Road trips how often, how far, how much do you spend, fun stories or nightmares, etc?

[QuarterMillionMan]

The furthest I've done is Los Angeles to Las Vegas 300 miles each way. With that said I hate road trips. I would rather fly any day over road trips if it is a cost savings but when adding a rental car at my destination road trips can be cheaper. Yes the scenery is nice and all but having to sit 5 hours in a car traveling is not my thing. And this might be TMI, but a 5 hour drive I won't pull over for rest breaks and I bring empty apple juice bottles if you know what I mean. And I'll pack a sandwich or something to eat along the drive so I won't have to stop and waste time at a fast food place. And 300 miles is my car's limit to traverse on a full tank of gas not needing to stop for gas. And lastly, with such a short distance of 300 miles I save on having to find a hotel along the way by making an advanced reservation in Las Vegas way ahead of time and most times getting a comp'd (free) room. Anyone care to share stories of your road trip stories or have one upcoming planned for the furture?

[Drake3287]

Yep, can't say I enjoy these extra long drives. We routinely drive between the Bay Area and the Palm Springs area a couple of times a year. 540 miles and about a 9 hour drive including a meal stop somewhere. Throw in LA traffic and it can be longer. The worst part is the drive itself, the barren California Central Valley on Hwy 5 and then the dreaded 210 freeway through the LA area. A few times we've broken up the trip by staying overnight somewhere. We've even thought about buying a vacation home in this area but the drive itself is what's holding us back. We could fly but that has its own set of problems once you throw in the time and hassle of airports and the need to then rent a car once we get there. At least now that I'm retired I have the time unlike when I needed to be back for work the next day. I guess I should actually consider myself lucky to have this problem!

[Petunia 100]

I love a good road trip. When my kids were young, we packed up the minivan and spent a month on the road. We visited people (friends, family) and saw lots of places. National Parks, state parks, theme parks, city parks, and other points of interest. We had so much fun, that the next summer we did it again. My now ex-husband came along the second year, but that first year was the kids and I. But also that year, a friend had her own kids and her mother-in-law in a second minivan; we did most of the trip together.

My mom loved the stories from that trip so much, that we did an abbreviated version years later. My son, my nephew, my mom, and myself. Only for two weeks; we focused mainly on National Parks.

These road trips began in California, went as far north as Seattle, as far south as Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, as far east as Minneapolis.

Those are some of my favorite memories.

[disneysteve]

Completely the opposite here. We've driven all over the place. We live in NJ. To the south, we've driven as far as southeastern Florida. We drive to Orlando pretty much annually. To the north, we've been all through New England and as far as Niagara Falls, ON. To the west, I've driven to Indianapolis and DW and I went to Louisville a few years ago.

As for a road trip away from home, back in 2005 we flew to LA. Drove to Disneyland for a few days, then drove up the coast to San Francisco, then to Sequoia National Park, and finally to Las Vegas and flew home from there.

A few years ago, we flew to Phoenix, stayed in Glendale (west of the city), then drove to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and stopped in Sedona on our way back to Phoenix for our flight home.

Lots of great road trips over the years. I'm sure we've logged tens of thousands of miles. Just the trip to Orlando is over 2,000 miles round trip and we've made that drive many times, some years twice.

[kork13]

I love road trips, and if I have the time to spare, I will always choose road trip over flying. I prefer to have my own car at my destination, I love seeing the country change as we drive, and now that we have kids, driving is almost always much cheaper than plane tickets for the entire family. And for something pretty close (6hrs or less), I'll happily make a drive like that at the drop of a hat if there's something fun to do out there.

I've driven around to & through nearly every corner of the country, except for New England (haven't made it past PA so far). My longest trek has probably been from SW Oregon to Florida panhandle, but I've made literally dozens of trips ranging from 1-6 days of driving. I'm in the middle of a road trip right now, actually. I drove from Idaho last week to attend a conference in Vegas through this week, then I'll be driving to NC starting on Friday. I'll stay with family a couple nights along the way, and enjoy my drive while I catch up on podcasts & audiobooks that I've fallen behind on over the holidays.

I'm only 36 ... But come FIRE time, I foresee alot of road tripping for us.

[ua_guy]

Prefer to drive instead of fly. Road trips are my jam, always have been. Most of my vacations and road trips happen in a motorhome these days. We're currently on a 60-day stay in Southern California. We bought a new motorhome this last summer, so the trip from Seattle was the first time we've really spent a lot of windshield time in it. It did great. Between when we bought our first motorhome in 2019 and when we bought our new one last year, we've done over 30k miles in just a couple years and well over 200 nights. All over the Midwest, Glacier, Southern California, Oregon and the coast, Idaho, and Wyoming.

We did Glacier again this last fall, and we're headed to Moab and a few places in Utah after Easter '23, and already have our reservations booked for '23-'24 in Southern California. I think we'll probably tack Arizona on to the next winter trip.

