Where to go?

Decide what you like and head there.Research what you want to see in that area.

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

x2
we choose an area of interest or somewhere we have not been and hit the road :)

It is either someplace I have never been, or someplace I've been to and really like. It involves seeing something I want to see, or doing something I want to do, or going to an event.

I've always started with road trip travel books to find destinations or interesting trips, also finding information from the many tourism sources on the Internet. I used to work with Streets and Trips to fit a trip to a time limit, finding additional interesting places along my route, adjusting the trip to make the the additional stops fit the schedule.

Depending on what interests you, 2-4 days of driving can add up to a 2-4 week trip, checking out everything along the way. I've been traveling from NE Oklahoma to SE Michigan several times a year for more than 35 years and by varying my route and picking different places to stop, each trip can be different, seeing something new.

From N Texas a two week trip could get you to the Pacific Northwest or New England, and back, if you didn't stop at any place interesting along the way. Four weeks could get you to Alaska and back. On the other hand, spending some time seeing things along the way, two weeks might be southern Colorado, southeast Utah, NW Arizona (all places I go to see geology, but you might not be interested in geology).

It comes down to what interests you, where you've been, what you still might want to see. My travel more recently has been escorted tours and river cruises, and I choose places I've never been. When my wife still lived, much of our travel was repeat visits to places she loved to visit, and some of it to places we had never been.

You need to first figure out what interests you, then you find the places that match that interest. For most people, that will involve new experiences, for others it is driven more by specific interests: historical museums, wineries, factory tours, automobile museums, horse races, rodeo circuit, auto races, flea markets, bluegrass festivals, and so on. I know people who just travel to go antiquing, others to music festivals.

One of the things I like to do when traveling in the U.S. is to pick one of the numbered US Highways and try to follow it end to end, or if I have a destination, follow it as much as possible to that destination. "Road Trip USA" (book or website) covers a few of the highways in this system, many of which are still important trunk routes in the big empty parts of the country where the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system is sparse. But this is a personal quirk.

Go north in the summer - Michigan is fabulous. Drive all the way up, cross the Mighty Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula and return via Wisconsin.

In the Fall go to the Missouri/Arkansas Ozarks.

Travel up the east coast to Canada.

Now put all the suggestions you've received in a jar; pick one and GO!

In our case it is to see the grand kids. They live far away.

ppine wrote:
All you really have to do is choose a direction and head out. When you find a place you like stay for a couple of days. My best road trip of a lifetime was 6 weeks going across the US in a VW bus. That was in 1972. We made no reservations and few plans.

Having a Truck Camper allows us to travel like this. We pick a direction,head out and change almost every day on where we are going.

Sometimes it changes as we are leaving where we live.
Example: While in Colorado fishing I was needed in Houston to help after Hurricane. Drove to Middle Tennessee dropped wife off and went to Houston. Returned home and picked wife up to go to mountains in East Tennessee. Before we got to I-40 to turn right we decided to go left and went West back to Arkansas,Texas and eventually Colorado for more fishing.
Love it.

We choose a general destination and then look to fill in with extras along the way by using Trip Advisor and just basic internet searches. We generally do things slow and not more than one Museum/site a day and just enjoy not being home. Here are a few last ones for us and fill-in examples (not all inclusive by any means):

1. Detroit-Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield --- fill in Wright Pat Aero Museum (TWO WEEKS)

2. Maine --- fill-ins White Mtn. History Museum in Harrisonburg, Pa, Valley Forge, Cape Cod (THREE to FOUR WEEKS)

3. Key West -- fill ins St Augustine, Fl.;Kennedy Space ctr; UDT-Seal Museum Fort Pierce, Fl; West Palm Beach and Miami; Ft Myers (Edison and Henry Ford Summer homes), Everglades (SIX WEEKS, two in Key West and rest at various fill in locations)

4. Richmond - St Petersburg Va. - various Civil War things including Jeff Davis White house and museum with fills ins to Charlottesville, Appomatax, Staunton (Pres Wilson Library, Frontier Culture Museum), Poe Museum. The Museum of the Confederacy is OUTSTANDING. Also various plantation houses and historical homes if you're into those. (TWO WEEKS or more depending)

5. Norfolk, Hampton, Va Bch. - various museums and sites like Norfolk harbor cruise, USS Wisconson BB and naval museum, Jamestown (NPS and Commerical sites), Yorktown,Portsmouth museums/sites (TWO RELAXING WEEKS OR MORE)

6. Williamsburg (need about a week becuase many live demonstrations are only done on different days so this is a very slow trip, but you can fill in with things near by maybe like Jamestown/Yorktown)

7. Outer Banks - wild horse tours, some museums like Museum of the Atlantic, Lost Colony NPS site, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Whalehead museum, and general sight seeing (TWI SLOW WEEKS)

Here are a couple more:
1. Biloxi/New Orleans (Casinos,etc) also Gulfport, Ms (do attraction search for examples) (TWO WEEKS)

2. Nashville/Memphis - you have done some here but I bet there is more you missed if you dig around. (TWO WEEKS) This one is on our plate to do and will in include the Titantic in Pigeon Ford and "THE ARC" attractions along the way to or from.

Larry

Go to the nearest tourist bureau and pick up any tourist brochures that interest you in the least. Look at them and decide which you might like to see. Then locate the points of interest on the map and figure out a route to see what you want. Then, figure out how to fit in other POIs that you might find along the way. Don't plan on doing too much since you will always discover other things you want to see along the way.

Hope you have a great trip.

ppine wrote:
All you really have to do is choose a direction and head out. When you find a place you like stay for a couple of days. My best road trip of a lifetime was 6 weeks going across the US in a VW bus. That was in 1972. We made no reservations and few plans.

I agree with this. We won't do this now because of time constraints, but picking a direction with no preconditions should be fun.

All you really have to do is choose a direction and head out. When you find a place you like stay for a couple of days. My best road trip of a lifetime was 6 weeks going across the US in a VW bus. That was in 1972. We made no reservations and few plans.