July 12, 2013

Thoughts on Roadtrips

Cover to a Vintage Road trip Map

For the fourth of July, I went on the quintessential road trip with friends to visit my family on the other side of the country. Each trip took about three days of at least 13 hours of driving a day. Thank god a life in grad school prepared me for sitting for most of the day and thank all the gods that we got along well. Naturally, I began thinking about things that I would do differently or learned during my travels. Here are a handful of random thoughts and suggestions I have about road trips:

~ Give yourself more time. 13 hours may seem manageable, but remember that it takes about an hour to get a meal (and you will want to get out of the car to eat, trust me.) So you're looking at about 15 hours of travel all day. That doesn't leave much time to coo over scenic passes, stop at random museums, go explore caverns, or do the typical adventures one expects from a Road trip. If I were doing this again, I would drive a maximum of six or seven hours a day and do a bit of research of fun places to stop.

~ Don't have expectations. I thought that we would stop at funky, bizarre places and have lots of adventures and stories to tell. I thought I would have plenty of time to study while the other two were driving. I thought 13 hours wasn't such a long time. All of these were wrong. 13 hours is long- too long to have those sorts of adventures, too long to do much more than sleep in the back when I was finished. Studying was unfinished and we mostly saw interstates. I wish I had known better and not given myself these expectations going in so I didn't feel disappointed when the road trip finished.


~ Interstates, especially through the midwest, are deadly boring.  Try to take scenic routes even if they add more time (see first suggestion). You'll see more interesting signs too because most of the stops and billbords along the interstate are appealing to truckers (there are  A LOT of truckers) rather than roadtrippers.

~ Camping is cool and inexpensive. But bring tarps for your tents. Our best night was camping out on this random little river behind a cornfield in Missouri. We made a fire, collected frogs, chased after fireflies (this was the first time I had seen them) and went for midnight walks were disturbingly nice people in pick up trucks pulled over and asked if we were alright. (sorry, the east coast has rubbed off on me. Not used to friendly strangers). Sure there are no beds, showers or, often times, electricity, but the memories are better.

~ Choose non-chain restaurants. One of the best stories we have is pulling into a tiny town where their restaurant (the star street diner) doubled as their town hall. The entire town of about seven looked up as we stepped in and asked if the kitchen was open. Oh, the food wasn't good. But we played pool (first time for that too!) and were more or less kicked out at 8:30 when it closed.

~ Drive through the little towns. Not only is that where you will find the little shops and diners, but you can really see a side of America that I, having only ever lived on one of the coasts, haven't seen. The Great Recession doesn't touch my life. But driving through town after town where most of the main streets were empty store fronts and only strip clubs, liquor stores, groceries and hardware remained? It really brought home how hopeless people are feeling and how desperate they are for change. This was the most eye opening revelation for me.


~ Make sure your companions are a good fit for a road trip. They must first get along. Second, be able to drive long stretches. Third,  have similar taste in music (on that note, bring A LOT of music with you. In many different play lists. Also books on tape.) They should be aware of the rules of driving (shot gun needs to entertain the driver.) and be able to have conversations that don't devolve into arguments or disagreements.

~ Know yourself  (the constant theme of this blog). If you are an introvert, ten days of constant exposure to even your best and dearest friends will leave you socially worn out and depressed. Just be aware of this and have some contingency plans.

Have you been on road trips? What did you learn about them?

10 comments:

  1. Only rural Missourians are nice. Us St. Louis city-folk are absolute bastards :).

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    1. Pfft. No. You had lovely drivers and highway through St. Louis (which I pronounced as St. Louise for about a half an hour) though some of the buildings are suspect....

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  2. All of these points are very true! I have an extensiveexperience with road trips as that is the primary model for vacations in my family. I would never ever ever go on a road trip with anyone else than my family. I don't have any friends that get along so seamlessly with as I do my parents! We just know each others needs very well, and my mother's little adventurous whims come in very handy for entertainment! When we go on a road trip we usually pick a general area of the country/world that we want to take a look at and then we just go there without really planning ahead. Generally we read up on the area a bit and look up some places that we might want to visit but then we take each day as it comes. We always camp out, or have a car that we can live in. But never a caravan or camper, that would make us feel too much like the tourists that we are. In total I have been on maybe 10 road trips of a week or more and countless shorter ones.

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    1. When I was younger, my family did many road trips as well. There is an large map of the united states on the wall with pins stuck into all the towns and places we have visited. Some of those pins form long snaking chains that show when we were roadtriping rather than flying places. Usually, we stayed in bed and breakfasts rather than camping.

      Do you plan where you spend the night on your road trips? Are there many campgrounds or places to pitch a tent in Europe?

      It is nice that you are close enough to your parents to travel with them. I luckily am as well and we always have good adventures. Though my mum, even more so than me, likes to plan out everything well in advance.

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    2. In Finland, and the rest of the Nordic countries, there is something called the "freedom to roam" which means that we can temporarily pitch a tent wherever we want as long as it is not on someones yard. So no, there really is no need to plan that ahead. I don't think I have ever slept at an "official" camping ground... There aren't that many of those here and mostly they are for caravaners.

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    3. How perfectly marvelous! I suppose that the temporarily part is important. But the Nordic countries are now in the top of my places to visit in Europe now.

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    4. Yeah! And we can pick berries and mushrooms, swim or take a boatride wherever we want! I love that freedom! And the nature is beautiful too so you can find some really magical places to pitch your tent!

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    5. And there is enough of a culture of stewardship that people don't over graze the berries and mushrooms, don't leave trash and litter at campsites, or damage the ecology of a place from the lack of restrictions?

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    6. Well you can pick berries and mushrooms to your hearts content and not really over graze... Most people today are lazy and prefer buying their berries from the store rather than pick them themselves, so there is definitely enough to go around and not harm the nature. This freedom to roam thing is an ancient tradition here, so children are tought to respect it from an early age. There is not a big problem with littering and people mostly use their good common senseso that ecology isn't damaged. I think people have to feel that nature is theirs to take any responsibility for it. The freedom to roam gives that feeling of ownership!

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    7. That is a really interesting insight into our different cultures. Thank you very much for sharing! It would be wonderful if one day, the entire world had that same tradition.

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