The Road Trip Hall of Fame

With a 5- and 9-year-old in tow, my husband and I set out from Dallas, Texas, for an adventure unlike any other we had ever attempted. This 17-day Midwest road trip took us from Texas through Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Missouri. We stood in the center of the United States in Belle Fourche, awed at the magnificence of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, giggled at unique roadside attractions, cheered at live shows and rodeos, and explored the natural beauty of state parks and national parks.

I covered 27 states and 10,600 miles in 57 days, visited 22 state capitols, 23 presidential sites, seven national parks, and more than 30 quirky attractions. I had to stop at the site of the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Other highlights include the 911 Memorial and Central Park in NYC, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, civil rights sites in Atlanta, Georgia; and Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, Alabama. The Alabama Music Hall of Fame in Muscle Shoals became a great memory. Overall, I loved the entire experience. Visiting all 26 states east of the Mississippi River is a priceless experience. 

We moved from Connecticut to Northern California this summer so I could begin a yearlong healthcare residency. Our original plan was to cut across the middle of the country, but when we decided to adopt a dog in Houston on the way, we had to rethink our route. Every day we tried to hit a local coffee shop and a local brewery, and although we didn’t manage it every single day, we got close. We also visited six national parks and monuments, several amazing cities, a particular corner in a particular town in Arizona (which caused us to have a particular Eagles song stuck in our heads for the next 3 days), and a few non-national park attractions (Horseshoe Bend is worth going to for sure), and we did indeed pick up our new girl in Houston. Two adults, three dogs, one Jeep Wrangler, and one seriously awesome trip. We’re already planning our route back east next summer.

My sister-in-law originally planned her wedding for June of 2021 in Seattle, Washington. We were unsure of what travel restrictions would look like 6 plus months down the road, so instead of booking airline flights, we instead decided to make a cross-country road trip out of it. Well, the wedding was pushed from June to August, but rather than re-schedule our whole excursion, we decided to keep the plans and make the trip anyway. We covered over 6,300 miles in 17 days, drove through 12 states and stayed in nine of them, visited seven national parks and five national sites, monuments, or historical parks, and attended one session of the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials.

This was a retirement trip that paid homage to my father who took us on cross country road trips in the mid-1950s on. He passed away a few years prior to this trip. The trip has so many waypoints as to require two parts, part 1 and part two. I am submitting part 1 here and will immediately send a second submission which was part two. It was a 58-day trip totaling over 15,000 total miles. I often refer to it as the mother of all road trips and my wife and I did it in a Honda Fit compact car.

(This is the second part of the October 2021 winner.)

In June I rented a campervan for the first time and explored the Western US national parks. This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid. There were so many mind blowing sights along this trip that I almost became numb to it. I’m planning on writing a book or series of posts about this trip, so perhaps one day they’ll make it onto your site!

One June 16, 2021, I packed everything of value into my Nissan Altima and left my home state of Pennsylvania for my new home in New Mexico. It was a HUGE move for me, so I turned it into an adventure. I took 2 1/2 weeks and followed Route 66 a.k.a. The Mother Road from Chicago to Albuquerque. I had planned to take that route for over a year ( long before your Route 66 article!). Not only did I use Roadtrippers to plan out that route, but I also used it to plan the front end of the trip from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The Roadtrippers app made planning the journey SO easy and fun! It was a challenging and amazing trip for me!

In 2009, a girlfriend & I decided we would complete a run or bike ride in every state. This was a big bucket list item as I had no desire to visit some states. I slowly checked of a state or two each year until 2015 when I started MSA’s (Multi-State Adventures). Thanks to Mainly Marathons’ NE series, I was able to knock out 8 states in as many days. I only ran 5ks (3.1 miles) so I could get in some sightseeing and thanks to Roadtrippers did I ever!

My wife and I started our epic year long trip in 2020. The year included 2 cross country zig zagging road trips! It also included a year in Hawaii!! After our year in Hawaii we are on our last epic road trip back to MD with our 2 husky pups! Our journey has been incredible and thank Roadtrippers for such an incredible asset to our journey!!! Mahalo!!!!

