How do you plan your trip?

[concretebox]

I'm planning on taking off from Champaign, IL towards Quartzite. I plugged this route into Road Trip America, and it showed a bunch of attractions. However, I was looking for something that would help me pick destinations based on how many miles I want to drive in a day.

 

[wagoneer]

MY rule 6 hours driving max prefer 4-5 for me 6 hours is 350 miles if in good shape 400 miles and time to refill the tank. leave 7 am in rural areas and 5 am in congested areas (commuters)
3 hours in the AM 3 hours in the PM with stops I will stop if I find a really good spot, hot spring, just raw beauty blah blah you fill in the blanks.

 

[cyndi]

I want off the road by 2-2:30pm. I used to get a real early start but I don't bother with that anymore. If I am an in urban area where there is a daily rat race, I wait until after 9am for the school buses to be off the road.

When I leave in the morning I have a few possible destinations in mind, depending on how fast (or slow) I travel.

At lunch time or dog walking time I re-assess.

No plan is a good plan. Can't be foiled.

 

[Sameer]

I travel very slow. I stop in every rest area or any place that looks interesting and let the dog walk and pee. I go thru metropolitan areas like Phoenix late at night to avoid traffic. I stop and eat and make coffee. 250 miles a day most of the time. It take me forever to get anywhere. I DO like stopping and seeing interesting sites. I travel back roads but I actually like the Interstate or 4 lane roads because the big trucks can get around me easily. I don't drive faster than 55 mph. With the exception of Metropolitan Areas, I don't drive at night..

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

i wonder about this too, i want to check out interesting spots but i dont want to blow too much gas 'getting lost'. i know it has its merits and i mighht partake occasionally but having a basic plan appeals to me.

 

[karl]

My planning is usually limited to:
leaving today or tomorrow morning, after rush hour.
driving for 3 hours, more or less, at which time my back says it wants to go for a walk.
That usually coincides well with The Princess(Black Lab) wanting to walk, pee, swim and smell whatever.
Coffee and a snack, then back on the road and repeat.
Find suitable spot to settle in for the night.
Weather, water, whims, can alter any of the above plans.
Sometimes I search online for places of interest near where I am and allow GPS to take me to those.

I drive Highways until bored, then meander in the general direction I'm wanting to go on secondaries.
If I have no destination in mind, roads are chosen by whichever one promises to be more interesting. (that has convinced me to install a reserve fuel tank!)

Rarely do I drive after dark in towns, sometimes on highways if I haven't found a suitable place to overnight.

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

I take it that none of you use guide books - Lonely Planet, Moon, Weird, etc. to find the interesting things you want to see, and then plan your trip around your desired destinations?

Regards
John

 

[LeeRevell]

Nope, never heard of them before. I'll check them out.

 

[wagoneer]

The only issue I have with planning is being too much in the now and it seems like an overload to add someone else's "hey go check this out" in word or print to my weird schedule.

 

[Seraphim]

We pretty much choose a direction and a general destination area, then research general areas of interest along the way. If our destination is on the other side of the country, we may spend a few days straight travel. Other than that, we meander. Make general plans at night and maybe follow them in the morning. Generally don't travel more than a couple hours and stay a couple of nights, to check out the locality. The trip is more important than the destination.

Most of our research is done online, both before we leave and along the way. We may have a specific purpose, such as trying out new bike trails. We may just want to get away from people for a while. But the internet is a great source of travel information. We still use AAA though for 'free' information (after membership fee), maps and advice.

---

The only guidebook we ever used was Alaska specific..

 

[Reno]

Drive 3 or 4 hours a day - or less. No night drives. At truck stop by 3 or 4 pm for dinner, rest, and breakfast. Stop/start whenever. McD for sweet tea, clean restrooms, and wifi. Works for me.

 

[rvwandering]

I think there is software that we allow you to plug in the miles that will also bring up points of interest. Maybe one that works with a GPS device?

Since we don't have either I just make my own map with all of the places that we may be interested in seeing and then if we happen to going that way we stop and see them.