Weekend happiness is going for a drive. This last weekend I wanted to get out for a while so I drove the Pines to Palms highway from Indio up to Idyllwild and then back down through Banning where I caught the 10. Logged about 130 miles round trip on my Jeep. What a fantastic road....I'm going to add it to my agenda to come back and spend some time in the little towns up there when they're not so busy, maybe on a weekday.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Speaking of roads literally, Las Vegas has some of the smoothest roads. In Los Angeles there are lots of pot holes, cracks, bumps or humps from repairs, etc. I always like driving in Las Vegas because their roads are so nice.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Every Monday I do a Los Angeles to Tijuana road trip, 150 miles each way. I pay the $7.50 toll to use the 73 freeway (8 miles) which cuts through Irvine, Newport Beach, etc. This toll road has 1/5 of the cars on the 405 freeway or I-5 freeway which connects in Irvine. It saves only 10 minutes of drive time but to me worth it having a lot few cars to maneuver around and sort of is a short cut before the John Wayne airport in Santa Ana.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

it depends. I've road tripped a lot out of necessity and choice. I fly a lot out of necessity and choice. The line for me is with kids 12 hours. That gets us to the SF and Canada to see family. Why? 3 airline tickets plus rental car usually is more expensive than 1 overnight stay at a hotel and gas. I've driven to both places and DH has flown to minimize his time off. It really cuts into vacation time driving, so for a short weekend trip say 3-4 days we'll fly. But if we have time like summers we'll do a 10 day trip and drive thursday/Friday arrive Friday afternoon and the second monday after we arrive turning it into a 2 week vacation basically.

Anything shorter than 8 hours with kids? For sure driving. With uber/parking at airport then checking in, then security, then waiting, 8 hours is equivalent to a 2 hour flight. Add in the craziness of delays, luggage lost potentially, cancellations? Driving for 3 is the way to go for less than 8 hours. Every calculus for us works out that way. 8 hours is also about a full day drive with kids. We can do longer, we've done 12 hours but it's not pleasant.

My favorite roadtrip was moving cross country and I think I posted photos on my blog. Kids were super small and we only drove like 3-4 hours a day and we stopped everywhere. It was amazing and I hope to do something like that again. We needed our car and paying $2k to ship our car and fly seemed ridiculous. Now when we had moved cross country before without kids we shipped our cars but we travelled for 3 weeks in China while our cars were shipping and then flew to the new city.

I like driving from LA to Las Vegas. One of the easiest drives I think. The issue more is that usually you can get cheap airfare, but needing a car makes it more expensive. And before not now the parking at all the hotels was free.

[disneysteve]

Anything shorter than 8 hours with kids? For sure driving.

A lot of people ask us why we drive places. "You can fly to Boston in an hour and a half." Well, that's not exactly true. We live 30 minutes from the airport and you need to be there 2 hours before your flight. It takes another 30 to park in the economy lot and get the shuttle to the terminal. Then you have to check your bags and get through security which can be another hour total. Then the flight, if it leaves on time. Then you have to navigate through the airport to get your bags, then get your rental car, then drive to your destination. All together, you're easily into it for 5-6 hours at best, probably more.

How long does it take to drive to Boston from here? 5-6 hours.

When we drive, we leave whenever we want, pack whatever we need, and go door to door from our house to our destination.

[ua_guy]

I really do not like flying and the security theater, crowded airports, packed planes, and annoying people that it entails. Not that sitting in traffic or tolerating bad drivers is much more enjoyable, but I can do that from the comfort of my own vehicle and I'm in control during the whole process. Flying domestically is too much like being a hostage to the lowest common denominator so I avoid it whenever I can.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I’d like counter all the non flyers but it’ll have to wait until I can get to my laptop. Hard to type on iPhone and not keen on voice dictation.

revising non flyers to road warriors.

[Petunia 100]

A lot of people ask us why we drive places. "You can fly to Boston in an hour and a half." Well, that's not exactly true. We live 30 minutes from the airport and you need to be there 2 hours before your flight. It takes another 30 to park in the economy lot and get the shuttle to the terminal. Then you have to check your bags and get through security which can be another hour total. Then the flight, if it leaves on time. Then you have to navigate through the airport to get your bags, then get your rental car, then drive to your destination. All together, you're easily into it for 5-6 hours at best, probably more.

How long does it take to drive to Boston from here? 5-6 hours.

When we drive, we leave whenever we want, pack whatever we need, and go door to door from our house to our destination.

Plus, it is getting more and more common for airlines to cancel flights at the last minute. Last May, when flying home from Alaska, we had the last leg of our flight (Seattle to Sacramento) cancelled. We were re-booked on another flight but had to wait around for 6 hours before boarding. We had flown all night, so were tired and the additional waiting time was not welcome.

Flying is becoming less pleasant all the time, IMO.

[disneysteve]

Look at the thousands of flights that were cancelled over the holidays. Some were for legit weather issues but many were collateral damage. I had a friend who was supposed to fly out of Boston. The weather there was clear. The weather where she was going was clear. But the airline couldn’t get the plane needed for the flight because it was stuck elsewhere.

[bjl584]

My last road trip was in the fall. We drove to Arkansas for a week to the Ozark mountains to visit some friends and do some hiking and exploring.
It was a 1000 mile drive one way. We split the drive up into 2 days and stops to see some sites along the way.
It was a fun trip.