How Much Planning is Too Much?

The goal of this blog is to share the wisdom that my family has accumulated on the road with you, my devoted readers (there has to be at least one of you out there).  Setting out on a family road trip for the first time can be a scary prospect, and it is nice to know that someone has done it before and that they are willing to offer a few pointers to help grease the skids for you.  We are like this for most new experiences in life - starting a new job, heading off to college, moving to a new town - we take comfort in being able to go in with our eyes wide open, even if the advice that we garner comes from total strangers over the internet.

But is it possible to get too much advice?  That's the basic premise of a column by travel write Seth Kugel in this past Sunday's New York Times.  In a piece entitled, "Don't Let Trip Advisor Kill Adventure", Mr Kugel advocates for retaining our willingness to be surprised, to deviate from our well-crafted plans, and to embrace the unexpected while on the road.  He maintains that some memories are better because they were unexpected, and thus, "if the best travel experiences happen when things don't go according to plan, why do we plan so much?"

Not oblivious to the fact that he travels for a living, presumably alone or with other adults, while the rest of us are likely in a different boat, Mr. Kugel quickly ticks off a few sentences recognizing these differences:

Smarter skeptics might object on the grounds that, as a travel writer, I am on the road countless days a year with time to spare, whereas they get 10 vacation days a year and have to make them all count.  Or they're traveling with kids so there's little room for error.  Or they want to impress a romantic partner, not lead a National Geographic expedition.

Well, yes.  To that list I would add that non-travel writers have to be concerned about expenses, and that our original destinations were actually venues that we wanted to visit and might be willing to pass up - and might not have the chance to see again.  Ican't see passing up Mount Rushmore just because I came across a cool burger joint in central South Dakota (although, if there is a kosher burger joint anywhere in South Dakota, I'm there).

On the other hand, Mr. Kugel's point is an important one as it relates to the homogenizing impact that the internet has on every aspect of our lives.  More and more, we do things because we see others doing them - witness every viral craze that spreads over Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and so on.  Sometimes, this results in the creation of a community of people, bonded by their involvement in something shared and undoubtedly positive.  Remember when we all dumped ice water over our heads a few summers ago?  Yes, it was silly (and chilly!) - but it also raised record amounts of money for ALS research, and the "pass it on" aspect of those videos created a giant chain of people involved in the same impactful project.  On the other hand, what did you gain from posting a picture of yourself with the same Instagram filter on your face that 10,000 people had already posted?

And it is here that Mr. Kugel hits on something for all of us.  If the purpose of our road trips is simply to follow the well-worn paths of those who have come before us, to be able to say "I was there too!", then we may succeed in seeing or experiencing many wonderful sites, but we will be less the protagonists in our travels, and more mere pawns shuffling from location to location, nodding and snapping the obligatory pictures, then piling back into the car to conquer the next site, which has already been conquered by so many before.

Far better it is to come to a road trip with a sense that you are going to chart a new path.  The adventure does not have to come once you are on the road, although pulling over when you see something unique always makes for a good story, but rather it can even come in the planning stages.  Once you figure out your main destination, keep looking at the map or the travel site, and keep talking to people who have been there before.  That's how you will find out about so many of the odds and ends, the off-the-beaten-path experiences, and the places that almost make you forget to take a picture, because you are so busy forming real memories instead.

Finding Things to do Part II - Finding the Quirky Stuff

It is virtually a cliche that roadtrips include stops to see the world's biggest rocking chair or windchimes or whatever (for the record, both of those items can be found in Casey, Illinois, which prides itself on having "the biggest" of twelve different everyday items).  While many roadtrippers are often travelling in search of more substantial destinations, this country is chock-full of strange, unique, and simply interesting sites that may not make for a full day activity but certainly qualify as bonafide photo-ops.

But how does the adventurous roadtripper find such oddities?  The old-fashioned way is to simply keep your eyes open.  We have chanced upon all sorts of intriguing sites or road signs that were clearly written by someone with a sense of humor.  Occasionally, there is a site notable enough to make it onto a map or be rated by Trip Advisor's band of reviewers.

