The Beauty Of A Road Trip

Seriously, Pat…a driving trip? Hell, yes, my friend! A road trip! I know most of my travel blogs and information require an airline ticket, a beach and a little theme park thrown in there. Sure, I’m happiest watching the sky go by from the deck of a cruise ship, but I can be flexible!

If there is any message that I can share with you about travel it would be this: It’s ALL good, and it’s ALL worth exploring! 

So, for Spring Break this year, Sweet Husband recommended we go on a road trip through a part of California more northern than we are used to doing. Being from Southern California, Sweet Husband has shared everything from Los Angeles to the Mexican border with us many times, and we absolutely love it. This, however, would be very different, and some uncharted waters for me! 

Where Do You Want To Go?

I am from New Jersey, and have done a road trip from the top to the bottom of the eastern seaboard several times, and it is fantastic! There are beautiful and fun places to drive to through all of those states, and I strongly recommend it for those of you on the East Coast.

Now, for you “middle of the country states”, I’ve got nothing. I love you—I’ve never been to a state I didn’t want to return to, but I have not done any road trips through those gorgeous territories. What we try to do, when we visit Texas or Tennessee or Louisiana, for example, is head out of the city for at least a day to find something more local, and usually just as interesting. While this isn’t as good as making a full week of exploration of these great locations, at least we try to get out there and see something different. 

There is so much out there across our beautiful United States, it takes so much more than a one-week vacation to see even a small part of it. For example, we drove San Francisco to Santa Barbara for Spring Break—that isn’t even half of California and we ran out of time! It didn’t even occur to us to try to hit those true northern states of Washington or Oregon in a short week’s time. 

So, pick an area—a fairly small area—and plan that vacation! 

Options For Your Road Trip

From my house

The quickest and easiest vacation has me pulling out of my driveway and hitting the open road. However, doing that repeatedly not only gives me an already clear picture of the places near me, but it also limits how far I can go, because I need to be back in my driveway in a week or so! This is, however, the very best way for you to “try out” a road trip vacation—particularly if you have kids. My kids were excellent travelers when they were little, so we had no problem throwing them in the car seats and taking off. Some kids, however, will balk loud and long about being tied into the car. Your mileage may vary on this one. 

Round Trip

This is what you are doing when you pull out of your driveway—you will eventually be back where you started. However, consider this one: You can round trip from somewhere other than your house. You can fly to a new city, and start your road trip from the airport. This gives you the benefit of starting from a new location, and the ability to see quite a bit of that area before returning the rental car and flying home. 

One Way

Another variation on the round trip option above is to start and end at completely different airports. This is what we did for Spring Break. We flew to San Francisco and picked up a rental car. We meandered down the coast to Santa Barbara, where we returned the car and flew home. It significantly decreased the driving associated with a “round trip” vacation, we got to see a lot more, and there is no additional cost for the rental car. 

Benefits Of Each

There is absolutely no bad choice once you have decided to road trip, and I encourage you to try it every which way. The one way driving trip we did for Spring Break worked out for us, because the additional costs were minimized: We fly on points with Southwest Airlines (www.southwest.com ) and needed the rental car no matter what. In my experience, rental car companies do not charge any fee or premium for returning cars to a different airport in contiguous states. Leaving from your house is, quite obviously, the cheapest, which could leave more money for adventures on the road, but minimizes how far you can actually go. 

Planning Your Route

In case you haven’t realized it yet, I’m the obsessive trip planner in the family, and, honestly, for any family that will let me! However, for this Spring Break trip, it was all Sweet Husband! Mapping out the entire trip fell to him, and I only stepped in to book the hotels when he told me where we would be on each day. 

Planning For Locations

We had an idea of what we wanted to see and do in that area of California before Sweet Husband started planning the trip. We had a few places we wanted to revisit, and definitely a couple of new ones we were excited about. Using a good online map service will help you figure out exactly how much you can do in your week’s time, and will let you know exactly how long you can expect to be in the car. It was important to us to have someplace to see each day, to make use of our time and increase our enjoyment.

Planning For Activities

Once we knew where we were going, we started to research different things in the area we might be interested in. Sure, we wanted to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium, but we had no idea what else might be in the area that we would enjoy! A few more hours of internet research, and we had activities, restaurants and out of the way activities to look forward to each day. 

Planning For The Unexpected

The very best part of a casual driving vacation is the ability to pivot, change direction, and allocate time differently in the middle of the trip. We saw a billboard for The Brown Butter Baking Company in Cayucos, CA. (https://brownbuttercookies.com/) It was an old-timey style of billboard in the middle of an empty Route 1, but it was so intriguing that we got off the highway and went in search of the location! This led to the BEST cookies of my life (they even had Gluten-free!) served by the friendliest people (sample? Yes, please!), and an hour relaxing at an unnamed, unknown beach while Sweet Husband browsed in an antique shop. Be open to stepping out of your travel plans—you never know what diamond you might find! 

