In
the summer of 2007, Peter
Thody and his wife Carole left their home in Leeds,
England to embark on a 4,000-mile American road trip.
Hotel bookings in Chicago and San Francisco established
the bookends of the trip, a rental Jeep provided the
means of getting from A to B, but the four weeks in
between were left to write their own story. [Click
here for the Adventures]
Yes,
it is New Year's resolutions time - time to examine
our priorities and maybe shuffle them a bit. Do you
think that you are too busy or too broke to go on
a road trip this year? Think again. With a little
planning, you can do it for less and shake off some
of the anxiety that has dogged everyone in this shaky
economy. Carol White resolves to get more enjoyment
from life by making those road trips happen.[Read
the story.]
San
Diego offers visitors a wide range of attractions
and activities, and the moderate climate means few
rainy days. Even better, San Diego's mass transit
system is so easy to use that there's no need to drive
your vehicle or hassle with parking. Native San Diegan
Jaimie Hall Bruzenak tells you how to enjoy the city
by bus, train and trolley. [Read
the story.]
Peter
Thody had the wrong idea about Montana from the get-go.
A single episode of a 1970s TV series and a misunderstanding
about the location of a Clint Eastwood movie had led
this U.K.-based writer to imagine some romantic, rough-and-ready
place - a fairly inaccurate image, it turns out. Join
him as he goes in search of a land of outlaws and
gunfighters, and discovers instead a state of arts
communities, antiques shops and sushi bars. [Read
the story.]
Driving
through the wide open spaces of the eastern part of
the state, then across the Bighorn Mountains, Peter
Thody falls for Wyoming in a big way. Cody serves
up some Wild West history, gunfights and a rodeo,
but it is the beauty of Yellowstone, America's first
and best-loved national park, that takes his breath
away.[Read
the story.]
The
first thing you need to know about Greenland is that
there are no roads - at least not outside the towns.
So if you find yourself on the world's largest island,
hankering for a road trip, you'll have to enlarge
your idea of "vehicle" to include small
planes, fishing boats and dog sleds. Lea Lane takes
you on a whirlwind tour.
[Read
the story.]
A
road trip in search of your ancestors can mean traveling
back to places once familiar, or often discovering
the unfamiliar. Come along on a road trip from Florida
to Canada as Anne Sponholtz visits some popular tourist
destinations, finds some ancestors she didn't know
she had, and offers some advice for others searching
for family roots on the road. [Read
the story.]
Driving
through the center of Georgia is much like looking
through a kaleidoscope. With every turn of the road,
the landscape shifts, sometimes offering a subtle
change in form or color, other times presenting an
entirely new aspect. Anne Sponholtz takes you on a
470-mile trip north through peach orchards and pecan
groves, with a sobering stop at a Civil War prison
camp and an exhilarating ride into the Blue Ridge
Mountains. [Read
the story.]
The
history of the Lone Star State - the history before
the Kawakawa and Comanche, before the Spanish and
the settlers from the East - is engraved in stone.
Those rocks tell a turbulent story of environmental
and biological change that makes the present-day "crisis"
of global warming appear trivial. Aaron Reed takes
the family on a road trip into the geological past,
when parts of Texas now 1,500 feet above sea level
were, literally, the bottom of the ocean.[Read
the story.]
Some
road trips start out all wrong and then somehow end
up right. That's what happens when Aaron Reed sets
out on Memorial Day weekend to visit a Texas creamery
and tour a legendary brewery. Alas: no ice cream,
no tour. What he finds instead is some old-time hospitality
in a corner of Texas where German, Czech and Mexican
traditions mingle companionably over music and beer.
[Read
the story.]
Each
summer, Anne Sponholtz heads to Cedar Key for a weeklong
vacation on the Gulf Coast of north Florida. The tiny
village has its share of ghost stories and pirate
tales, and Jimmy Buffett once sang nostalgically about
it. But it wasn't until she made a midwinter visit
to the quiet island community that Anne understood
what it is about Cedar Key that keeps bringing her
back.
[Read the
story.]
On
an off-road trek along the Gulf of Mexico in southernmost
Texas, Aaron Reed encounters many memories and a mystery.