However, if you are really looking for the odd and obscure, then Roadside America is the site for giant Muffler Men to semi-notable graves to a town dedicated to the memory of the creator of Popeye.  While the site is a bit busy, it is overloaded with information and reviews, and has a five-level rating system letting you know if each site is worth its own trip, if it's worth a stop if you giant cross in Effingham, Illinois).  The home page even has a random destination button to help you find things that you never knew existed but absolutely, positively, must drive to as soon as possible.
happen to be in the area, or if you should just whizz past it at 70 miles per hour so you can tell people you were near it (that's our approach to the
you.  It catalogues everything from

For those who live on their phones (which I assume is most of us at this point), Roadside America has an app (not free) for the iphone, and a fun Instagram page highlighting all sorts of random sites.  Their site also includes information on hotels, but it pales in comparison with what you can find on larger travel sites or TripAdvisor.

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A second site that covers the offbeat attractions is Atlas Obscura.  In some ways, this is a bit more of a highbrow site, if such a term can be applied to a site that features things such as egg vending machines.  The site is slicker and more professional-looking than Roadside America, and sees itself as a real travel guide, albeit to out-of-the-way places.  It has more in the way of written material and
feature stories, and advertises that there are Atlas Obscura books and trips that one can join.  Their eponymous book was a NYT best-seller and they cover locations across the world, not just across America.

That said, if you are trying to maximize roadtrip fun, this site should be added to your bookmarks as well.  You never know when you'll have a hankering to see the Museum of Clean or, even better, the Lunch Box Museum.

Finding Things to do Part I - TripAdvisor

Despite the name, a road trip is not just about all of the time that you spend on the road (although that does cover a lot of time).  The question is, how do you find all of these attractions?

 It is also about all of the time that you stop and "do something".  That something can be anything from visiting a museum to going on a hike to taking in a ballgame to checking out the world's largest ball of twine (for the record, it's in Branson, MO).

As I noted in an earlier post, I often use our big mapbook to scan an area and look for attractions.  However, even my wonderful book only contains so much, and in an age of GPS I am not buying a new mapbook every year, and thus it is likely that some new attractions have sprung up as well.

In this post, I will focus on my first stop for planning a road trip - TripAdvisor.  If you are planning a road trip and have not familiarized yourself with this site, do so as soon as you can.  While the hotel and flight sections are useful, there are many sites that can help with that, and they all mostly feed off of the same information.  However, for finding attractions, TripAdvisor is tops.

How does it work?  Fairly simple.  Enter your location and then click on "things to do"(or do those steps in reverse).  You will have the option of choosing the type of attraction you are looking for, and if you are looking in a major city, you may have more ways of filtering your search.  Each attraction is listed with all major details and links to relevant websites, as well as user ratings on a scale of 1-5 and comments.  I have found that many of the people who offer comments take the job seriously and offer very detailed critiques and recommendations that have helped to guide my thinking about various venues and sites.  As I believe that we are all in this together, I have made many contributions to TripAdvisor as well (you can read all of my comments here).

My one critique of TripAdvisor is that it works best in telling you the attractions in or immediately near a city.  If you are willing to venture far outside of the city itself, TripAdvisor is not great at letting you know what exists out there.  But that is a minor detail.  This is a great site with more information than you need to find out all you need to know about attractions both major and minor.

Next time, we'll look at a couple of sites that focus on the out-of-the-way places that you might want to visit.

Gettysburg

As this blog develops, I am hoping to mix general roadtripping advice with reviews of specific stops.  I can think of no better place to make my initial review than the Gettysburg National Military Park.

We went to Gettysburg as we passed through Pennsylvania on our drive west.  It is a decent ride off to the south of Route 76, and the drive alone added about an hour and a half to our day, but it was more than worth it.  Our car included history buffs and decidedly not history buffs, including at least one child who had not really learned much about the Civil War just yet.  And yet, everyone in the car ranked the tour a 7 or higher on a scale of 10.

Going to Gettysburg begins in the visitors' center, a relatively new and impressive building.  If you want to get the full experience, there is a movie and a cyclorama describing some aspects of the battle.  While Gettysburg is a national park and thus is free, attending those shows will cost you.  Being pressed for time, we skipped those and went instead for the audio tour.  This comes in the form of a 3-CD set that can be bought in the very impressive bookstore.  The CD's cost $30 and include a small illustrated booklet that you can peruse while following the narration.