When we realized Covid was here to stay for a long time, we elected to put our daughters in virtual school for the whole year. Then we figured when would we ever have the chance to go on a cross-country road trip during the school year and before it gets crazy hot and crowded. So we picked a couple of don’t miss spots we wanted to go and we rented an RV and hit the road with our 4 kids (3, 4, 8 and 11 years old) and our Jeep Wrangler in tow. We went to 7 national Parks and multiple national monuments. We also scheduled a Jeep Jamboree in Utah in the middle of our trip. The RoadTrippers app was super helpful in flying by the seat of our pants and finding some cool places to check out that we didn’t know existed (Meteor Crater, Cadillac Ranch, The Golden Driller, Moab Giants, etc.). Some of our highlights from the trip included the Oklahoma City Memorial, Bryce Canyon (my husband is named after the canyon), Moab Jeep trails, the badlands at sunset, and the Seacrest round barn in Iowa which was built by my husband’s great-grandfather. We had an amazing time and our kids will have these memories for a lifetime!

From Roadtrippers user carlalongerbeam

My son is nuts about dinosaurs and on the autism spectrum. He and I decided to go out west to find all the locations of finds of his favorite dinosaur, Ankylosaurus, and all things dinosaur. We went as far west as Idaho and as far north as Calgary, Alberta and we live in Rhode Island! We camped in our popup camper in as many campgrounds with pools as we could find. We added a side trip to my parents in Canada at the end. More than 8,000 miles in 7 weeks! It was epic.

From Roadtrippers user Sarah Denis

I got fired from my job, and had a ton of trouble finding new employment, so I said “Screw it!”and headed west on a 5 week cross-country journey that ended only because Thanksgiving came and I wanted to be home with family.

From Roadtrippers user ChrissyEdwards

Unfortunately I’m not good at writing a lot, so you will just have to look at the trip. I can tell you that we live in Memphis, TN and love to travel I have personally traveled to 92 countries on 6 continents (I was close to make it to the last continent of Antarctica; however, I wasn’t able because the flight was canceled due to bad weather). Anyhow; the trip mentioned here was simple. We were discussing where to go for our summer trip, and really couldn’t decide, when I realized that we had only visited 50 of the 52 USA states. Since we haven’t visited Wisconsin and North Dakota, I suggested we could go there. We agreed to go to those two states, but thought we needed to go a little further, and since we had already decided to go north, I suggested going as far north as possible, thus we agreed to drive to Prudhue Bay (Deadhorse, AK) to see the Arctic Ocean. After 43 days of traveling, 42 hotel stays, 12,300 miles (incl. over 1,000 miles of dirt roads, we were safely back home again.

From Roadtrippers user pison42

 I’m a little late in posting this trip, I traveled it over 5 weeks in June & July of 2019. I had recently lost my wife of 38 years to cancer and needed to take off on a road trip to clear my head. Roadtrippers helped tremendously in my planning and I plan on using it for another trip I’m planning for next month. I originally thought I would take the historic Route 66 from my hometown just SW of Chicago to California and back taking a more northern route. In my research prior to going, I stumbled on Route 50 which also heads towards California and I’m glad I did. Very cool drive on mostly 2 lane highway through many historic places and towns. I took it one way and chose a different route going back home. I stopped at many places my wife and I went to 40+ years ago. A lot has changed so get out there as much as you can and make the memories! I love dispersed camping and it was what my wife and I did back in the 70″ & 80’s. There is never a problem finding a beautiful places to camp if you try it!

From Roadtrippers user Ron Wintercorn

Having interrupted over a decade of full time traveling by RV by buying a boat and living and cruising up and down the east coast waterways, I’ve returned to RV full time traveling. I left my boat and started this years road trip in May/June 2020. I tend to wander slowly without much, if any, pre-planned routing and to date on this trip have covered a bit more than 6,000 miles. In my 15+ years of RV full timing, I have put a little less than 500,000 miles on the odometers of my various RVs criss crossing this amazing country.