The memories are familiar -- fishing with his grandparents,
nursing the injuries of a misspent youth -- but what
is that orange stuff out in the water? [Read
the story.]
Peter
Thody visits Iowa, the state many believe provides
a window into how America used to be: a simpler, more
innocent way of life. And while credit cards are indeed
still viewed with suspicion, Thody struggles to imagine
Doris Day attending a death-metal disco or Pa Ingalls
searching for work along a climate-controlled skywalk.
Like everywhere else, the "Tall Corn State"
is changing -- and not always for the best.
[Read
the story.]
In
Death Valley National Park, in the Panamint Mountains
of eastern California, is a canyon loop road that
takes four-wheelers through a harshly beautiful landscape
and 150 years of pioneer history. Del Albright lets
some air out of his tires and heads down the trail.
[Read
the story.]
Christmas
in East Texas is scented by pine woods and coffee,
and bright lights appear in town squares and oil fields
to illuminate memories of eras long past. Aaron Reed
takes a couple of holiday road trips -- one to Marshall,
the other to Kilgore -- to discover the spirit of
the season. [Read
the story.]
In
the summer of 2007, Peter Thody and his wife Carole
left their home in Leeds, England to embark on a 4,000-mile
American road trip. Hotel bookings in Chicago and
San Francisco established the bookends of the trip,
a rental Jeep provided the means of getting from A
to B, but the four weeks in between were left to write
their own story. The first adventure took Thody to
Illinois, where he discovered some odd examples of
Americana: a 110-ton coffee bean, a 2,000-foot drill
bit and a seemingly endless supply of artistically
rusty, vintage farm implements. [Read
the story.]
Snowbirds traveling
to Florida's West Coast are treated to a 66-mile road
trip along U.S. Highway 301, an old-time road that
serves as a connector between one interstate system
and another. Anne Sponholtz traveled U.S. Highway
301 as a youngster when her family vacationed in Florida
each summer. Recently, when she set out in her RV
to see what this rural section of highway in North
Florida had in store for snowbirds, she discovered
orange juice, pigs, a county seat, horse farms and
a state park along the way. [Read
the story.]
With
a single day to explore the vastness of Alaska, Megan
Edwards skipped the package tours and picked up a
rental car. Her solitary road trip along Alaska's
Highway 1 reveals America's last great frontier in
all its autumn glory - birch trees, glaciers, moose
and all. [Read
the story.]
Sometimes
it seems that all roads lead to Austin. Once a sleepy
college town and provincial capital, Austin is now
the 17th-largest city in the country and a major center
for high-tech innovation, and it hosts 19 million
visitors a year. A good number of them are music fans
making a pilgrimage to the self-proclaimed "Live
Music Capital of the World." Aaron Reed takes
a break from the open road to lead an insider's tour
of clubs, restaurants and off-beat attractions in
his hometown city.
[Read
the story.]
Thirty-five teams of
robotic, mechanical, automotive, and artificial intelligence
engineers gathered in Victorville, California in late
October to participate in the National Qualifying
Event of the DARPA Urban Challenge. Unlike the prior
events where autonomous vehicles were challenged to
find their way around an off-highway course, this
year's event required that these specialized robots
be able to drive in an urban setting, navigate traffic
circles and stop signs, and make decisions based on
scenarios presented to them...[More]
Aaron
Reed takes a Saturday road trip up the Mexico-Canada
corridor and back in time as he explores the roadside
attractions of Waco, Texas. Here, in the shadow of
Baylor University, the frontier meets free enterprise...[Read
the story.]
Many
road trippers head into the Southwest with a single
mission: to see the Grand Canyon. They are so intent
on looking out over the Canyon's grand vistas that
they skip other attractions along the way. Suzanne
and Craig Sheumaker have a different mission: to introduce
four of the Canyon's close neighbors and give visitors
reason to pause a little longer in this extraordinary
region...[Read
the story.]
After
a late night with friends and a lazy morning recovering,
Aaron Reed had an
urge to get out of the house and go for a country
drive. The relief he sought was vertical: the lush,
shadowed valleys and craggy ridges of the Texas Hill
Country. It was a Sunday drive, and by the end of
the day his spirits were restored by the fresh air,
a collection of Burma Shave signs and a champion maple
tree decked out in its first fall finery...[Read
the story.]
