The perfect road trip, obviously, is the one that’s perfect for you, so my experience might not be applicable. For one thing, I had years to plan since I was taking care of my aged father at the time and couldn’t take off even if I had wanted to. For another thing, grief still lay heavily on me, so I wouldn’t have enjoyed the trip even if I could have taken off. For yet another thing, it was great having such a long time to plan because a big part of a road trip is in the planning.
And the not planning.
I had originally wanted to do an epic hiking trip, such as one of the long trails or a walk across the country or anything that would take me out of myself and perhaps change both me and the trajectory of my life. When it turned out that I couldn’t do an epic hike (too much water to carry and not enough stamina), I decided to walk across the country my own way by driving from campsite to campsite and from hiking trail to hiking trail. That way, I got the feel of a lot of different places as well as the feel of a doing a long hike without actually hiking the whole way.
Once I’d decided on the project, then it was time to decide what gear I needed for where I wanted to go. Since I left in February, my itinerary was obvious — along the southern edge of the country. Then, since I had no camping supplies, the next step was to research what I needed. I had a lot of backpacking equipment in preparation for the backpacking hike that never happened (except for one overnight hike and hundreds of day trips), but no car camping gear, such as a livable tent and heavier clothes. I of course posted all this preparation online, and some people found it amusing to watch what I was doing. I suppose it was amusing, my buying for a camping trip when I’d never camped before, especially since I might not even have been able to go on the long trip. But the preparation was important to me regardless of what might have happened in what at the time was an unforeseeable future.
I knew a lot of the spots where I wanted to stop — mostly national parks and national monuments, but also people I wanted to visit. (Many of my online friends volunteered to host me. Offline people warned me about going to stay with people I’d never met face to face, but in every case, the person I met in real life was exactly what they were like online, so it felt like what it was — a continuation of an established friendship.) I also left a lot unplanned because I didn’t want to keep to a strict schedule and I knew there would always be tantalizing vistas and advertisements along the road to drag me off course.
I was lucky; since I had no home at the time (my father had died, the house sold, and I had yet to decide where I was going to live), the trip didn’t have to be a quickie affair. In fact, I was gone almost six months. I might never have returned, but I had promised to do a dance performance, which put me on the clock, but it was still a lengthy trip. All the preparation helped make the whole adventure easier, including the “not planning” I mentioned above. As I travelled, people I didn’t know but who knew me through my grief blogs, invited me to stop by, which added surprising twists to my journey. In one case, a woman I met at a campground invited me to visit, and I decided what the heck, and that had surprising twists in a different way since I felt as I’d stumbled into a Southern Gothic story. Whew! I was never so glad to set on down the road.
I also didn’t camp as often as I’d planned because some of the campgrounds were closed or they didn’t feel right, or they were too full or too empty, but that’s where the money I’d set aside for a motel fund came in handy. As I’d learned, always plan for a change of plans.
If you can’t take a road trip and wish to do one vicariously, you can follow my trip here: Road Trip 2016 | Bertram’s Blog. It truly was a remarkable experience, both the road trip itself and the fun of planning it.
You can also plan a road trip without ever intending to go anywhere. Pick a route, follow along the road with Google maps or — heaven forbid! — a paper map, then see what photos and information you can find. With all the online resources available, there is a lot you can see in the palm of your hand.
Oh, I almost forgot — the most important thing when planning the perfect road trip? Having fun!
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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