From Roadtrippers user allenvanputten

“In 2015 I planned the week and a half west coast trip of my dreams (or so I thought) for my bf and I. Too bad a few months before the trip we broke up. Badly. I decided I would fly to my dream destination alone the following year, but in the time that passed my plans changed, and I decided to take a month long road trip by myself. In September 2016 I rented a 2012 Toyota Corolla and was planning on doing around 7,000 miles, but I just could not stop driving! I ended up doing 12,000+ miles instead.

My first day I drove from Illinois to Denver. I met up with friends for dinner and crashed at their place. The next day I was terrified to get on the road. I had never done anything like this before, and I had no reservations ahead. Just flying by the seat of my pants. I procrastinated for quite a while, then I finally got on I-70 west and every fear melted away once I was in the Rockies.

It was a life changing feeling. It was like the mountains washed a peaceful calm over me. I drove the whole route, originally planned for the whole month, in only TWO weeks (stops 1-29.) As you can see from my route I was surrounded by breathtaking scenery almost every step of the trip. UTAH. The most underrated and my favorite state that I just never saw coming. Blew me away. Yosemite. The PCH. Umpqua. Yellowstone. Glacier National Park was so breathtaking that I visited it AGAIN later that trip! When I was heading back east I decided I wanted to go to the Smoky Mountains next.

I called my new (at the time) boyfriend and asked if he wanted to join me. He said yes so I drove to his place, picked him up and we spent a few days in TN. Afterward I dropped him off back home and still had over a week left till I had to be back at work. I decided to visit Canada for the first time and head to Banff. The Canadian Rockies were jaw dropping, but the drive to get there was brutally boring so I took the much longer scenic way home. This is when I visited Glacier NP for the second time and had better weather and more visibility so I’m so glad I did. Then it was time to head home.

When I finally arrived, I felt an emptiness. I live in Indiana. No mountains here. I knew the trip had changed me even tho I had never intended it to. Since then I have been changing my life to become a van dweller and live in the mountains forever. (Sorry, “new” bf!) It’s taking me longer than I hoped (this September was 4 years since the trip), but since then I have accomplished a few goals necessary for van life including buying my dream van. All that is left to do is pay the van off and convert it, and my life will be the road trip of my dreams every day.”

From Roadtrippers user Chelsi Savage

“Our between jobs 50 days, 9,913 miles, 16 National Parks, 2 Countries, 15 States, 2 Provinces, 34 Hotels, 3 Olympic Host cities, and 8 days with family, once in a lifetime family road trip. When I told friends the plan, they would always say great plan, go “here.” I kept a list of all the “heres” and then put them in Roadtrippers. The Western Swing was the result! It started at 5 weeks, bumped up to 6, then to 7 weeks due to new jobs. Since the Western Swing, we’ve added the Eastern Swing, Western Swing II, Midwestern Swing, Southwestern Swing and many shorter road trips in between. The US National Park count is now at 30. The Idaho Swing is next!!”

From Roadtrippers user Rich

“We circled USA in a Winnebago in 31 days and it was amazing! We stopped at National Parks, iconic cities, drove through deserts, the Rocky Mountains and small farming towns along the way. We crossed the continental divide twice, saw a bear and her cubs, dined at an Amish restaurant, stood on the edge of a 1000 foot drop to take a photo of Horseshoe Bend and took in the tranquility at a thousand year old cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde. As an Australian Photographer I wanted to capture incredible landscapes and cities. My American husband wanted to visit his relatives who live in all corners of the country. We could not have pulled it off without the planning resources of Roadtrippers.com as there was a lot of driving and a lot of bucket list destinations to tick off the list. I would definitely do it again. In a heartbeat.”

From Roadtrippers user Kylie Greff

“We took three weeks to Go over 8,500 miles and see 10 national parks, including Jasper and Banff in the amazing Canadian Rockies! We dug for dinosaur bones in Glendive, MT, walked on a glacier in Alberta, whitewater rafted down the Colorado in Moab, ate the best wings of our life in Portland, and climbed sand dunes in Colorado. It was by far our longest and most epic roadtrip of them all!”

From Roadtrippers user Amy

“Our first trip in our camper van. We saw the total eclipse in Wyoming and went across North Dakota, Minnesota to UP of Michigan. Then down to Kentucky and back through Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada to home.”

From Roadtrippers user abbaroo