2019 Summer Road Trip: Planning and Prep

Road trip planning, especially for a longer trip, takes some time and discipline. Planning a road trip has been an all year “to do” activity of ours, from keeping our finances in check to gathering food that is on sale and thinking about where we might want to go. This road trip started as a seemingly unattainable dream of ours. However, we kept talking about it over the last couple of years and the desire to pursue this grew stronger. That strong desire led us to start coming up with a strategy of how to make this dream into a reality.

Fortunately, Sarah is a teacher so she has the summers off. Andy, on the other hand, was trying to figure out how to do this road trip while employed at a full-time job. His job allows 3 weeks of vacation but that wasn’t enough, we craved a longer trip. He could have tried taking some unpaid leave or work while on the road but decided instead he was seeking something more. After some thought and discussion with Sarah, Andy decided to leave his current job at the end of May after 9 years of employment at his company. We know many people might say “but the job security, the benefits, the comfort”. There is no doubt it is a scary endeavor to leave those securities but who wants to look back at the end of their life and say “what if” or “I wish I did this instead”.

Our time is now to seize this opportunity. We have some things making it tricky like a house payment, student loans, and bills, but with spreadsheets and basic financial planning, we are prepared. Our lifestyle habits are a huge reason we are able to finance this summer road trip and make it a reality with basically no income the entire summer. We paid off most of our debts and the remaining are at a manageable level. We are naturally frugal and this has allowed us to save over the last year while aggressively paying down debts in anticipation of living off of our savings for the summer. If you have frugal habits, you can without a doubt make something like this a reality of yours too.

Another thing to plan for is traveling with our dog. A furry friend is great company while adventuring but it does add a layer of complexity that needs to be taken into account while planning. Our options become slightly more limited with Daisy along but we are fine with that. Luckily for us, Daisy does great in the car and already has some road tripping experience under her collar. We drove down to Georgia for a week this past December to hike a small section of the Appalachian Trail. Not only did we get to visit the southern terminus of the AT, that trip also served as a trial run for this summer road trip.

It is true that opposites attract and there’s no doubt that we fill in the cracks of each other’s differences. If it were up to Andy, he would have a spreadsheet of our road trip travels and the trip all mapped out, with all of his favorite breweries pinned on Google Maps along the way.  While there is a benefit in this, there’s also something fascinating about the road unknown. Sarah’s style is more get in the car and go. She’d prefer to see where we end up… oh, let’s stop at that taco truck on the side of the road and then go hike that mountain up ahead! Both of our styles come into play when traveling together.

The route details aren’t fully fleshed out, but we intend to visit the upper New England area – Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and also travel out west – through South Dakota and into the Rockies, possibly the Pacific Northwest if time allows. We do have to come back to Minnesota for a wedding halfway through the road trip which actually plays out perfectly. We can make that pit stop back home in Minnesota as we transition from our eastern states travel to our western states travel.

We mainly plan to camp along the way or sleep in the back of our Subaru Tribeca. We recently discovered that when the back seats are folded down and the front seats are moved all the way up, even Andy at 6’2″ can lie down fully extended back there. The question now is where do we put all of our cargo when we sleep in the car, we’ll have to get creative.

We mostly plan to “picnic” style eat along the way which means stopping at rest areas or parks, laying out our spread of food or pulling out our backpacking stove to cook, and eating whatever sounds good that day from our stash of food. At the end of some days, we will have a relaxing campfire dinner, of course.

Throughout the past year, we watched for sales on food at various stores. We mainly shop at Costco, Aldi, and Cub Foods. Between these 3 budget-friendly stores we have been able to find plenty of sales on great road trip/backpacking friendly foods. There are always great opportunities, you just need to be watching for them! We also intend to stop at stores along our route to pick up some fresh foods we find on sale. We have also stockpiled a few restaurant gift cards we received over the holidays to treat ourselves to a few “fancier” meals while on the road. With Daisy along, we will have to grab those meals to go or see if these places have dog-friendly patio seating.

We stock them in a large bin that we will have along with us on the road trip. Out of sight, out of mind has really been the key for us to keep from eating this food before our road trip. We are saving lots of money by packing food and avoiding having to buy overpriced snacks at gas stations or having to find a town with a grocery store or restaurant. Who wants to pay $5 for a handful of mixed nuts when you know there is a cheaper alternative? While we are on the topic of saving, please stop spending money on bottled water.  Buy yourself a reusable water bottle and make a habit of carrying this everywhere you go. While on the road, you can fill it up at convenience stores and rest areas or bring a water filter with if you plan to travel off the beaten path like us. Think of how much money and plastic you will save in a year. We challenge you to make this change and help out the environment.

We are always trying to better ourselves, our lifestyle, and like to bounce ideas off of others. What tips do you have to live frugally or plan for a long road trip? Share in the comments below!

There’s more to come on our 2019 Summer Road Trip so stay tuned and follow along.

Peace, love, and hike thru life!