TRAVEL PLANNER - RESEARCH - PRINT - TODO LISTS - BOOK - SHARE EXPERIENCES.









franchised
restaurants. "Slow food" rather than fast food. See the sights that
others miss. No need to visit many theme parks.<br>
Plan to enjoy the unexpected. When something catches your eye, check it out.
Try new things -- new places, new people, new food, new experiences. Stop and
smell the roses...or whatever. No need to rush; enjoy the journey. <br>
Think local. Listen to local radio stations; read local papers; and watch local
TV. Make the best of every situation, If it seems boring, look again. Be smart.
Be safe. Be prepared. Exercise every day. Keep the gas tank full. Preserve the
experience. Maintain a journal; keep records; and take a lot of photos. The
planning for the trip Round America has been going on in our heads since 2000.
But the serious planning began in January 2003. Been reading a number of travel
books. I don't want to miss a thing that we might not have known was just around
a bend. We could have done even better with our research. There are no totally
comprehensive travel books. We could have made better use of State Tourism information,
and we could have spent more time on Internet research. In charting the course,
I have created a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Each segment of the trip is listed
with total mileage shown for that segment, and then each town we will pass through
is listed, showing the highway that we will use. At last count, there are over
2,500 towns on the itinerary.This was invaluable. This was our guide for the
trip.I have contacted the Department of Tourism for every state we will visit,
and I anxiously await the flood of brochures and maps. I'll review each and
add to the itinerary. We've also emailed family and friends for ideas on places
to go, things to see, and pie to eat. Most states responded -- some faster than
others. We didn't have enough time to review this info, so requesting this information
further in advance is important. Our home and our cat have been major concerns.
We wish Kitty B Kitty could be a road cat, but our one long trip with her proved
otherwise. We aren't RV'ers, so it wouldn't be fair to keep her cooped up in
a little car, and most motels don't welcome animals. Fortunately, brother Tony
has come to the rescue. He will look after the house and take care of Miss Kitty
B Kitty while we are gone. Barbara wasn't wild about interviewing and hiring
a house sitter.Thanks heavens for Tony. Kitty B Kitty was well cared for. In
fact, she was spoiled rotten by Uncle Tony, who we need to get his very own
kitty. We have prepared a list of things that we must do before we leave as
well as things that we must remember to take with us on the trip. Haircuts,
dental checkups, and prescription gathering will be done right before we leave.
We're rejoining AAA, and we'll make sure we have our AAA card, our AARP card,
our passports, our drivers' licenses, registration, and proof of insurance.
We'll take just an American Express card and a MasterCard, some cash, and travelers
checks. I'm getting prescription sunglasses, and I will take two pair of glasses
in case anything should happen to one. This all went well. We didn't need to
gather prescriptions; we learned that an out-of-state pharmacy can just call
our Atlanta pharmacy. I broke both a pair of glasses and the sunglasses. I needed
to buy a pair of clip on sunglasses. Equipment-wise, we're getting a new cell
phone with essentially unlimited long distance and no roaming charges for just
$99 a month. I'll get the phone numbers of family and friends programmed in
so everyone will be just a few keystrokes away. We're also getting a deal at
Best Buy that makes the cell phone hands free and uses the car stereo speaker
system for the audio. I'm buying the latest and greatest SONY digital camera
with a telephoto lens, wide angle lens, and various filters. I'll be taking
my laptop, and I will download the digital photos we take to the laptop, so
we are also buying a power gizmo that will enable us to run the laptop off the
car battery. That way, we can download photos from anywhere and even recharge
the camera battery and cell phone as we drive. We'll take our &quot;old&quot;
digital camera as well. We're taking a small markerboard and markers, so we
can create a sign with anything appropriate for certain photos. The only other
equipment will be a big powerful flashlight, two umbrellas, a fold-up hair dryer,
and a tape recorder. We chose Verizon as we believe it has the widest coverage.
Coverage area is important, since so much of a two-lane trip to small towns
is spent in the boonies. We were surprised to be charged 40 cents a minute when
out of Verizon's home territory, so this was an unexpected surprise that might
have made us choose another service. The goal should be wide coverage but a
plan with no extra charges for roaming and out-of-territory (whatever that means).
