How Do We Plan Our Road Trips?!
If you’re a regular here at Travel with the Whitakers, you know that we like to take road trips. We’ve taken quite a few in the last five years, and we’ve taken them with at least one child. So, how do we plan our road trips?!
The first step is to plan
where exactly we’re going. If we’re heading to Disney World, especially Disney
World followed by a cruise from Port Canaveral, we’ll drive so that we can take
more with us than if we were to fly. The real deciding factor in whether we
drive to our destination is how much time we have. This is normally determined
by how much time Howard is able to take off. (I can work just about anywhere
since I work from home.)
So, we’ve decided that we
have enough time to drive to our destination. Now what? The next step is to
plan out how many days it will take for us to drive to our destination. We try
to keep our days to about seven to eight hours of driving. We have done one day
that was eleven hours of driving before, but we try to keep days like that to a
minimum.
Once we know how many days it
will take, we look into where we’ll be stopping each night to break up the
drive. After that we start looking into hotel options in the area. We’re not
hotel snobs, but at the same time we want to something that is clean, close to
the interstate we’re traveling on, and is affordable. The kids also enjoy a
pool, too.
As we get closer to the trip,
we look into free, or low cost, things to do once we get to our destination. We
like to start driving early, we’re talking three am, so that we can get a lot
of the driving done before the kids wake up for the day. Letting them sleep
while we’re driving makes things easier for everyone. Since we start driving so
early, we normally arrive at our destination in the later morning or early
afternoon. This gives us a lot of the day to work with to do something fun with
the kids! And to let them run around and enjoy themselves after being in the
car for so long.
About a week before the trip,
we make a packing list based on what we’ll need along the way, what we’ll need
at our destination, and what the weather will be along the way. Like we
mentioned in the beginning of the post, driving allows us to have more with us
than we would if we flew to our destination. This worked out really well for
our trip last January/February. We were able to have our things separated for
the road trip, the Disney Dream cruise, the in between days, and the Disney
Wonder cruise.
That’s pretty much how we
plan our trips!
What road trips have we taken
in the last few years?!
2011 – 2016 Multiple trips
from Rocklin and Wheatland, California to San Francisco, CA, Lompoc, CA, and Anaheim,
CA
2016 – Wheatland, California
to San Angelo, Texas (Stops in Anaheim, CA, Phoenix, AZ, and Deming, NM.)
San Angelo, Texas to Galveston,
Texas
2017 – San Angelo, Texas to
Galveston, Texas
San Angelo, Texas to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
2018 – San Angelo, Texas to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Stops in Lawton, OK and Fort Leonard Wood, MO.)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to San
Angelo, Texas (Stops in Louisville, KY and Little Rock, AR.)
2019 – San Angelo, Texas to
Orlando, Florida (Stops in Beaumont, TX and Pensacola, FL.)
Orlando, Florida to San Angelo,
Texas (Stops in Tallahassee, FL, Layette, LA, and Fort Hood, TX.)
San Angelo, Texas to Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania (Stops in Little Rock, AR and Louisville, KY.)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to San
Angelo, Texas (Stops in St. Louis, MO and Oklahoma City, OK.)
2020 – San Angelo, Texas to Orlando
Florida (Stops in Beaumont, TX and Pensacola, FL.)
Jacksonville, Florida to Baton
Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana to San
Angelo, Texas (Stop in Fort Hood, TX.)
2021 – San Angelo, Texas to Palo
Duro Canyon State Park, Texas
Do you have a favorite road
trip that you’ve taken?!
Check out our other Road Trip Posts!
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