When
Dennis Weaver saw the new sign, his heart sank: "Sheep
Falls-4 Miles." His favorite picnic spot, one
of the most scenic places in eastern Idaho, had been
discovered. Would the road be thronged with SUVs?
Would the falls be crowded with campers and picnickers?
Dennis headed down the little dirt track with trepidation,
and came back with this report...[Read
the story.]
Mountain
road trips are often daunting adventures, but the
La Sal Mountains, in eastern Utah, can be explored
in an easy daylong ride along the La Sal Mountain
Scenic Loop out of Moab - and all you need is an SUV.
Del Albright says
fall is the season to do it, when the brush fields
glow red alongside the stands of gold quaking aspens....[Read
the story.]
The
rain clouds looming on the horizon did, in fact materialize
into record-setting rain and floods, but not before
road tripper Aaron Reed
had a chance to look for wallabies and go kayaking
on an ancient canal in western Texas. No canned mutton,
though...[Read
the story.]
On
a recent trip to the Southeast for a summertime conference,
Megan Edwards found herself with time on her hands
and a favorite road trip calling her name. She headed
straight for Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
whose misty vistas and rhododendron-covered hillsides
attract more visitors than any other national park
in the country. Crowded? Yes. But a day spent traveling
the Newfound Gap Road, even in high summer, offered
nothing but beautiful, green forest solitude....[Read
the story.]
When
Tamara Dwyer's family settled in the Walla Walla Valley
in the early 1900s, it was best known for growing
wheat, onions, and asparagus. That changed 40 years
ago, when commercial vintners discovered an old-time
secret: The volcanic soils and watersheds of this
valley, which stretches from eastern Washington into
Oregon, produce excellent wines. On a homecoming roadtrip
last July, Tamara made a tour of three wineries and
contemplated the importance of strong roots...[Read
the story.]
A
drive south from Austin on a hot summer weekend takes
road tripper Aaron Reed
on a journey home to Rockport and Port Aransas, on
the Gulf coast of Texas. Here he paddles his kayak,
eats grilled shrimp and tuna tacos, and has a chance
encounter with a giant blue land crab. It's one of
the reasons he loves this place so well -- there's
no telling what will show up...[Read
the story.]
In New Orleans,
we don't often get to see military equipment.
We do have one really great annual air show, and an
occasional natural disaster--namely Hurrican Katrina
in 2005--brings almost every military vehicle known
to man to town. Besides these events, however, it's
necessary to take a road trip to see some military
equipment up close. I have always loved visiting the
World War II battleship USS Alabama, on display at
Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile...[More]
SEE ROCK CITY.
Big. Bold. Easy to read, even for a four-year-old.
Ever since I deciphered the command while driving
by old barns on family road trips, I've been determined
to obey. "It's just a tourist trap," my
dad would say, but that never convinced me I shouldn't
make a pilgrimage someday....[More]
My brother rolled
in. He and his wife were just completing an 11,000
mile road trip in five weeks. They live in Fairbanks,
Alaska, and had flown into Boise, Idaho where they
had rented a car-with unlimited mileage, of course.
