Road Warrior, Continued

So, once you've figured out how long your trip will be, now is the time to determine your route. I often use AAA to help map out the routes - their Triptiks are an easy and simple mapping system that is easy to follow and very compact. There are similar mapping services available online, but AAA works well for me (and is included in my membership fee).

One mistake I've made in the past is that I sometimes bite off too many miles in a particular day. That's a pretty common mistake. In planning my Seattle trip, I thought i'd be able to tacke the Olympic National Park loop in a single day.

Big mistake.

That's more than 400 miles when starting from Olympia, Washington. You'll be spending nearly the entire day in the car, and you'll be rushing from point to point. Splitting up that kind of drive is warranted, if only so that you can enjoy more of the scenery. A stay overnight at Port Angeles would have been a smarter move.

Figure that you can drive about 100-150 miles a day comfortably. Anything more and you miss the ability to see some of the offbeat sites along the way, enjoy incredible vistas for more than 5 minutes, and avoid rushing to get to your daily destinations.

I had made a similar mistake in doing a loop around the Grand Canyon (9 days, 8 nights, 1,200 miles and 18 rolls of film). I tried to do the North Rim as a day trip from Page Arizona, instead of making it the destination of a day. That was a 250+ mile round trip, which I would have to partially retrace as I would be heading to Zion NP the following day.

It's from those kinds of mistakes that you learn from.

In doing a trip to the Everglades and Key West from Miami, I made sure to overnight in Key West. We had the ability to catch both a sunrise and sunset there, plus take in the local events at a leisurely pace. Very good move on our part.

But, whatever trip you decide on doing, make sure you have fun. Bring fun CDs to listen to, including ones that might even be related to your trip (visiting Seattle? listen to Nirvana; Las Vegas? Elvis; Los Angeles? No Doubt, etc.). After all, that's why you're going on the road trip.