The Great American Road Trip
For the optimum "virtual road trip" experience, please start from the
main travel page: On the Road Again

How it All Started
We decided to drive down to Memphis, Tennessee last summer for a weekend to celebrate the beloved "Elvis Week." Ever since then, the idea of a road trip had been burning in my head. Nothing could be better than hitting the open road and, as Willie Nelson so lovingly put it, "going places that I've never been/seeing things that I might never see again." A three week trip was all that we could do. Between work and Matt's school schedule, we decided on May 1996. And to build up the excitement, we went to AAA almost ever other week starting in January!

The Route
Our trip took us through 26 states: Maryland, Virginia, N.Carolina, S.Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia. We drove as much of historic Route 66 as we could, but we also took several interstates and small backroads along the way.

The Reading List
Here are some books we used to plan our trip and all of them were very helpful:

• *The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas by Bob Sehlinger
• *Fodor's Los Angeles
• *The Official Guide to Disneyland
• *Roadside America by Doug Kirby
• *Route 66 The Mother Road by Michael Wallis
• *AAA Tourbooks for each state

The Car
1994 Ford Tempo. The truckster. A couple hundred dollars' worth of "preventive maintenance" and it didn't break down once on the trip. Wow!

The Music
Traveling music makes a trip. We tried to make tapes of music with driving or traveling themes. Click here to read the list of songs from our famous"Cross-Country Road Trip" tape. We also had plenty of Elvis, Tom Jones, and the Ramones to keep us extra happy. And of course, our trip just wouldn't have been complete with out multiple singalongs to the fabulous Weird Al's classic, "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota."

The Games
Dead Animals--this was a game I made up and highly recommend for anyone who is planning to take a long road trip. Here is just a sampling of the long list of dead animals I counted while we were driving along....chicken, possum, raccoon, deer, rabbit, buffalo, porcupine, prarie dog, pheasant, skunk, lizard, turkey, turtle, snake, armadillo...isn't road kill fun? The license plate game is another good standby, but we returned from our trip still lacking about 5 states. Go figure.

The Food
One important road trip rule I learned the hard way: don't have so much fun in Las Vegas that you forget that you left the cooler in the car in the middle of the desert without putting fresh ice in it for 3 whole days. Good road trip food that we packed with us: Oreo cookies, Snapple peach tea, Goldfish crackers, meat and cheese and bread. If I see one more turkey and swiss cheese sandwich, I'll puke.

The Motels
Generally, the nicest and cleanest rooms we encountered were Motel 6's (believe it or not) and Comfort and Quality Inns. The worst hotels were most often Holiday Inn's and Days Inns.

Cheap, decent rooms offer a nice alternative to camping (which we did not do at all). Our hotel rooms averaged about $30 a night. I'd recommend joining a half-price hotel club before embarking on a road trip. It saved us lots of money in the long run, plus we got a free night just for joining.

I get a lot of questions asking "How can I join a Half-Price Hotel Club?" Well, here's the answer! There are quite a few clubs out there, but I think that these are the best. My favorite club, and the one I've been a member of for quite a while, is the Entertainment Club. Please note that I am NOT in any way involved with these clubs!! Below are three of the more popular clubs and their phone numbers. Give 'em a call and sign up. You have to have a credit card to join these clubs!!

Here's a list of 800 phone numbers for the major hotel/motel chains in the U.S. These are the names of hotel chains where we stayed on the road, so give them a call to get a free directory (an invaluable road trip resource) or to book a room. I have also linked to the hotel web sites, when available. Most will allow you to book rooms online; however, I strongly discourage booking all of your hotel rooms in advance before you hit the road (because you never know when your plans or route may change)! I also discourage you from staying at any Days Inn or Best Western property. They are almost always disgusting. I have had so many terrible experiences with BW that I took their information off this page.

If you are also planning on spending more than 3 or 4 days in a particular city, I'd also recommend signing up for the Dinner On Us Club (1-800-DINE-241). The club gives members discounts at restaurants across the country, but they also give coupon books for more casual dining in major U.S. cities. These usually include 2-for-1 deals at some chains (Uno's, Baker's Place, etc.) and some fast food and pizza places (Subway, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, etc.) and can save you a bunch of money on the road.

General Road Trip Advice
I love talking about the trip and I'm happy to give anybody advice or answer any questions. And please E-Mail me at niftybugs@hotmail.com and tell me about your trip! I'm always looking for new stories to share. And if you have a road trip related site, let me know so I can link you here.

Fasten Your Seatbelts
So you think you're ready to hit the road with us? There are just a few little instructions for using the following pages, and here is a sampling of what you'll find. I have tried to make the road trip as interactive as possible, so much of the text has links to photos taken on our trip, as well as direct links to each state's travel and tourism offices. On these official tourism pages, you can often request information about the state and find out more about the attractions that we visited on the trip. And don't miss the virtual tour of the Hoover Dam, either!

Click on the cool cruiser to start the virtual road trip

These web pages were created, designed, written and edited by Louisa Moore. All orignal written materials and photographs are copyrighted. Please get my permission before using them!