Having polled the Drive The Nation team, it appears that we have all been on our fair share of road trips. Since we’re travel junkies, we all have great stories to tell of trips with friends and family members. Some of these trips happened decades ago and some were just a few weeks back.
I grew up not living close to any of my family members, so visiting grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins always meant that the family had to gas up the car and head hours North. Or South. The 8 hour road trip from Miami, Florida to Tallahassee, Florida was the most common trip. And mind you, this was before DVD players and iPods. This was back in the day when you actually had to talk to your family members during road trips. But of course, it wasn’t THAT bad. In fact, I almost miss those days and can’t wait to start creating those memories with my own child. My sisters and I all grew up and went away to college and so went the long family road trips. I traded the family road trips for the ones with my college friends. I thought the 8-hour road trip from Tallahassee to Miami was quite the trek. Oh noooo. The trip from Tampa, Florida to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was far longer. Myself and 50-somethin’ other college students hit the road for 22 hours. We boarded a bus with intentions to spend our spring break volunteering at neighborhood centers and schools.
The first few hours of the trip were fun. We played card games, watched movies, shared snacks and took naps. By the 12th hour, I was ready to be thrown to the side of the road to hitch a ride with some trusting passerby. There’s something about spending 20+ hours on the bus. It does something to your sanity. I felt dirty having realized that it was the next day but I was still wearing the previous days’ clothes. My so called best buds were getting on my nerves and I had a serious pain in the you know what.
I ended up having a wonderful time on that trip but never again will I spend 44 hours of my life traveling anywhere. What say you? What has been your longest road trip to date?