Choosing Hotels

Stop giving me that look! I know I’m picky about hotels, but this was a different kind of vacation! Road tripping is a little different, because we were in different hotels every one or two nights, so I had my work cut out for me. 

Benefits of National Brands

I am not quite a hotel “snob”, but I absolutely have a few national chains that I prefer. I don’t have to stay at the Ritz, but I like knowing the level of service I can anticipate from my local Hyatt Place or Best Western (Plus, please). For a road trip—particularly one down the scenic but rather rural Route 1 in central California, I didn’t have the plethora of options I have in Atlanta or Florida, for example. The benefits of sticking with a national brand are definitely that expected level of comfort, convenience and service. I like knowing I’ll have a good breakfast in the morning, and an elevator to get to my room. 

Going the Inn Direction

Doing something different for this trip, Boo Boo. I purposely only made reservations at “Inn” style accommodations. We wanted to do this vacation a little differently, only staying and eating at locally owned and operated establishments. It was very interesting, and a lot of fun. All three Inns that we stayed in were absolutely fantastic. While none of them had an included breakfast, there were nearby options. The cleanliness and service at all three were top notch, and I didn’t have any concerns about safety or anything else the entire week. 

Location, location, location

Our hotel goal was “park and walk”. We wanted to drive to a destination, put the car in the parking lot, and not get back in it until we left that area. It worked out beautifully. From staying right at Pier 39 in San Francisco to right on Cannery Row in Monterey Bay, we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to visit once we arrived at a location. Finding suitable accommodations with this single mindedness really helped focus my searches for hotels. Finding “Inn quality” locations was even easier than I thought using popular search engines. While my next few trips I’m back to my “regular” hotels, I loved how we arranged our stays during this week. 

Packing Ideas

This is why we drive…

Driving directly from your house has one advantage you can’t get in any other option: Pack whatever the hell you might want or need. You can bring all of your beach essentials, tons of snack foods, and the baby’s favorite blankie and stuffie. If these type of comfort items are the single most important thing to the success of your trip, by all means take off from your own driveway.

What can we NOT buy there?

For us, flying to pick up the car, we had to think carefully about what to pack. For example, my favorite beverage is Vitarain, which is the CostCo version of Vitamin Water, so I had to pack a few bottles. Other than that, I knew we could find somewhere to buy sunscreen if we needed it, and eating out is definitely something we enjoy anyway, so I wasn’t worried about packing any food. 

What makes me the most comfortable?

THIS is important to me!!! When we go to Hawaii, at our grocery store stop the very first day, Sweet Husband buys me a cheap, low beach chair. We are at the beach every day, and I like to be in a chair as opposed to lying on the beach blanket. It’s that important to me. At the end of the week, we leave the chair by the elevator of the hotel with a “Free” sign on it. My point is this: If something is that important to you but you can’t pack it, don’t be afraid to buy it and use it just for the week—your comfort and enjoyment are absolutely worth it. 

While You Are On The Trip

Be completely in the moment

You probably chose a driving trip because it is incredibly scenic—that’s why we did it. Don’t miss anything you might see outside that window. From the ocean view at Big Sur to the deer running through a redwood forest, everything outside my window was magical. 

Ignore your watch

We live and die by the time during the rest of the year—don’t do that on this vacation. Eat dinner at 8 pm so you can watch the sunset from Lover’s Point in Monterey Bay, and just eat “backpack snacks” for lunch to extend that hike. 

Completing Those Pesky Surveys

A word about where we stayed and what we did. Independent locations, like our hotels, stores we visited, my cookie place, live and die by reviews and recommendations. Take the time after your visit to fill out the surveys they send you. Write a quick review of the Empire Grille in California, or that fantastic store you shopped in for local products.

Would I Do It Again?

In a heartbeat. While it was weird to turn over control of a vacation to Sweet Husband, he built the most spectacular, relaxing and exciting vacation we’ve had in ages. 

So, get out there and drive! Find someplace new, revisit someplace again, stay in a different type of hotel, eat different food. Just get out there.

While you are planning, order some cookies…

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR!!!

Thank you for reading all about taking a road trip!

Hey, since you’re here! You may as well check out some other tips, like how to make an airplane comfortable, here, or what spending New Year’s in Vegas is like, here! Or, check out our other topics here! Either way, I appreciate you!

Please leave a COMMENT about any tips you may have!! Or comment with YOUR story! Where’re your next trip going to be? Let me know!

Please, feel free to contact me or leave a COMMENT with anything you would like to hear more about! Or reach out with any unrelated questions, comments, concerns, or random outbursts of excitement by clicking here.

Oh! And don’t forget to check out my video series by CLICKING HERE!!!