Road trip tips

by Brenda Yun on


Thanks to Tynan’s continuing feature on the nomadic life, Gadling’s been receiving an influx of requests on tips for big road trips. Those of us who are not quite as daring as Tynan might want to start with a cross-country trip, for example. There’s much to consider before you embark on such a journey, so it’s important to keep these things in mind:

  • The company: Road trips are not for the faint hearted. If you’ve ever seen “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “No Country for Old Men” you’ll know what I mean. If your road trip is longer than a week, choose your company wisely. S/he better like the same music as you, you better have something worth talking about for hours on end. Ultimately, you should determine beforehand whether you can tolerate this person’s antics or not.

  • The car: You’ll definitely want to get your car pimped out thoroughly before the journey. On my most recent 3-week trip from Florida to California, my boyfriend bought an old Chevy van that we called “Vanzilla.” He didn’t tell me at the time, but it cost him only $500. We pushed “Vanzilla” a bit too hard one evening and slept through a freezing cold evening in shopping mall parking lot in Flagstaff, Arizona. The next morning, the radiator blew. Little disasters and problem-solving is part of the package when it comes to road trips, so be prepared!
  • Stuff in the trunk: Little thought has to be put into what to bring. As long as you don’t bring your most valuable stuff, the rest is fair game. Stuff it in the trunk and hit the road! Whatever you forget to bring, you can buy at Walmart or a roadside gas station.
  • The route: If possible, you should have a rough outline of the route you’re taking and the stops you plan on making. GoogleMaps has a great feature where you can drop pins and calculate driving time and distances (click on the “My Maps” tab and then “Create new map”). Most likely you’ll be visiting friends along the way, so make it a point to tell them you’re coming, so they know roughly when to expect you.
  • It’s not all fun and games: The purpose of a road trip is not to drink and drive — at least I hope you’re not endangering other people by thinking the road is such a playground. You don’t want to do anything stupid. My friends got caught somewhere in South Dakota with weed in their car and ended up in the slammer. You can imagine their parents reaction when they got the “Please Save Me” call. Have a great time, but be responsible.
  • R & R: Rest and relaxation is definitely possible when you’re on the road. Take some detours. If you see a strange sign and it makes you curious, follow it. You can also stay clean on the road by utilizing the trucker stops, which have fully functioning hot-water showers. Some are quite clean! If you’re really road trippin’ you must try it. As for the famed roadside motels, you might try one or two, but you might end up preferring the comfort of your reclined seat in the car. You can always pack a tent, too, and just camp it in a rest area if you’re desperate.
  • The memories: My Florida-California Vanzilla trip was designed to be a woman’s version of “Travels with Charley,” as I brought my pug Iris with me. Keep a blog (you can read about our journey HERE), take tons of photos (the photos from this article are also from this trip), and make great memories!

Enjoy your road trip — and let me know if there are any other tips I’ve missed!

Five Great Road Trips From Around The World

by Kraig Becker on

Australian newspaper The Age has put together a list of five of the top drives from around the world. These scenic byways encourage drivers to get behind the wheel, explore, and, as the article says, take the long way home.

Some of the roads that make this exclusive list include the Hana Highway in Hawaii, which is lauded for its 80km of winding road, that includes 56 one lane bridges, that meanders past beautiful beaches and up and down rolling hills, with small ocean villages and spectacular waterfalls as a backdrop.

For something a bit longer and more epic, the Pan American Highway from Lima, Peru to Santiago, Chile is offered as a suggestion. This stretch of road is more than 3000km in length, a mere fraction of the 48,000km total distance of the Pan American, which runs from Alaska to the tip of South America. Running along side the Pacific Ocean for much of the way, this route wanders past the famous Nazca Lines and up into the high desert of the Atacama, all the while weaving in and out of small Peruvian and Chilean villages along the way.

The classic road trip is still one of the best ways to see any country, and each of these drives will not only show you the scenic side of the places they run through, but also get you immersed in the unique cultures of those places as well. So, jump behind the wheel and take in one of these amazing road trips for a travel experience unlike any other.

Life Nomadic: The Pan Panama Road Trip Begins!

by Tynan on

The best adventures are the unexpected ones.

We sat at La Novena, an amazing Vegetarian restaurant on Via Argentina in Panama City. We order the same thing every time. Soup of the day, avocado salad for me, almond and pear salad for Todd, and whole wheat pasta with eggplant and tomato. We ordered it so much last year that when we returned the chef already knew exactly what we wanted.

After a predictably amazing dinner we stood in front of the kitchen chatting with the chef, Arturo. He used to be an engineer, and it shows in his meticulous preparation of the food.

Next to him was one of his employees, chipping away at the shells of dark brown beans, putting the cleaned bean in a small tupperware container.

“Que hace ella?”