A satellite phone might be a better option; I don't know enough about them to
know, but we will look into it for the next trip. We used three different hands-free
deals for the cell phone. I couldn't get the one that works with the stereo
to work properly. The Sony camera was great. I had three 128 MB memory sticks,
and this enabled me to take 150 highest resolution photos before I had to download
to the laptop. We didn't use the power gizmo. We broke three tape recorders,
so I will take two next time, as our trip had us in many places that did not
sell pocket recorders. The recorder was the only practical way to record our
ideas and information as we drove. We used our First Aid Kit a number of times,
and I should have brought it to Hawaii as well as you always need what you don't
have, and I have the drug store receipts to prove it. We plan to pack light
and hit a laundromat once a week. We are buying a few clothing items from TravelSmith,
the folks who specialize in all types of &quot;travel easy&quot; wearing apparel
and accessories. Jeans or shorts, golf shirts, and tennis shoes will be about
it. We are taking some hiking boots for use in the Northwest and as needed elsewhere.
Our clothes system worked out great. We each had two black nylon bags. The big
bag could hold 7 days worth of clothes. A smaller bag could hold 2 days worth
of clothes. We only took the small bag into the motel each night -- refilling
it from the larger bag. Dirty clothes went into a dirty clothes bag. It worked
fine to wash once a week. Comfort Inn, Marriott Courtyard, Hampton Inn, and
the like all have guest laundries. I wore shorts every day but one, and I could
have worn shorts that day as well. Finding comfortable walking shoes with plenty
of foot support is really important -- sand- or dark-colored shoes will look
best as my white shoes looked a million years old after a few weeks. I ended
up buying shorts from L.L. Bean and wore nothing but embroidered Round America
sport shirts from Rod and the boys at Atlas Printing &amp; Embroidery in Cleveland,
Ohio.We have not yet decided which vehicle we will be taking on the trip. We'll
get it serviced just before we depart, and we'll get an idea when we will have
to replace the tires. We took a white Porsche convertible for the first half
of the trip. It was great for driving, but it seemed to attract some folks who
might have done us harm. It was definitely cramped, but we managed to make the
very small storage areas work. The convertible was wonderful for seeing the
sights and soaking rays during the southern loop Round America. We took a black
PT Cruiser for the second half of the trip. The Cruiser was a poor choice as
the car has a terribly wide turning radius, and many U-Turns are required daily.
We were unable to do a U-Turn on normal streets. The Cruiser also gets terrible
gas mileage. The ideal car for us would be something that has a small turning
radius that will enable U-Turns to be made on two-lane roads in one turn. Good
gas mileage is a plus. We will want a GPS system and perhaps a satellite phone
next time. A compass is important. An odometer that shows tenths of a mile would
be a plus. A CD Player is a must. A full-sized spare tire would be a plus. Digital
gauges that can be read with sunglasses on would be a plus. White stays much
cooler than black. Cup holders are essential as are really comfortable seats.
Both the Porsche and Cruiser had really comfortable seats. I recommend testing
any car on a day trip before you decide to take it on a long trip, as bad seats
would make for a miserable trip. We'll put together a notebook with the itinerary
and plenty of space to take notes as we travel. And we'll each carry a pocket
notebook and pen so we will always be able to jot notes. We will be printing
some business cards to use as we travel. The cards will have our basic information
as well as a one or two sentence explanation of the trip, the trip web site
address, our email address, and our cell phone number. We'll give these to people
we meet along the way. The notebooks were extremely valuable. We had dividers
for each state, with photocopies of information about sights we wanted to see
in each state. The business cards were perfect; we gave out 1,500. We used the
pocket tape recorder for recording all notes -- the only way to handle it. Between
now and April 1, I will spend additional time adding to this web site -- creating
pages that will reduce the amount of time I need to spend while we are on the
road. I will also be adding a photo search engine that will work off the keywords
that we will use to name each of our photos. So anyone visiting the site can
see photos from a specific state, city, person, type of activity -- you name
it.<br>
The Trip Round America will be well-planned, and we will be prepared! March
30, 2003: Busy month. We're just about ready. The list of things to accomplish
tomorrow is relatively short.We originally planned to drive around the border
of the country, but the idea of visiting all 50 states in one trip was just
too exciting to pass up. I was surprised when Barbara endorsed the significant
expansion of the trip. The numbers now are 50 states and the District of Columbia,
over 2,500 towns, and 19,631 miles! I know we will pass through cities that
aren't on the map, and the mileage will be much higher as we will be driving
around towns that we visit, and the 19,631 is just a point-to-point calculation.I'm
very pleased with the research that we've done. We have identified a significant
number of attractions all along the route -- many things that we would have
never known were there. Some state tourism offices came through like champs
while others haven't gotten a thing to us. The many books that we bought have
been our best resources as well as the Internet. I wish we had done more research
on hotels, motels, and B&amp;B's to try to find more special places to stay.
