Where to go?

Perhaps I'm not the best person to answer this question as I don't really care where we go, I just want to go. The tagline in my signature says it all.

I'm lucky in that my DW likes to plan where to go and mostly I just go along for the ride. We kind of flesh out the details after saying where to go. Started off going to Great Basin NP one time, took a little side trip to Page, Monument Valley, Goosenecks, Bridges, Canyonlands, got the idea. And yes, we did visit Great Basin after a week long side trip.

I have always been in tune with the First Nations People's way of life and beliefs and now I am an elder and I have learned to sit and listen to the wisdom of the other elders. To discuss with a Code Talker his life, to learn how a Southern Ute elder and holder of a doctorate in sociology who is a NP Ranger looks at the occupation of his ancestors homeland. I want to see the statue's Dignity and Walks Among Stars, so we will go there this year but we will travel slowly and seemingly without purpose to get there. Our destination, however, is Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and sights along the Lewis and Clark and Oregon trails. Walks Among Stars just happens to be in Colorado but none the less it is a side trip from our objectives.

If my answer is confusing, I'm sorry but we just travel to go and see our world.

Start big then work your way down.
Mountains or Ocean or Desert or Cities.
Pick one and go from there

The simple answer is gather some information, and find some places you want to see. Then find a road that connects the dots. Palo Duro Canyon is a great place. Imagine 40 other places like it you have never seen.

You can chose a theme, like battlefields, sedimentary geology, western history, or the cattle business and build a trip around that. Some people like to go visit relatives. National Parks are irresistable for many people on their visit. Once you get that out of your system, look at smaller less famous places with fewer people to visit.

Get some good maps.

clicky

I use this in a different fashion, but you could figure out a destination and then see how far OUT you could drive within say, 2 hours.

Like I punched in Tucson when we visited there, input 1 hour of drive time and see what's accessible in that time frame.

Also depends on my budget at the time I get wanderlust :)

Two to four weeks? That could be most anywhere!

I would probably go towards San Diego and visit my brother and his family. I don't expect that you'd be nearly so interested in visiting my brother and his family, even though they're really wonderful people. Alternately, I might go up la Route de la Baie-James and get a tour of the Hydro Quebec dams, especially if the time were more limited to two weeks than four. Obviously that's starting from Vermont rather than Texas.

The Blue Ridge Parkway and surrounding areas would make a very nice trip.

First, decide what you enjoy and what you want to see and do.
Do you like swimming in the ocean, sitting in the sun, hiking in the mountains, shopping, historical sights, etc.?
You need to know what you like or want to do before making plans.

Another option is get in the rig, flip a coin to decide which direction and just go.
Sometimes no plan is the best plan. Enjoy your travels.

I almost gave a similar answer until I realized it was 2-4 weeks not 2-4 days.

Depends how much you like driving vs staying. For say a 2 week trip:
- If you are willing to put in a couple long days each way and then have 10days near your destination, I would make that radius around 1000miles From N. Texas, that's most of the continental US with the exceptions of the far coasts.
- If you don't like long travel days, I might drop that to 600-700mile radius, which still gives you a pretty good chunk of area to work with.
- You might also do a shorter travel (say 200miles per day) every 3rd day and do a big loop.
- When in travel mode we shoot for 100-150miles per day twice a week but we aren't limited for time.

After that it's what do you want to see and do:
- National Parks
- Beaches
- Amusement Parks
- Festivals

With 4 weeks, you can go pretty much anywhere in the continental USA from N. Texas with reasonable driving assumptions.

we just look at a map point ,and its done.

Well Mama,

One simple way is to get:
A drawing compass
A large map (AAA has sectional maps or use a USA version.

Set the compass for about a 200 mile radius.
Draw a circle on the map with the center at home.

Now, look at what is inside that circle.
Go online and look for what might be inside that is attractive.

Matt