The Beauty of a Road Trip (and Some Couple Travel Tips)

Scott and I have always loved road trips and we have always enjoyed road trips as a couple. I do not know if it is because both of our parents vacationed with their families via road trip so we just grew up with them or because it allows us the flexibility we both enjoy when traveling. Ever since we started dating though multiple-state road trips have been a yearly opportunity for us. For the first few years of dating road trips were a cheaper way for us to visit family (Scott’s in New Mexico and mine in Georgia) and now they have turned into some of our longer planned, non-family vacations.
 
We also enjoy hiking and camping and one of our first large purchases as a couple was a fantastic, retro, 1984 10-foot Coleman pop-up camper. Let me tell you, that thing has been well used over the years and despite the horrible brown 1980s interior it has been a wonderful addition to our road trip options (we have a 2007 Nissan Xterra with a hitch that tows it with no effort).

While I will be keeping you posted on road trips coming up, some we are looking forward to highlighting are (1) our Virginia to Maine trip in 2014, (2) Virginia to Amelia Island, Florida in 2015, and (3) Virginia to Yellowstone trip in 2016. So stay tuned...

Note: I should probably warn you that our road trips double as craft brewery trips, so a lot of our recommendations and opportunities to “go down this random road” are based on where local breweries are and how we can visit as many as we can. 

In general here are some of our low stress road trip tips before we get into trip details:

1. Stay awake and talk to each other, sing with each other, read to each other – interact! Half of the fun of taking a road trip is spending time with my husband and being goofy by singing songs super loud or getting into a four hour long debate just because we can.   
2. Whoever is in the navigator seat needs to actually help navigate. This is not just navigation help when the GPS is being funky, but this includes searching for places via YELP! and making decisions for lunch stops.
3. If the driver is tired, switch drivers and give each other a break. If the navigator is tired, make sure the driver is okay with the navigator napping. And if the driver starts falling asleep when the navigator is napping, the driver should not get bitched at when he/she wakes up the navigator. Can you tell we are still working on #3? I think the moral of the story here is to remember that people get irritated when they get sleepy and driving sometimes makes you sleepy, so be nice or maybe find a rest stop so both driver and navigator can get some Zzzzz.
4. If you decide to eat in the car, the navigator helps make sure the driver gets fed and makes sure the food does not end up all over the interior of the vehicle. This might mean putting extra ketchup on a burger, holding a sandwich when traffic gets a little crazy, or digging into a cooler in the back seat when a snack craving hits. We’ve learned that having an extra stash of napkins in the glove compartment is a pretty good idea too (and wet-ones and travel hand sanitizer).
5. Decide as a team how much flexibility to have with time. For example, does anyone care if a 60 mile stretch might take 3 hours because the other person really wants to check out a brewery that is 20-miles off the route? Or is the objective for the day to get from point A to point B because point B and stopping somewhere random would cause you to check into your night’s lodging after midnight?
6. If someone REALLY wants to go somewhere, talk about it and make a decision together on how to add it into the trip. I cannot think of a single road trip where I felt like I missed out on something because Scott argued and did not want to go (or vice versa). Be a supportive travel buddy and don’t roll your eyes when your wife wants to check out the statue outside a random gas station because it’s a T-Rex and the town is named Dinosaur. Figure out how it fits into the plans together and enjoy the statue because it’s awesome!

 Our 1984 10-foot Coleman pop-up camper lovingly named "Roadrunner" because of the awesome, retro roadrunner rug that was left inside when we bought it. 

 Our typical road trip set-up with our 2007 Nissan Xterra. It pulls that pop-up with no effort.

 My amazing hubby has gotten pretty good at squeezing into tight parking spaces...the man has skills when it comes to backing up something pulled on a hitch. Me? I tend to back into things...

 Over the years we've decked out the pop-up with stickers, stickers, and more stickers. Our favorite is probably the one we picked up in TX on our way to Balmorhea State Park that says, "Conserve water...shower with a friend." 

If you have an amazing sticker that you think we'd enjoy let us know and we will gladly add it to our camper collection. Just message us!