The tour itself is exceedingly well-done.  Each CD covers one day of the war, and there is narration by actor Stephen Lang both at the 16 designated stopping points as well as for the time when you are driving form one to the next.  The battle took place over the huge expanse of the entire town, and thus it takes time to drive from stop to stop.  Every few feet there are monuments and statues set up in honor and memory of the various regiments who fought or generals who led troops into battle.  In addition to the officially marked off stopping points, you can stop almost anyway to read the monuments or just take in the view.  If nothing else, be sure to get out at Little Round Top (stop #8), which provides a breathtaking view from high ground of a large part of the battlefield.

The narration itself provides a mix of information about the major aspects of this key battle as well as a lot of trivia about many little-known characters who played roles in the battle.  Background sounds ranging from gunshots to Dixie to dogs barking help to enrich the overall audio experience.  The CD's conclude at the military cemetery and the Gettysburg Address.

As I mentioned, we were pressed for time.  The audio tour is prepared for this, as it provides three different lengths of touring, with notations how to skip sections (and skip the corresponding driving) if you need to shorten the tour.  Make note that the times listed for the various tours refers only to the time the CD is playing.  If you get out to look around, that will add time as well.

If you need a real tour guide, such options exist as well.  You can reserve a tour guide in advance who will ride along with you, and I passed at least one bike tour of the area, which is a private company not affiliated with the national park.

In terms of time, if you really want to do everything, allow an entire day.  Including the movie, the full 3-hour audio tour, time spent getting out and looking around, and perhaps even going into town to view some of the historic buildings associated with the battle - it all adds up.  Add in a stop at the bookstore, which includes a full complement of souvenirs as well as many books on Civil War history (and has Civil War-era music playing in the background), and you can make a full day and then some out of this stop.  But it will be worth every moment.

Rest Stop Hall of Fame - The Inaugural Class

I am going to try to mix general advice with specific notes about locations in this blog.  As promised in my last post, a few notable rest stops that we have discovered along the way.

1) Altamont rest stop, Mile Marker 86 (eastbound) on Route 70 in Illinois.  In order for any rest stop to make this list, it first needs to have clean bathrooms and decent-to-good vending machines.  Check on both.  Beyond that, this stop also has a nice picnic area AND a fairly impressive playground.  Not huge, but something to entertain kids up to age 10 for a solid 20 minutes.

2) Columbus, Ohio, Mile Marker 128 (northbound) on Route 71.  This stop is just north of the Columbus city limits (there is a parallel one around Mile Marker 129 southbound).  It has a nice-sized picnic area, a large set of vending machines, and some very clean bathrooms.

3) West Salem, Ohio, Mile Marker 197 (northbound) on Route 71.  This stop gets its props mainly on the strength of its vending machines.  The widest selection of soda I have ever seen at a rest stop (I like variety in my drinks), plus snacks and ice cream.  Clean bathrooms as well.

4) Whitney Point rest stop, between exits 9 and 8 (southbound) on Route 81 in New York.  This stop gets high marks for the outdoors area.  There are two levels of picnic tables and benches, with some space to run around as well.  The building is immaculately clean, including the restrooms, and there are a fair amount of vending machines as well.

Answering the Call (of Nature)

No matter how well you plan out your trip, no matter how much a stickler you are for sticking to your schedule so you can get from Virginia to Montana in exactly 13 hours  and 4 minutes (don't get excited, I made that number up), eventually you are going to be thrown off by the greatest roadtrip counterforce of them all - the need to stop for a bathroom.

There is a lot to consider when making a pit stop.  First of all, how long are you planning on stopping?  If you have little kids with you, assume a minimum of twenty minutes.  Oh sure, you're saying that you can get everyone out of the car in 18 seconds, herd them into the stalls, and get everyone re-seated and buckled in under 5 minutes.  Hogwash.  It takes little kids on a roadtrip at least three minutes to extricate themselves from their cheerios-encrusted seats, several minutes to wander around aimlessly, and a couple more minutes to remember that the reason that you stopped in the first place is because they really really REALLY needed to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW.

