From seeing how many coffees can be consumed, to sleeping at rest stops, to eating gas station snacks, to seeing how long you can drive before having to find a gas station, to seeing who can last the longest before needing a restroom. These are all things that make a road trip thrilling, but my favorite part of road trips are being able to spend quality time with your travel partner and being able to stop wherever whenever. As efficient as flying to a destination is, I find you get to experience and learn a lot from driving there. My favorite road trip was with a friend (Hi Dillon!) who was moving to San Francisco so we drove his car from Chicago to San Fran.
Tip #1: find a travel partner with the opposite sleep schedule. This worked perfectly as Dillon was able to stay up really late and I was the morning person. Also don’t forget your glasses that help you see at night (my bad Dillon).
Chicago —–> San Francisco
Stop 1: Denver, Colorado: This was my second time being in Colorado and once again I fell in love with the mountains. We only had one night here so we made the best of it with a hike during the day and we created our own b(e)ar crawl at night. Road trip tip #2: ask locals about places to go and see when you don’t have much time or nothing planned. It has a high success rate.
Colorado—> Utah: Driving through Colorado to Utah is absolutely gorgeous. We stopped many times to explore and take pictures. See below: Dillon is also great at handstands.
Stop 2: Arches National Park, Utah: we had no plans of stopping here, but the fee to get in wasn’t pricy ($25 dollars), so we figured we would drive around a bit and then continue on. Well it ended up being amazing and we spent hours there. You can drive around the park or there are places to park and you can hike around. If you ever go to Utah, I suggest stopping here.
Utah—>Arizona: We drove this through the night so I have no pictures. Tip #3: have extra gas in your car and print directions. We had no service, there were maybe two gas stations, and barely any civilization.
Stop 3: Grand Canyon, Arizona: We got lucky and came on the day of a “cloud inversion”. Meaning the clouds were all inside the canyon which was really neat to see. Then the clouds burned off and after seeing the canyon for the first time, I realized why it is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Absolutely breathtaking. We rented fat tire bikes and rode along the canyon which was a blast, considering you can go off-roading with the fat tire bikes. I definitely plan on going back to hike and camp in the canyon.
Stop 4: Los Angeles, California: Having a car was useful as we got to see Hollywood Boulevard, the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, and the beach.
LA—-> San Francisco: we drove part of the Pacific Coast Highway which was amazing and had gorgeous views of the ocean (especially when the sun is setting). I suggest taking this road if you are ever out in Cali. Unfortunately for us, part of that road was closed when we went, so we had to take a detour.
Stop 5: San Francisco, California: This city has lots of fun things to do and explore. I had so much fun pretending I was in the opening credits of Full House in front of the Painted Ladies. San Fran’s beaches are also beautiful, especially with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. We also drove to see the giant Redwood trees just so I could hug one (it was hard, they are very large).
We did this road trip in a week considering we both had to get back to work, so we were very sleep deprived, but it was totally worth it. I got to explore a lot of the US I had never been to before and I plan on completing other road trips to even more places in the future.
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