Perhaps we can improve on this for the second half of the trip.A few people
have asked what prompted the trip. We want to relax, enjoy life, and see more
of the USA. We miss the kinder and gentler days of our youth. Our parents took
us on wonderful driving vacations as children, and we both miss that. Most of
our vacations with our children were airplane trips rather than car trips, and
when we did drive, we drove on the interstates. You don't see much of anything
on the interstates, so the decision to drive primarily on two-lane roads was
essential for us to see and experience what is important to us. We've been to
most of the big cities, so we are concentrating on smaller towns and areas where
we've never been. We see the trip as a real celebration of the many wonderful
things that our great country has to offer. I look forward to seeing and photographing
patriotic displays that we see along the way. We're at a point in our lives
where we can devote several months to take a trip of this magnitude, so the
timing is right. I always enjoy doing things that others haven't done, so traveling
to all 50 states in one trip will be a very satisfying accomplishment. And,
we hope our book will encourage others to truly SEE the USA!<br>
We've logged over 29,000 miles driving around the Continental United States.
Our planning proved to be excellent. We were very well prepared. I've inserted
comments in red under each paragraph above to indicate how well or not-so-well
each aspect of planning went. Boz prepared a first-aid kit as well as a bag
of assorted things. Pocket-sized tissues, Handi-Wipes, hand sanitizer, Advil,
screwdriver, blister-sized Band-Aids, eye wash, travel alarm clock, and additional
tapes for the recorder were all very important. We lost only one thing on the
entire trip -- my favorite feather pillow. Many motels have only foam pillows,
so if you are a feather pillow person, be sure to take your own pillow. Marriott
properties all have feather pillows, so we chose Marriotts on some nights for
that very reason. We were very systematic in what we carried into the motel
each night and how we kept our stuff in the motel rooms. It would have been
really easy except for all the electronics -- two cell phone chargers, the digital
camera charger, the laptop and its power cord/charger, and the travel alarm
clock. The beads were a MAJOR part of the trip. It's great to have some type
of gift that you can give to people when traveling, and the beads were a nice
little gift...and so much more. We ordered 70 dozen beads -- probably would
have used 100 dozen if we had them from the very beginning. We encourage everyone
to take &quot;lucky beads&quot; when they travel. You can order them at www.mardi-gras-beads.net.
You can buy 33&quot; 6-style assorted metallic beads for $6.25 for a 10-dozen
bag -- $37.50 for a 60-dozen case. You'll meet far more people; you'll have
more fun; and you'll have a nice, inexpensive gift to present to those you meet.
We kept the information received from each state tourism office in file boxes
in the back of the Cruiser. We pulled the appropriate file for each state as
needed. This worked well. We had to leave those files at home when we were in
the Porsche. We took the plastic laundry bag from each room each night and used
it to transport our dirty clothes from the room to the laundry bag in the car.
We then used the bag to hold all the travel brochures for the previous day.
We tossed each bag of travel brochures in a box, and then we shipped a box back
to Atlanta every time it got filled. I believe we ended up with somewhere in
excess of 500 pounds of printed stuff...and all that hotel shampoo. The signs
on our car attracted a lot of attention and enabled us to meet many people we
would not have met otherwise. The beads served a similar purpose, as I was asked
again and again about the beads...and I met far more people that I would have
met otherwise. We also have shirts and caps with the Round America logo, and
these caught the eye of a number of people and added to the number of people
we probably would not have met otherwise. The combination of the signs, beads,
shirts, and caps made meeting people easy; more often than not, people came
to us. We weren't signed up for all of the frequent customer programs with the
various hotels and motels, so Boz got us signed up during the trip. We earned
a number of free rooms from all the room nights for which we paid. We also tried
to use American Express everywhere we could as we are on a program where each
dollar earns points toward air travel or hotels. For the first half of the trip,
we made hotel reservations a week or two in advance. For the second half of
the trip, we ceased making reservations more than a day in advance. The problem
with reservations is that you are then tied to a schedule, and that kept us
from spending additional time where we would have liked to do so. It also caused
us to be driving late into the night way too much of the time. On the next trip,
we will not make reservations in advance -- except in Maine (where we could
not get a hotel room).