They had driven across the Southwest, through Florida,
down to Key West, and then back and up the Appalachian
Trail. Now they were headed back to Boise and had
stopped off to see us in eastern Idaho...[More]
A road trip, in
our view, in not merely a journey that covers
the distance between point A and point B. "Roadtrip"
is a state of mind you can access any time you decide
to enter the world of adventure as opposed to routine
travel. In other articles, we have explored the concepts
of Two-Hour
RoadTrips, Cheap
RoadTrips, and The
Art of Roadtripping. We've also provided dozens
of examples of "challenge"
and "quest"
roadtrips. Recently, we've been enjoying another type
of adventure we're calling the Twenty-Hour RoadTrip....[More]
Since I have been a teenager,
I have always dreamed about kicking off the loafers
and bare footing across the Florida Keys. I am not
so certain why I have always been drawn to these little
islands at the end of the world, but I finally made
it there. A few months ago, my wife, daughter and
I climbed into my 2000 Volkswagen Jetta TDI for a
long-awaited roadtrip. It was going to be nice to
be on the open road once again. This time we had an
extra attachment in tow, our 1938 replica teardrop
camper...[More]
A side trip upon your next visit to
the Death Valley area could include a visit to
a rarely visited gold mine a few miles south of the
park. The Ruth Mine, originally called the Graham-Jones
Mine, started production in 1899 under the direction
of Doug Graham and S.S. (Smiley) Jones. Situated in
the Argus Mountain Range, it is located 14 miles north
of Trona in Homewood Canyon...[More]
Fifty miles wide and 30 miles long
of nearly undiscovered rugged landscape beauty,
the San Rafael Swell area of Utah blew off my driving
gloves! Wow, was I impressed. Formed millions of years
ago by geologic upheavals, this truly is a "swell"
in the earth's surface. Uplifted craggy rocks have
been beaten, battered and carved by erosion, wind
and water to make this off-pavement SUV road tip one
for the record book...[More]
I had to work in
Yuma, so I drove from Phoenix the night before.
The romance of a road trip is intense at night. It's
you, your thoughts, maybe a companion, the dash lights
and radio, in an electromechanical bubble shooting
along alone in the dark. There are other cars and
trucks, but they exist in their world while you are
alone in yours. I've always loved driving at night...[More]
While cruising along a highway in
central Arizona, it occurred to me that if you
wanted to see Arizona history in three dimensions,
Verde Valley is the place to go. No other location
in Arizona offers such a complete and vivid glimpse
into Arizona's fur-trading, ranching, farming, mining,
railroading, and rip-roaring Wild West past...[More]
This off-highway road trip is
for anyone with an SUV who loves history, artwork,
and majestic scenery, combined with a little four-wheeling.
"Nine Mile Canyon" is actually a misnomer
because this rugged rock-walled canyon outside of
Price, Utah is more like 30 miles long, and every
bit of it a head turning, eyeball popping experience....[More]
The road along western Wyoming's
Greys River seems to go forever... We had
gotten away from home late and it was dark. In the
headlights, the road seemed even longer. Finally,
the road narrowed from a wide two-lane gravel road
to something not much wider than a single lane and
we started looking for camping spots. A promising
road, not much more than a double track trail, led
toward the river in the dark and we turned down it...[More]
Whenever I can,
I like to mosey on a road trip. What luxury is
greater than having the time to let the spirit of
the moment determine your route and destination? But
the reality is that few of us have enough time to
mosey to the grocery store, much less on a cross-country
journey. Even when we take road-trip vacations, we're
usually in a big hurry to get somewhere so we can
begin to "relax" in earnest...[More]
Time machines are
works of fiction, but a car, a tank of gas, and
Highway 93 are all it takes to travel back to the
Nevada of yesteryear. A trip north from Las Vegas
to Ely and Great Basin National Park is not only a
600-mile road trip through ancient geological wonders,
but also a journey into the Silver State's wild and
wooly historic past... [More]
About
an hour east of Redding, California on state highway
299 is a wonderful watery road trip destination. Burney
Falls is a set of waterfalls like none other I've
ever seen. I can still feel the mist on my face and
see the cascading beauty of two side-by-side waterfalls.
... [More]
What do you get
when you mix wonderful spring weather with Native
American ceremonial dancing, rocks, crafts, gems,
music, and food; and then throw in some down home
fun? You get the Annual Snyder's Valley Springs Powwow.
2006 marked the 32nd year for the Pow Wow, as the
locals call it. It's a road trip worth taking... [More]
Driving along Interstate
5 near Redding, California, you wouldn't guess
that a glistening jewel lies just west along the Sacramento
River. Nestled in Turtle Bay Exploration Park, the
Sundial pedestrian bridge was completed in 2004 and
connects the two sections of the park with grace and
splendor.... [More]
Living in Las Vegas,
Nevada, I find it easy to imagine that all that
goes on around us can be explained or manipulated
by other humans. The growth of a city of nearly two
million residents in one of the driest places in the
Americas, the wonder and artistry of the various strip
performers and shows and the sheer exuberance of a
municipality that seems to thrive...