(The good news is, that as kids get older it is possible for them to move quicker.  My kids now set a goal of making pit stops that take seven minutes or less.)

Once you have decided to stop, the question is where should you stop.  If you have kids who are in the midst of toilet training, you may not have much of a choice - they have limited biological patience and thus the next exit will be your default destination.  We have seen some extremely creepy bathrooms and several cornfields as a result of this need.  But, if everyone can wait a bit, here is the collective advice from the Ross hivemind of where to stop:

1) Hotels.  This is the preference of the Mrs. Ross part of the hivemind, and for good reason.  No question, these will be the nicest bathrooms.  After all, hotels have housekeeping services, and they clean the public areas as well as the guest rooms.  Hotels likely also have vending machines near the bathrooms in case anyone needs a treat/bribe.  Depending on how much of a rush you are in, hotels may be a few minutes off of the highway.

2) Truck stop.  These are those big all-in-one chains with names like T/A, Flying J, and Love's.  They are made for the guys who drive the big rigs for hours upon hours, day after day, and thus they tend to include not only clean bathrooms, but also a gas station, a restaurant or two, a store when you can buy snacks as well as souvenirs and often vital roadtrip equipment (like a nice selection of movies), and even showers.

3) State-run rest stops.  Most major interstates and highways have a series of places to stop - these are the ones referred to by signs that say "Next Stop - 126 miles".  These stops are often cookie-cutter within a state, which can be a good thing if the state has bothered to do a good job with them.  Our champion thus far are the stops on Route 80 through Ohio - large, airy dining courts with several restaurants, lots of vending options, and large and clean bathrooms.  The various stops on the New Jersey Turnpike, which are named for famous and not-so-famous (and sometimes really not-so-famous) New Jerseyans are a bit smaller (appropriate for one of the most densely populated states in the nation), but are also generally a slam-dunk, with several dining and vending options.

When it comes to these rest stops, it is important to read the signs.  A rest area or parking area may be nothing more than a glorified shoulder, allowing you to stop your car for a few moments.  Sometimes, there are bathrooms and maybe some maps and perhaps a couple of vending machines, but not much else.  The blue signs leading up to stop will usually have the relevant information, and a decent map will as well.  Of course, these stops lie right on the highway, so you will not lose time getting on and off beyond what it takes to get out of the car, take care of business, and pile back in.

Next time: Some entries into our rest stop Hall of Fame.

Reliving the (very recent) Past

Assuming that you are going to do more on your road trip than drive from Maine to San Diego with nary more than a five-minute bathroom break, chances are that you are going to make several stops along the way, seeing historical sites, visiting breathtaking natural wonders, or taking in a ballgame.  Over time, a lot of these stops can blur into one big, hazy mass of fading memories.  On top of that, as soon as you and your brood pile back into the car, screen time (or whining/fighting time) resumes as if it had never stopped.

In recent years, our kids have introduced a way to make our stops last a little longer, even once we have begun driving again, and to simultaneously open up some fun and insightful avenues of conversation.  After every significant stop (and sometimes even after insignificant stops), everyone in the car - and there are seven of us, so it takes some time - has to rate the venue on a scale of 1 to 10, with full explanation.  Everyone is free to rate according to their own system, and so a bad bathroom in an otherwise spectacular museum can cost points, while a boring hike that featured some comical incident can raise the score.

The real genius of this exercise is not the actual scoring of the site or even the fact that it holds off screen time for another ten to twenty minutes.  The greatness of this conversation is how honest everyone is and how much meaningful interaction comes out of it.  My teenager who does not care for American History (yet is doomed to repeat it on road trips) is capable of saying something along the lines of, "I'm not into the Presidents, but I can see why Taft's boyhood home [in Cincinnati] would appeal to someone who is interested.  I give it an 8."  That's a lot better than "It was boring".  There is also a lot of guessing as to what other people will give as rating or what they will or will not like, and that is a giant step towards one of the major goals of the road trip - creating stronger family bonds.