We're more into the journey as opposed to getting to a destination and staying for a long time so we travel the back roads and rarely drive more than 100 miles in a day. Before we start out in the morning I check for good places to stop for the night which could be a campground, a big box store or a boondocking spot. I pick two or three places because we often change our minds or spend so much time at a stop that we don't get as far as I expected.

Road Trip America is a great site for finding interesting places but adding a mileage calculator would make it really useful. I think that you might have to figure it out yourself by using something like Rand McNally's route planner for the milage and then checking your Road Trip map to see what there is along your route.

Are you planning on going all the way to Quartzsite? I'd say take your time but if you go too slow you might run into snow in the mountains.

 

[Oberneldon]

I use the Roadsideamerica app to find places of interest along my route or at my destination.

 

[akrvbob]

I don't try to see everything. I have a few hobbies and that's what I look for along the way. If you don't have hobbies then just seeing interesting things along the way should be lots of fun.

The one thing I'd do is consider weather conditions along the way. If you head up into the Rockies getting trapped by a blizzard is always a possibility. So my goal would be to find the best weather along the way.

For example, I just went from Quartzsite over to New Mexico and I avoided the mountains along the Mogollon Rim and took the freeway because it was safer. It was still really cold so I took the southern route through Tuscon going home to get warm.

Bob

 

[Iggy]

I determine a general destination, like Grand Canyon or southern California coast. And then start heading that way, generally slow-traveling. I usually don't go more than 100-200 miles per day unless I'm fleeing weather conditions or I have to be somewhere on a certain date. Everyday I spend some time online or looking at maps to see if there is a park, attraction, or event that sounds interesting. It's also important to keep my eyes open for signs and listen to locals for things to see.
I know I miss many things by not not planning more in advance but I don't like being rigid on goals. One thing I do look for is Anytime Fitness centers for working out and showering. But if I go an extra day without a shower, it's not the end of the world. Just means I have more pheromones to attract women, right?
Most of my life I had goals and strategies to reach them. But the best times have been when I did stuff spur of the moment. A little scary at times but often with a huge payoff!

 

[Sameer]

I love interesting stuff to see while traveling. Especially along old Route 66/Interstate 40 in Arizona and New Mexico, and of course every where else I go. Recently I went to the Standing on the Corner Festival in Winslow, AZ (Old Eagles and Jackson Browne song) It lasted three days with live music and lots of cool events. On the third day they Crowned Miss Flatbed Ford. I love this kind of stuff!

 

[thatchickinpa]

However, I was looking for something that would help me pick destinations based on how many miles I want to drive in a day.

Hmmm ... I don't know of any applications where you give a starting point and the number of miles, and it returns a list of destinations.

When I want to explore an area but also limit my distance, I usually take out a map and draw a circle around my starting point. The radius of the circle of course corresponds to approximately the number of miles.

Then I jump on different sites like AAA or RoadTrippers and plug in my starting point and various ending points within the circle to see what is in between. Also, some paper maps have the larger attractions on them.

Not very automated, but I find it entertaining. Maybe it is the sense of discovery

Hope you find what you're looking for!

Have a great day!

Chick

 

[SweetMarie1965]

When I travel I use the auto club guides/advice to find interesting places along the way to my destination. I usually have a destination planned. I don't mind driving at night; prefer it actually, so I'm a late leaver. I never go anywhere without AAA. When I stop for gas, or at a restaurant I usually find adverts for things to see. The state welcome centers are the best!

 

[LeeRevell]

So far my road trips have always been on a tight time schedule, so the destination was all that mattered. I would map a route that avoided big cities, like Hotlanta, and often avoided interstates, as I was generally going by motorcycle, and the KLR650 is pretty well maxxed out at 80MPH.
I use the GPS to keep myself on course, as it's easier and quicker to see if I have gotten off track going the wrong way, than having to stop and eyeball a paper map.
Now being retired and traveling by van, I will stop more often to 'smell the roses'......

 

[Kimbopolo]

Like a lot of folks, I limit my driving per day. Generally start about 10 and like to be off the road by 4. With stops for coffee and lunch, this amounts to about 4.5 hours of driving. By the time I stop, get permission to overnight park, catch up on work/internet, make dinner, read ... it's time for bed.

Also, I brake for every National Park Site along my route!