[More]
Many road trip enthusiasts
have a creed that goes something like this: "To
see the REAL America you have to travel two-lane back
roads." Well, I am going to let you in on a little
secret - one of my favorite back road drives is a
six-lane Interstate highway in eastern Utah...
[More]
In early spring, the snows are drifted
deep in the high country forcing the deer and
elk to the foothills. You'll find them congregated
on the south and west-facing hills exposed against
the snow or bare slopes. Often, you will see them
by the hundreds. This time of year, you'll also find...
[More]
It seemed like months
since he had tasted a decent drink of water. The
sun felt like it was burning a hole through his old
miner's hat. His lips were long since chapped beyond
recognition, but he wanted to find that pot of gold
he'd been looking for...
[More]
January 8, 2006
RoadTrip into the Heartland
South Dakota
by Peter Thody
For months we'd
pored over maps, books, and the Internet ahead
of a month-long, let's-do-it-now-the-kids-have-left-home
journey across the USA. What we wanted to see was
middle America, the American heartland...
[More]
The Avenue of the
Giants is a thirty-two mile scenic byway that parallels
US-101 about thirty-five miles south of Eureka, California.
The road was originally built as a stagecoach and
wagon road in the 1880s and roughly follows the South
Fork of the Eel River from the small town of Pepperwood
in the north to Phillipsville in the south...
[More]
The early October skies were leaden
and heavily settled on the mountains to the east
as we headed up Highway 26 from Idaho Falls toward
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The rain had stopped. Cotton-like
wisps clung to the mountains in contrast to the darker
skies... [More]
Stanford Racing's VW Touareg "Stanley"
crosses the finish line first
What did it take
to win? Practice, practice, practice! The five
finishers of the DARPA Grand Challenge all put major
development miles on their bots. Stories of desert
escapades involving chase vehicles were common in
the pits. The single factoid that indicated a winner
might have been how many chase vehicles a team had
ruined. In fact, the member of the Carnegie-Mellon
team responsible for renting cars was black-listed...
[More]
Stanford team leaders Sebastian Thrun &
Michael Montemerlo celebrate Stanley's victory
Primm, Nevada, was
the site of a truly historic road trip on Saturday,
October 8th. At about 2:30 p.m., "Stanley,"
a driverless VW Diesel Touareg, crossed the finish
line at the DARPA Grand Challenge after successfully
negotiating a 131.5-mile desert course that looped
around the Mojave Desert on both sides of Interstate
15 just south of Las Vegas. This was the second race
sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, offering a $2 million prize to the autonomous
vehicle that could finish the course in ten hours
or less... [More]
Apache Pass was
a crossroads of human history in a place that
General Crook once described as so barren "a
wolf couldn't make a living on it." But there
is a perennial freshwater spring there. The flow is
just a trickle now, but it was once a reliable enough
source that travelers made it a point to stop there.
Good water sources were few in the southern deserts.
The spring at Apache Pass was an important resource,
and the Army built a post there in the 1860s to protect
it: Fort Bowie... [More]
Autonomous vehicles navigate a tunnel at the
California Motor Speedway.
The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) operates under
the auspices of the United States Department of Defense.
Last March, DARPA sponsored an event called the Grand
Challenge, which was held to accelerate the development
of autonomous vehicle technologies for use in battlefield
situations. To succeed in the Grand Challenge, autonomous
vehicles must be able to navigate a 175-mile desert
topography course in under ten hours with no assistance
of any kind from their human engineers... [More]
Greg Parker may
been "officially" out of the towing business
since mid 2002, but on Saturday night I saw tangible
evidence that the tow truck driving community still
counts him as one of their own. Greg passed away last
week, and I was fortunate to spend the day in Barstow
reveling in the colorful stories about his life and
passions. As dusk fell over this historic Route 66
town, I witnessed a send-off... [More]
One of the most
extraordinary geologic sites in North America
is located within a couple of hours of Twin Falls,
Idaho. The Great Rift volcanic zone is a fifty-three
mile-long tear in the earth's crust that extends roughly
from the southern end of the Pioneer Mountains to...
[More]
Experimental Breeder
Reactor #1 (EBR-1) was the first nuclear-powered electrical
power plant ever built, and it's open free of
charge to visitors. Even though the building's bland
cinderblock construction appears to be uninspiring
from a distance, this place is well worth a visit...
