In 2018, my wife Claire and I took 6 months to travel around the USA, visiting old friends and seeing national parks. It was amazingly fun and stressful (both “good stress” and “bad stress”), highly stimulating, a lot of work to plan, and incredibly rewarding.
I built an interactive map of the roadtrip using Folium/Leaflet.js. Check it out:
Notes:
The genesis of the roadtrip was in other life plans of moving to New Zealand. Claire and I had both studied abroad there during college, and had come home feeling like we weren’t done with New Zealand, or maybe like New Zealand wasn’t done with us. We had dreamed of returning to spend more time there on working-holiday visas. As we talked more, we subjected the idea to a “pre-mortem” analysis of what we might regret in our old age. We agreed that not moving back to NZ would be a major regret for both of us, and that was that. We were committed to the idea.
As we looked at the logistics of moving to NZ, we saw an opportunity for extended travel in between leaving our American lives and starting our New Zealand lives. We would be quitting our American jobs and their attendant vacation limits, we were young and healthy, we had no kids, we had enough money saved up to afford it… this was a once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunity. Again, we posed the question of regret, and again the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed us grim tidings, and that was that.
As we started to plan our travels, we dreamed big: we would do a year-long trip around the world, starting in the USA, heading eastward, and stopping when we got to New Zealand! We made a list of all the places we wanted to go and it was a clear majority of the countries in the world. We tried to draft itineraries that were both realistic and fun, with no success. Our dream was a little too big to become reality – a little too expensive, too complicated to plan, too open-ended to narrow down.
Eventually the idea occurred to us to do a big roadtrip around the USA. And why not? It’s a big country and we hadn’t seen most of it. We had a car, we spoke the language, we had friends scattered throughout the country to visit, and there were so many national parks we had been itching to see. It would be a wonderful way to say farewell to the USA. Most important, a Great American Roadtrip just felt right. That was that.
Here were our steps for planning. Your mileage may vary!
Our resulting itinerary was logistically complex. It had started simple, but gradually transformed into a big wicked beastie, nested roadtrips and all. Still, it made sense to us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Our trip began on May 2. We left San Francisco in our trusty Hyundai Elantra packed to the gills and returned six months later. During that time, we circumnavigated the USA, visiting 38 of the 50 states. We camped about one-third of the nights. The rest of the nights, we mostly stayed in the homes of friends or family, and occasionally stayed in motels or AirBNBs.
The emotional arc of our trip was a three month honeymoon through the South and East Coast, followed by a two month slump in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, finishing with a one month rally in the Southwest.
The honeymoon was great. We had unbridled enthusiasm at seeing such a vibrant diversity of new places. We ate delicious new foods, we explored new cultures, we marveled at new ecosystems, we learned new parts of American history.
Highlights of the honeymoon were Carlsbad Caverns NP (National Park), New Orleans, Washington DC, Acadia NP, and Chicago.
The slump was hard.
I thought driving all the time would be the hard part, but in the end, the hardest part was managing our own mental health.
We never got sick of driving; we had plenty of easy-listening audiobooks and podcasts to keep us going. We never got sick of the road; it became its own place, one of the great constants of the trip. We did get exhausted by overstimulation (an endless stream of new things!), vulnerable from missing friends and family, and irritable from spending 24/7 together (preexisting habits that never used to bother us suddenly drove us crazy). Some things that helped us recover: rest days where we sat indoors all day and didn’t do anything; a few hours apart from each other once a week; reuniting with old friends; and the occasional stop in a familiar place.
At times, I felt unmoored by the disruption of our old routines. Of course, new routines emerged eventually. We would always stop in at national park visitor centers to stamp our park passports, ask about hikes, and buy patches. We would play silly phone games at night before going to sleep. In cities, we would make pies for our hosts, or see tiki bars. In camp, Claire would cook and I would clean up. We set up and broke camp so many times that we can practically do it blindfolded. And on and on and on.
One of my least favorite questions from people back home was, “How is your vacation going?” It’s an innocent question, but the use of the word “vacation” always made me feel a little isolated or misunderstood. Vacation is about relaxation. Travel is about growth through new experiences. I enjoy both vacation and travel, but our roadtrip was definitely travel, and during our slump we felt worn down and weary. But, I understand how this can seem like splitting hairs to people back home working full time jobs.
Claire and I both love the outdoors, and avidly enjoy backpacking and camping. On this trip, we learned that we have an upper limit to how much we enjoy camping: about 30 days in a row. During the Rockies, we camped for about 6 weeks straight, so we had to up our camping game. We upgraded our gear to get a bigger tent and warmer sleeping bags. We also adopted the Marco Polo app for asynchronous video chats with the important people in our lives. The asynchronous interface was a great equalizer of time zone differences, intermittent cell service while camping, and baby-impacted sleep schedules.
