Cross Country Roadtrip
Driving across the country has always been a dream of mine. I think the thrill of being on a long road trip just sounded so fun. I have to say it wasn’t always high on my list of dream destinations, though. I had my mind set on seeing the rest of the world and put our country sort of on the back burner. Boy, am I glad I changed my mind about that. Exploring the US should be a must on everyone’s bucket list. The US is BEAUTIFUL. It's not called 'America the Beautiful' for nothing. Don’t get me wrong I still want to travel the world, but now I’m including the states on that list. And believe me, I want to go everywhere. Have I mentioned this before? I want to go everywhere. When I had to decide where to take a vacation this year, it was a really hard decision. It’s like I had to pick a location out of hat. The options are limitless.
When my best friend decided that she was going to move back to California after her grad school stint in Boston, I was so excited. When she came to me asking if I wanted to help her drive all the way across the country with all her things, I was ecstatic. A cross country road trip with my best friend, hell ya!
We took a bit of a different route based on cities we wanted to see, friends we wanted to visit and figuring out where to pick up our other best friend along the way. We started out in New York City. Our first day on the road was by far the longest to get to Columbus, Ohio which was spent sleeping. That one was an all day drive ending in us only spending about 9 hours total in the city of Columbus. Throughout the rest of the trip we had some long drives but also got to spend a good amount of time in both St. Louis and Memphis. Both cities surprised me. I did not think I would enjoy them that much, especially St. Louis. I would definitely go back! We took a few detours here and there, picked up our friend in Tucson and saw some of the most beautiful national parks and sites in northern arizona and southern Utah. In total I drove through 16 states (my friend had 18 since she started in Boston). There is definitely no better way to see our country.
Here is the route we took:
STOP 1 - COLUMBUS, OH
STOP 2 - ST. LOUIS, MO
STOP 3 - MEMPHIS, TN
STOP 4 - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
STOP 5 - ALBUQUERQUE, NM
STOP 6 - TUCSON, AZ
STOP 7 - KANAB, UT
STOP 8 - MOAPA VALLEY, NV
I’m planning on spending the next few weeks, or maybe even longer with all of the great content I have, chronically our trip, making recommendations for the best places to visit along the route we took and giving suggestions for putting together packing lists. For example, I'll have a few posts all about Zion National Park particularly the Narrows hike, Memphis Highlights, Cadillac Graveyard in Northern Texas and Antelope Canyon in Northern Arizona to name just a few. So stay tuned and keep checking back here. Promise you won’t regret it!
Yours Truly // Shannon