[Read the story!]
August 7, 2005
Los Angeles, Sierra Nevadas, Death Valley, Las Vegas,
& Back! 1,200
Miles in Four Days by Mark Helmlinger
This is a story
of a recent road trip I had the honor of taking with
my good friends Frank and Wolfgang. We traveled
in a truly incredible road machine, the Phoenix II
(formerly known as the Phoenix
One) ...[More]
It was hard to imagine
that such a perfect combination of temperature and
weather could ever be matched during our recent
visit to Glacier National Park in Montana. A happy
coincidence of logistics enabled us to travel on the
Going-to-the-Sun Road on our way to embark on a Quest
RoadTrip that we had planned for Havre, Montana.
My dad, Charles Sedenquist, left his home town 61
years ago...[More]
Sitting beside the
roadway, on the Capitol Reef National Park Scenic
Drive, I watch the play of sunlight on the multicolored
but mostly-some-shade-of-orange-red-or-charcoal rocks,
as it highlights the visible sedimentary layers. The
layers themselves I can imagine looking like this
forever, but...[More]
Sybaris in the Rockies: Strawberry Park
Hot Springs
I have driven on
4 wheel-drive off-highway trails that have made
my neck hair stand on end but that carried nary a
warning sign at the trailhead. That's why the official
signs on County Road 36 just outside Steamboat Springs,
Colorado, riveted my attention. I regret that I didn't
stop to take a photo. There were a couple of them
just after the road left the pavement and began the
uphill grade to our destination -- the famous Strawberry
Park Hot Springs...[More]
Exactly what is
a "RoadTrip Rendezvous?" Now that we're
had our first one -- it happened the first week of
May, 2005 -- we've come up with a definition. Participants
take roadtrips that share one element: their itineraries
converge at a set location in North America for a
day or two. Participants meet, share a meal or two,
and do something interesting together. The "something"
might be anything from a music festival to a duck
race -- North America is a big, fabulously diverse
continent. In the case of the first RoadTrip Rendezvous,
the "something" was a cattle branding on
a ranch in southern Wyoming...[More]
Highway 190 near Zabriskie Point on August 16th,
2004
On-the-road weather
has always fascinated me. A weather radio can
ALWAYS be found in any of my road trip vehicles, and
I try to look at the NOAA weather satellite imagery
a least once a day when I am at the office. On August
15, 2004, I noticed a huge thunderstorm cell building
over the mountains on the eastern edge of Death Valley.
Rain of any consequence is always of interest when
it falls one of the driest mountain ranges in North
America, but this one looked especially intense. It
was. The storm that began to flood...[More]
Over one thousand
years ago, southwest Indians built cities into
canyon walls. They did this for several reasons, among
them efficient use of land and resources. Today, north
of Phoenix, architect Paolo Soleri is building a city
the same way they did, and for some of the same reasons.Arcosanti is located about two miles from
Cordes Junction, Arizona. Since 1970, it's been Soleri's
ongoing experiment in "arcology," his term
for the synthesis of architecture and ecology...[More]
If you
haven't taken a road trip to view wildflowers yet
this year, there's still time. Don't put it off too
long, though -- this season is one of the best in
decades in California's Death Valley and Antelope
Valley, and things are looking good in lots of other
parts of the country, too. Here are some photos to
whet your appetite and some resources to get you rolling!...[More]
On February 26, 2005, the Durango
& Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
operated its first winter photo excursion train. White
snow, black locomotive, yellow passenger cars -- how
could I possibly resist? Getting to Durango in time
for an early Saturday boarding meant leaving Phoenix
on Friday afternoon. My daughter Mandy and I took
the fast route -- north on I-17 to Flagstaff, I-40
to Gallup, NM, and then US491, US64 and US550 through
Shiprock and Farmington. We arrived in...[More]
I can hardly say I am a "Scot." McKinney
is one branch of my family, for sure, late of the
Isle of Skye, where they reportedly assisted in an
uprising or two and suffered because of their clandestine
support, not well concealed, for Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Nevertheless, with a "bonnie" amalgam of
blood in my veins, Norman, Cornish, German, Scot,
and who knows what else, I am nothing but an American
mutt, and that is fine with me. However, I find Scottish
culture a fascinating and beautiful thing. On Saturday,
November 6th, Highland Games were held in Tucson.
