Deep down I know there’s no right or wrong way to plan my road trip, but every time I start to write things down and really plan it I feel like I’m doing SOMETHING wrong. And that feeling gets confirmed when I share what I’ve planned with someone.
“You should take more time in each place. You don’t want to rush.” “You shouldn’t make a beeline to one place – especially not the middle of the country.” “Why would you go there and then all the way back to there?” “Oh no, don’t go there.” Ok, the last one is helpful when it comes with an explanation, so I can judge whether I really should skip a place or not. And the first ones are all repeats of what I am saying to myself, I’m just not sure how else to do it all. I want to see so many places, but I do have to remind myself not to rush. I do want to get to certain places to see people, but I also want the route I use to get there to make sense.
So I think what I’m going to do is put milestones along the way – certain places I MUST be by a certain time, and leave a bit in the middle more up in the air. That both scares me and is a relief. It scares me because if I don’t know ahead where I’m going to be each day, I won’t be able to book somewhere to stay each night and then I could end up without any fairly reasonable options. But it’s a relief in that I don’t have to do as much detailed planning ahead of time. And I want to leave some things open. What if I get to Indiana National Dunes National Lakeshore and love it and just want to take pictures and read on the beach all day? That won’t be able to happen if I’ve booked a place to sleep two stops and five hours away. Think this is one area I’ll start by facing my fears, not over planning and seeign how it goes…
So my milestones so far(with LOTS of stops between):
- Amherst with my family to start Sept 5.
- Nashville Sept 17 for the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman (accidentily bought tix for this show when I meant to buy for the other, so am going to be in Nashville ALOT in Sept!) My friend Amy – an up-and-coming country star herself, check her out on her new website http://www.amywestney.bandvista.com/ – would love this one as it features her idol Carrie Underwood.
- Nashville Sept. 21-24 as some London friends will be in town.
- New York City Sept. 24-27 for my friend’s wedding/friends weekend and then to start my job search.
- Nashville Sept 28 for the grand re-opening of the Grand Ole Opry – looks to be an incredible show!
- Have to figure out what city I’ll be near Oct 1-3 so I can book my tickets home for Nick’s college family weekend and to celebrate his 19th birthday!
- Oct 4 – Maybe Oklahoma for a friend’s birthday.
- Oct. 24 – San Diego for the Patriots game – it’s the only road game I think makes sense. And Afraid none of the Red Sox games fit. Checking Celtics schedule next…
I’m finding it hard to think past October right now, so this is it for the moment. Any planning tips? Other milestones I should keep in mind?
Amy's America 
This may be helpful to you. I knew this previously but was reminded while reading our local real estate magazine. Warren County TN (our county) is a single days drive from 70 percent of the entire population of the United States. I realize you may have to do some back tracking but this may be a good “home base” for a while. Also, we are only 90 minutes from Nashville. Also, you mentioned you wanted to go to Atlanta. The ride up from Atlanta was 3 hours. You can look at the map again when you get here and see what direction you want to head.
That was so sweet of you to move there just to be convenient for my road trip! 🙂 Such forward thinking of you and Dad! Seriously, I have you marked with my little bubble dot on the map and will most definitely taking advantage, at least some of the time. Wish you were able to join me for some of the travels! xo
Have you used priceline.com? It’s a little bit of an adventure because you don’t know which hotel your gonna get, but you pick the quality and price you want and if something is available that’s where you’re going. Amy and I use it often last minute in Portland, Seattle and a few other places and it’s always worked for us. Not sure if it would work in smaller cities, but you could log on now and see if they cover those areas. If they do – it may give you that freedom to choose where and when you want to stay that night at a much lower price than usual. When you bid your own prices, we’ve stayed at some excellent hotels and saved hundreds of dollars per night.
Great idea – thank you! I’ve never tried it, but it can’t hurt, right? 🙂
I hadn’t but thank you – I just bookmarked that site! And yes, I’ll def fly from Nashville to NYC and back because I’ll be going to a bunch of other places before going back to NYC…
Have you seen this site – http://www.route4me.com? And, I think you should fly between Nashville and NYC. You could always route yourself through NYC on the way to Nashville, in case you’re worried about missing something on the road. E