our travel style veered in a different direction. We tried a different way.  We took our time. Explored. Enjoyed.  Even with a plan that we thought would work perfectly well, we still made some changes as the trip went along, and we believe that a combination of good planning and flexibility resulted in a stellar trip.

Here are a few tips for anyone contemplating a similar trip. Feel encouraged to add your own by leaving us a comment:

1.  Staying in place helps.  We made sure not to drive everyday or many days in a row. We added extra days to our schedule to enjoy National Parks and to visit great museums in big cities along our route. For example, stayed in Big Bend National Park for 4 days and in Cedar Key, FL for 5 days, and the museums in Houston and LA made us want to return for more.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

2. Remember, you’re not a professional driver. You’re not making money per mile driven.  We limited driving time on the days that we drove to less than 3 hours.  We slept in, had time to make stops on the way, and arrived at our destination early. No rush hour traffic.

Joe at Collier-Seminole State Park, FL

3. “Eat healthy, and eat small portions.” Take advantage of your trip by eating at local cafes to enjoy regional foods. We followed the mantra “eat real food, not too much, mostly plants” when dining out. Generally we ordered one entrée and an extra salad to share.  That was enough.

Picazzo’s Organic Italian Kitchen in Flagstaff, AZ

4. Get off the treadmill. Stopping at every tourist attraction along the way is not required.  We tried to pace ourselves, did only what we really wanted to do, and made sure we had enough time to kick back and enjoy.

Matlacha, FL

5.   Used public libraries. We used them all the way across the country, especially for wifi. (More on this in a follow-up blog.)

6.  Get your app on. We consulted Tripadvisor and Yelp for suggestions where to eat. That worked well, though we kind of wish reviewers would say that the dining options are so bad here that you should just skip this town (as this would have been helpful in a few places).

7.  We single night stays we booked Microtel Inns & Suites as our budget choice. They were good relative to the price, and some were almost as inexpensive as a few of the places we camped.  Their Houston location was a disappointing exception proving that nothing is perfect.  We also stayed at a number of La Quinta Hotels and they were terrific – but, alas, pricier.  For multi-day stays we turned to AirBnB.  Again, it’s not perfect but we stayed at a lot of wonderful places we’d definitely recommend.

View from the screened porch at our AirBnB stay, Ft Myers, FL

8.  Enjoy the scenery.  We thought we’d listen to audio books whenever we drove but discovered that we were usually happier to observe and enjoy the ride and not be distracted. We did listen as we drove long stretches on interstate highways. Finished two books.

Marfa, TX

We’re looking forward to our next road trip in the month of July. We will travel up the Pacific Coast to Vancouver Island and then back to Portland, OR.  Stay tuned…

May 2013

Stats for a 125-day road trip

Rodeo, Arizona

Planning a road trip or just curious?  Here are some statistics from our road trip that started in Arlington, VA and ended (temporarily) in San Jose, CA.

We traveled through 11 states in 125-days, December 27th  through April 30th.

Drove 8,235 miles and paid $951 for gas.  The one car repair – a flat tire – was repaired free of charge.

Nights we stayed in or with …

Motels – 54 – 43% (higher than planned due to 7 days of bad weather)

Campsites – 30 – 24% (lower than planned)

Friends – 14 – 11% (slightly lower than expected due to friends having the flu, so we opted to stay in a hotel instead)

AirBnB – 27 – 22%.

Audubon Cottage, New Orleans

Average cost of accommodations per day for the 2 of us: $67.60.  We went over our budget of $55.55/day. We should have foreseen that bad weather would catch up with us sooner or later. Cold and rain in Florida drove us into motels.

Gage Hotel – Marathon, Texas

Average cost of food and incidentals per day for the 2 of us: $74.41.  We were saved by under spending here, since our budget for food and incidentals had been $100/day. Why so high?  We assumed three solid meals a day and found we don’t eat that much food.  We also tended to not spend as much money for incidentals. The incentive to buy “things” goes way down when you know that whatever you buy needs to be packed into the already overfull car. (Though we do admit to several miniature golf games.)

AT&T Park, San Francisco Giants stadium

to be continued…

May 2013

We arrived…and it only took 4 months

On December 27^th we left Arlington, VA on a windy cold day.  Our old Honda took us due south.  Although chilled to the bone, we took our time, visiting friends on the way, enjoying a life of slow travel.  We finally warmed up when we hit the Florida state line on day 16.

Madeira Beach, FL

Friends were quick to greet us in Sarasota, FL

We continued south until the road ended in Key West and then headed up the Gulf Coast.  We enjoyed spending days on beaches and hiking in state parks.  A long, long drive across Texas took us 23 days.  We loved it! Arizona gave us one adventure after another, including our one and only flat tire, and, before we knew it, we were crossing the California state line. On May 1^st, after 125 days on the road, we drove into San Jose, the first phase of our round the world trip behind us.