I went, but I did not wear a kilt...[Read
more]
Imagine a road trip
whose route crosses a couple of 7,000-foot mountain
passes. It includes two-lane roadways with both long,
straight stetches and sinewy, steep mountain curves.
Think of a route that passes by Area 51, the primary
Predator airbase, several historic gold and silver
mining areas, and winds by a grove of the oldest trees
on earth. Such a drive is an easy day trip from Las
Vegas, Nevada, and covers about 262 miles one way...[More]
Twenty-three year-old Ben Pomeroy and two friends left their
home in Greenville, South Carolina, Friday morning on a
road trip to see old friends. Twenty-two hours later, they
joined the line on I-91 with thousands of others waiting
to enter tiny Coventry, Vermont, where friends Trey, Page,
Mike and Jon would be arriving soon. However, Ben and most
of the masses had never even met the four men. They only
knew them as the band Phish, who played their final shows
last weekend. But tragedy seemed to befall Pomeroy when
he heard the band's management was turning vehicles away
due to torrential rains that rendered huge areas of the
600-acre concert site unusable. But after their 1000-mile
journey, Pomeroy and friends wouldn't take "no"
for an answer. They locked their car, grabbed all they could
carry, and began the eight-hour hike...[Read
more]
June 27, 2004 Take Safety
Along
Nearly all experienced roadtrippers are already excellent
drivers. A common love of seeing "what's around the next
bend" tends to hone our collective abilities when we
sit behind the wheel and pursue our hobby of taking road trips.
But I have yet to meet a single individual—professional
drivers included—who would not benefit from taking refresher
or advanced driving skill classes. While researching this
article, I took a
practice quiz on the DrivingDirectory.com Web site and
was astonished that I did relatively poorly on the highway
sign identification test. Since I drive hundreds of miles
each month, and I am particularly interested in highway signage,
it occurred to me that other slightly-more-casual roadtrippers
might benefit from a page of resources that provides tips
and suggestions for enhancing their own driving skills. We've
added such a page to
RoadTrip America this week, and...[Read
more] May 30, 2004 Best-Kept RoadTrip
Secrets We
all know the Web is an incredible source for obtaining information
about little known roadtrip destinations and attractions.
Unfortunately, the task of finding useful information can
be daunting, even for experienced search engine users and
professional roadtrippers. Here at RoadTrip America, we consider
it one of our primary missions to scour the Web each week
looking for new and useful road trip resources. In addition,
we receive lots of "intel" by email. We post the
best sites we find on our Links
Pages with short descriptions. Some sites, however, deserve
more than a paragraph. Here are three outstanding recent finds...[Read
more] March
14, 2004 Robots on the Road:
The DARPA Grand Challenge
I never need much of an excuse to take a road trip, but yesterday
I had a GRAND one! At 2:00 am we left Las Vegas and headed
south on Interstate 15. It was a beautiful night to be on
the road, and our destination was the Slash X café
in Barstow, California. Slash X was ground zero for the DARPA
Grand Challenge Autonomous Ground Vehicle Race from Barstow
to Primm, Nevada...[Read
more] February 23, 2004 Reservations on Road
Trips -- Do You Need Them?
A frequent topic of discussion on the Great
American RoadTrip Forum centers around whether or not
to make lodging or camping reservations when on a road trip.
For me, the only difference between a "drive" between
two points and a "road trip" is the shift in perception
by the participants. In my world, a "road trip"
is synonymous with freedom and adventure and the constraints
imposed by having reservations en route is antithetical to
that process...[Read
more]
We
all know the Web is an incredible source for obtaining information
about little known roadtrip destinations and attractions.
Unfortunately, the task of finding useful information can
be daunting, even for experienced search engine users and
professional roadtrippers. Here at RoadTrip America, we consider
it one of our primary missions to scour the Web each week
looking for new and useful road trip resources. In addition,
we receive lots of "intel" by email. We post the
best sites we find on our 
March
14, 2004