And that’s when our education on the making of chocalate began. From a town near the Costa Rican border, called Al Mirante, came the raw cacao beans. Then they fermented them, roasted them, chipped away the shells, and ground them into cocoa powder.

Amazing. Todd and I are huge fans of dark chocolate. Anything above 85%. Can we try one of the beans?

The beans were delicious. We’d had both tried packaged cocoa nibs back in the states, but this was something different. They were barely bitter, just an overpowering chocolate explosion with a subtle fruity flavor.

We were hooked. Arturo put some of the beans in a cup for us to take home and Todd and I resolved to make the twelve hour drive to Al Mirante try to visit a chocolate plantation.

After dinner we headed to an internet cafe. A quick search revealed that Thrifty would rent us a car for only $8.10 a day.

“At that price, let’s just get the thing for two weeks and go everywhere.”

“Yup.”


We instant message our friend Vince, who is also in Panama, to see if he wants to come.

“Where are you planning on going?”

We never plan. We just go and let the adventure unfold ahead of us. The rental car wasn’t available the following morning, which had already put an annoying delay in our adventure.

From meeting fellow travelers during our time in Panama we know of a bunch of places that are worth visiting. David, Boquete (our first stop), Bocas Del Toro, El Valle De Anton, and of course a stop in Las Tablas for Carnaval again.

And so now I write this from the car as Todd drives like a madman through the Panamanian frontier. I occasionally glance up to find us in the oncoming traffic lane as he passes a car. Besides going relatively lightly on the horn, he’s adopted the Panamanian way of driving.

Thus begins the great “Pan Panama Road Trip” of 2009. Stay tuned as we go everywhere in Panama and let you know what can and can’t be missed. If you’ve been to Panama and want to suggest somewhere not on our list, let us know and we’ll probably go check it out.

Amplified Journeys

by Brenda Yun on

Road trips can often be infuriating if you don’t have the right musical ambiance. That’s why the Hong Kong-based company Amplified Journeys is introducing an easy, pain-free way of compiling a special soundtrack for your journeys cross-continent.

Whether you’re driving from Maine to California or from Paris to Istanbul, Amplified Journeys will help you create a personalized music collection for your journey. The way it works is quite simple:

  1. From the Amplified Journeys website, enter your destination starting and ending point
  2. Then, select your preferred genre of music and a musical artist within that genre
  3. Hit “Play” and you will be given driving directions as well as cool tune suggestions that are easily downloaded from the site itself!

It really is that simple, and even the least computer savvy individual can figure it out. When I tested the site (entering Boston to New York City and rock/Boston music), I was transported to a page with a split screen where I could view my journey on a map (with driving directions), as well as a pretty eclectic playlist that matched the locations I would be driving through with songs that would match my genre preference.

You can further personalize your soundtrack by selecting the ones that you want and ignoring the rest. Within minutes you will have a great soundtrack to your awesome, amplified journey. It’s a pretty cool tool for your iPod or iPhone, or just download the songs into your iTunes library and burn your own CD!

One little tip: search for shorter (maximum 5 hours travel time) destinations, as it takes longer to compile music for lengthy trips. Just piece your trips together later.

[via Springwise.com]

The sounds of travel: What to listen to when road trippin’ in the USA

by Annie Scott on

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs. Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the comments below and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

“Do you like American music?
I like American music.
Don’t you like American music?
Baby-yyyyyy…”
–The Violent Femmes, American Music

For those who are gearing up to travel the vast roadways of America by car, we have here a list of appropriate music to make you feel relaxed, at peace with the road, and good’n American. Though you may be traveling for the holidays, we’ll exclude holiday music. You’ll hear it at every gas station.

The obvious first choice for pulling out of the driveway is America by Simon and Garfunkel:


Even the street on which you live looks a little more ripe with possibility when that song plays.


Once you head out into the amber waves of grain and the fruited plains, it’s a great time for expansive music like that from accidentally Canadian Joni Mitchell. I recommend Urge for Going, Heijira, and You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio. And those are just a couple of her travel-themed hits.

Going through the purple mountains’ majesty? Forests? (Yeah, “America the Beautiful” totally skipped the forests.) Try the soundtrack to Field of Dreams, composed by James Horner. It will fill you with wonder. Here, watch somebody on YouTube play The Drive Home. Want lyrics?

Next, get out some Bob Dylan and play Tangled Up in Blue. Make sure you dig through your classic rock collection. Especially as you pass through strange towns and cities, The Eagles, Guns and Roses, Jimi Hendrix, and Journey all take on a strange, retro-poignance.

Lastly, though it’s downright un-American, The Beatles are great for road trips. Everyone sings along, and if you’re really up in arms about the Britishness, you can get the soundtrack to Across the Universe with all the new covers.

Drive safe!

Click here for previous Sounds of Travel.