Our plan for a 22-month round the world trip was to take the first 4 months to drive across the country; that has now been completed.  Now, we’ll stay on the West Coast for 4 months, and then our 14-month trip abroad will start in September.

Heavenly dessert in Texas

Salt flats outside Guadalupe National Park in Texas

Cayucos, CA

How did our four-month road trip go?  We expected the trip to be good, and it turned out to be even better than we had anticipated.

…to be continued…

May 2014

Know where we were?

Panacea?  Watercolor?  Valentine?  What do these three words have in common?  Each is the name of a town. We had never heard of these towns before we took off on our cross-country trip.  Have you?

When we saw them on the map our imaginations kicked in. Would the place match the name? These odd town names prompted us to make a plan. As soon as we approached each town, we braked to a quick stop at the town’s roadside welcome sign to take our photos. Take a good guess now.  Which states were we in?

Take a good guess.  The answers are below:

 

 

Panacea sits in Northwest Florida, not far from Sopchoppy.

Watercolor resides next to Seaside in the Florida Panhandle.

Valentine lies not far from Marfa in western Texas.

May 2013

Start to relax

Looking for a way to reduce your stress? Go outside and walk through a park.  Seriously.  Maybe one of our best and most relaxing walks was in Point Lobos State Reserve on the California coast.

Imagine sunny California, not too hot, with the pounding Pacific surf.  The waves crash on the rocks sending sprays up ten and twenty feet.

The ocean is a swirl of blues and whites.

Elephant seals are swimming just off the shore.  Add to that a great variety of enchanting wildflowers and huge gnarled cypress trees.

Placid tidal pools dot the massive rocks.

The only sounds you hear are waves crashing and birds calling to each other.  Where are the birds?  Some are nested on the rock cliffs, but only quiet observation will help you find them.

Look in the center of the photo at the white area of the rock wall. Do you see it?

We magnified that tiny speck on the photo to show you what was in clear sight, yet hidden: a cormorant roosting.

We were on a hike but covered very little distance. We found too much to see and enjoy in the later afternoon sun.  Taking photos just added to our pleasure.

We should mention that Point Lobos sits just south of Carmel, a quaint little town.  In the evening we stayed with Iris in her AirBnB room and dined at the tasty Sea Harvest Fish Market nearby.

A scenic and very relaxed kind of day …

April 2014

Seaside dining accompanied by music

“Tuckered out.” That’s what we were, when we checked in to our lovely AirBnB in San Luis Obispo.  We wanted nothing more than to settle into our charming room…but hunger nagged us into getting up and going out for a bite to eat.  Anne, our charming host, wisely suggested that we drive over to Avila Beach for their Friday night Farmers Market.  We did.

Avila Beach, a quaint seaside town, set up its Friday night Farmers Market on the avenue by the sea.  What a scene!  A huge and happy crowd was already there, and we joined in as the crowd flowed along, checking out all the food stands.  Join us for a view:

The decision for where to eat was simple.  We headed for the food truck with the longest line.  Our strategy worked.  The lobster taco was excellent!

We couldn’t resist the roasted corn.  You could choose butter, salt, chili powder, or Parmesan cheese for toppings.  Yummy!

How about fruit carved and served on a stick?

As the sun went down, the volume of the music went up.  The crowd divided itself:  Listeners sat on the beach wall, Movers danced on the plaza, and Diners continued to eat their way through the stalls on the market street.

So, if you’re ever in the Avila Beach neighborhood on a Friday night, take Anne’s advice for a tasty dinner with some music at the Farmers Market.

April 2013

Second best

In every way the Getty Villa was second best.  Our first choice of a museum to go to in LA was LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).  So, the second day we drove (slowly) up Highway 1 through Malibu to the Getty Villa.   One goes there to see collections of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman artifacts, architecture, art, and gardens.

The building and gardens impressed us.

Pools and fountains complete the formal gardens.

Sculpture lined the water, or, in this case, reclined on islands in the pool.

Even the koi in the pond were remarkably beautiful.

We were drawn to the “Young Boy with a Theatre Mask”, a Roman sculpture that was unlike anything we’d ever seen.

One of our favorite things may come as a surprise:  the replica of the marble floor from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum. It is made with 4,000 pieces of marble.

A few years ago, we took a wonderful trip to Turkey and Greece and visited numerous archaeological sites and museums.  If you can afford the time and expense, then go see Etruscan, Roman, and Greek collections and archeological sites in Turkey and Greece.  If you can’t take the time and expense, then the Getty Villa is second best.

April 2013