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1) Complete flexibility
2) Opportunity to make numerous stops to see family and friends along the way.
3) You can drive almost anywhere. Try finding flights to remote places that are reasonable.
4) If you fly, you have severe limits on what you can bring on to the plane. There are no limits in a vehicle. I can pick up things in the Midwest and transport it back to Arizona.
I used to live on an island.
Take a road trip, and you're home in time for dinner.
Want to visit a nearby island? Spend four hours dealing with airports, shuttles, etc. for a 45 minute flight.
Want to go to the mainland? 5 hours on a plane, plus all the airport problems.
I am so happy to be back on the mainland where long and short road trips are possible.
Oooh, there's a tulip festival just an hour east of our planned route. Let's detour!
Oh, the walleye in that little cafe in Whatwasthenameofthattown was great!
Let's take the kayaks!
I used to live on an island.
Take a road trip, and you're home in time for dinner.
Want to visit a nearby island? Spend four hours dealing with airports, shuttles, etc. for a 45 minute flight.
Want to go to the mainland? 5 hours on a plane, plus all the airport problems.
I am so happy to be back on the mainland where long and short road trips are possible.
Oooh, there's a tulip festival just an hour east of our planned route. Let's detour!
Oh, the walleye in that little cafe in Whatwasthenameofthattown was great!
Let's take the kayaks!
When I worked in Des Moines, Washington (just south of SeaTac in the Seattle area), a few colleagues who lived on Vashon Island would kayak over from the island and back for work, when possible. Seemed like a great way to start and end the workday to me.
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So what's the appeal of long-distance road trips? Cost? Flexibility? Something else?
Thanks.
We traveled the small roads around America from Sep. '08 to Jul '10. We visited towns of all sizes, talked to shop clerks, other patrons, librarians, people in parks, security guards and docents in museums.
We walked through the parks. Rode the bike trails. We paddled the waters in our kayaks. We drove their 4x4 trails. We looked out on vistas, cityscapes, and watched sun rises and sets.
We saw lots of critters on land, in waters, and on air. I spent thirty minutes watching a McCaw watch me in the Columbia zoo, after laughing at the antics of the chimps conducting tribal threats to their enemies on the other island.
We spent less than we would have staying home and going to work. We carry away from it the knowledge of an area that many of its citizens didn't seem to have because "that's for tourists."
When I worked in Des Moines, Washington (just south of SeaTac in the Seattle area), a few colleagues who lived on Vashon Island would kayak over from the island and back for work, when possible. Seemed like a great way to start and end the workday to me.
Boy, that sounds nice. We lived in Hawaii. 2500 miles in a kayak? Um, no thanks.
I'd love to walk into an airport, hop on the next interesting flight to wherever! Do 2-3 of those and end up somewhere like Vegas/LA. Walk into a high line car dealership and buy a couple of exotic cars and then road trip them home across the country.
I'd also like to leave one coast about now in a big diesel RV and go across the country up into Alaska for the rest of the summer then catch the leaves changing in New England just before the cold white stuff starts falling. No agenda, just a full tank and a GPS.
I am short on time and unlimited funds right now...............but the planning is going on behind the scenes!
I had a new MG and someone I loved a lot, so we left our jobs, threw the top down and left California to go see the South.
We partied in New Orleans, swam in the Gulf of Mexico with porpoises, camped and paddled canoes in the Everglades (had alligators following us) snorkeled in the Florida Keys, drove on Daytona Beach, toured antebellum mansions and plantations, saw fall foliage in the Great Smokie Mountains, met a lot of nice people. For most of that trip, we slept in a tent. We ate awesome Southern food.
My car was a piece of crap and we had to stop and fix it along the way, but that was just part of the adventure. It was a blast!
Love it, can stop and explore so many places, whereas other modes of transport you are just passing over those places. A road trip is not just point A to B, a road trip is all the things in between.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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One of my best and most unique road trips was 2500 miles transporting my dad's corpse to a cemetery.
We had a blast, went to all his favorite spots.
Rented a backhoe and dropped him in.
Flying was our first option, but the state would not let me fetch him from the airport, so... Road Trip!
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