We had just the right of granularity in planning, which helped to mitigate the slump somewhat. Committing to our sleeping locations in advance1 helped us avoid the decision fatigue of the daily questions of “should we leave yet?” and “where to next?” Conversely, our unplanned days were a boon for our mental health – they gave us the flexibility to do what we wanted on any given day, whether that was rest, play tourist, go hiking, or spend a night out on the town.
Highlights of the slump were Olympic NP, Mount Rainier NP, the Boundary Waters, Banff NP of Canada, and Glacier NP.
The rally was fun again. We were closer and closer to home, we had grown as individuals and as a couple, we had gotten through the hard times, and the end was in sight!
Highlights of the rally were Zion NP, Scottsdale/Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
My feelings immediately upon finishing were not what I expected. I thought I’d be more emotional to be done and home again, but instead we were consumed with preparations for moving to NZ.
The trip was a great relationship test. Claire and I are happy to report that, despite some fights along the way (to be expected), we don’t hate each other or want a divorce. Compared to the start of the trip, we have grown closer and our relationship has grown stronger. We both feel that we could not have done the trip with anyone else.
My overall impressions of the USA have changed somewhat. I am now acutely aware of the fact that America is very, very big! With that size comes an incredible diversity. Yes, I know, diversity is one of the most celebrated aspects of the American ideal, but it’s one thing to see that in the media, and another thing to experience it personally. The USA has an extreme diversity of physical geography and ecosystems, cultural values, traditions, accents, historical events, and last but not least food. I believe that this diversity is a strength, and one of the most remarkable parts of the country. It was certainly a joy to experience.
I am deeply appreciative of the National Parks. I am a little surprised that the concept got off the ground way back in the 1800s. I am grateful that so many important places have been protected as national parks. I am impressed by the National Park Service’s ability to balance conservation and recreation. I firmly believe that the national parks are one of America’s best ideas.
Claire and I were very lucky to be able to do this trip at all, in terms of money2, health, and general life circumstances.
Claire and I had tremendous logistical help from my mom and dad in California and my Uncle Vic and Aunt Ari in Minneapolis. We could not have done this trip without them, or without the support of our extended network of family and friends.
Despite traveling for six months, Claire and I saw only a small fraction of the USA. There are entire states we didn’t even drive through, and there are about 20 national parks we still haven’t visited. Plus, for many of the places we did visit, we left feeling like we wanted to come back and spend more time there. While we won’t be doing another roadtrip like this any time soon, we hope to do one in the (distant) future. Here is what we learned that would be useful for next time.
What went well?
What didn’t go well?
What would we do differently next time?
I have no regrets about doing this roadtrip. It was an amazing experience. I am happy to have done it, but I am happy to be done with it, too. I am left with an abiding appreciation of the Great Indoors (kitchens, bathrooms, shelter) and quiet evenings at home.
| Total days on the road | 182 |
| Days of camping | 69 |
| Days in cities | 113 |
| Total miles of driving | 19913 |
| Total hours of driving | 365.75 |
| Longest driving day | 640 miles / 9.25 hours |
| Number of car accidents | 0 |
| Number of hospital visits | 0 |
| Number of thefts | 0 |
| Number of states visited | 38 |
| Number of national parks visited | 30 |
| Highest elevation | 12183 ft/3713 m on 2018-09-24 at Trail Ridge Road Summit in Rocky Mountain NP |
| Lowest elevation | -236 ft/-71 m on 2018-10-15 at the Salton Sea |
| Highest temperature | 100°F/38°C on 2018-05-05 in Tucson |
| Lowest temperature | 25°F/-4°C on 2018-10-08 in Grand Canyon NP |
| Favorite city | Chicago for Claire, DC for Matt |
| Favorite nature | Olympic NP for Claire, Glacier NP for Matt |
| Number of flights | 10 |
| Number of books read | 20 |
I had felt foolish planning six months of sleeping locations in advance, but in the end, we departed from our plans surprisingly little, changing perhaps 10 nights in total. ↩
Claire and I were married in 2017. We had saved aggressively for about a year in order to fund the wedding, and we kept on saving aggressively for another year in order to fund the roadtrip. We kept costs down in a variety of ways. We used our existing (small) car, we were able to stay with friends and family in most cities, we camped the rest of the time, etc. ↩
This was most notable in Yellowstone NP, which has two star attractions: geothermal features, and an abundance of wildlife. There are long daily traffic jams for roadside buffalo. We probably saved 5 hours of driving by camping in the park for six nights instead of staying at a motel just outside the park. ↩