Where do you want to go today?

A couple of years ago computer giant Microsoft used the above phrase as a tagline in an advertising campaign. Selling which product, I can't remember, but the expression stayed with me. Where do you want to go? Sure, it's a bit dull -- like something a high school guidance conselor might ask when he or she got tired of saying "what do you want to be when you grow up?..." -- but here at the start of the summer road trip season, I'll use it for my own oddball purpose.

Where do you want to go today? For June, how about a trip to Yellowstone National Park, one of the all-time must-see American vacation spots. Or for something a bit more unusual, just in time for the summer solstice on June 21st, try Carhenge, an only-in-America recreation of the the ancient druidical monument Stonehenge. (This one, in the rolling Sand Hills of northwest Nebraska, about 400 miles from Yellowstone via scenic US-20, is made not of huge stones but of even bigger objects--massive old gas-guzzling American cars! Above picture courtesy of visitnebraska.org )

I've put a monthly hit-list of these and other great road trips up on our Road Trip USA website, at a tab called Road Trip Almanac, so check them out and hit the road!

Happy Travels...

Preserving the Past ?

In my travels over the years, I've come to appreciate the efforts of local people to preserve places that were special to them from the "progress" offered by developers. But these fights are increasingly complicated, raising all sorts of interesting questions of what counts as "historic" and "landmark". Though I try to see both sides, it's hard not to despair when you think about how much has been lost. If undeniable landmarks can be torn down in great cities with a rich tradition of fine buildings, like New York City (compare old Pennsylvania Station to the current characterless concourse), what chance does a struggling city like St. Louis -- one-time home of the magical old Coral Court motel -- have?

So, I'd like to take this chance to applaud a couple of forces for good. One, the great freeway-fighting writer and critic Jane Jacobs, passed away last month, a week shy of her 90th birthday. To get a sense of the woman who did more than maybe anyone else to keep US cities alive and well in our "modern" age, read this impassioned rant by the English architecture critic Simon Jenkins.

Another group keeps the faith, despite covering a huge and contentious swath of buildings and scenes stretching from Main Street to the White House: the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Their fine magazine, Preservation, is full of great reasons to join (it's only about $20 tax-deductible dollars a year), and they publish an annual list of the Most Endangered Places in the USA; for 2006, the list includes the fabulous but threatened 1950s-era "Doo Wop" motels of Wildwood New Jersey, a 100-year-old rustic lodge in Montana, and my favorite California mission, at San Miguel.

I'll deal with other battles -- here, there and everywhere -- in future posts, and hope you'll come along for the ride!


-- Jamie

Road Trip USA on Yahoo.Com!

Here's a wide-ranging interview between travel guru Rolf Potts and myself.

Let me know what you think!

High Gas Prices

Despite gas prices seeming to climb and climb, there has been little drop in demand—which just proves how dependent we Americans are on our motor vehicles. Though prices may well drop before the summer driving season kicks off at the end of this month, I feel compelled to use this challenging time to make what may seem like a counter-intuitive assertion: with gas prices higher then ever, the attraction of the road trip is greater than ever.

First off, let’s keep things in perspective: when you factor in hotels and food and fun and baseball games, the cost of gas is a fairly small component of your vacation budget. I figure that, in my California-made Toyota Corolla, a cross-country trip would cost me 100 gallons of gas. Of course, as the small print always says, your mileage may vary, but unless you’re in one of those behemoth RVs, the portion of your vacation budget that’s likely to go on gas is fairly small. Do the math: even if you travel a long way every day – say, 300 miles, which is roughly 10-15 gallons in an average 20-30 miles-per-gallon car– the recent 75¢ / gallon price rise will cost you $10 a day more than it would have last year. Not enough to keep you at home, is it?

But this limited economic analysis brings me to a more important point: Why waste those very expensive gallons of gas just to power down the Interstate, when you could be burning up that precious fossil fuel cruising along some country road or scenic old highway? Not only will the trip be infinitely more enjoyable if you take old Route 66 instead of I-40 (or the ill-named I-66!), but cruising at 55mph down a scenic “old road” helps you get a few more miles per gallon--and offers many more “smiles per gallon” as well.

Enjoying the ride is really the key to what makes a “road trip” into so much more than just a long drive. So when you make your summer travel plans, factor in this (admittedly small) economic rationale, and get poetic and do as Robert Frost did: take the road less traveled. It will make all the difference

-- Jamie

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Gas Price News:

* From the US Gov’t Energy Information Agency:

Adjusted for inflation, the price of a gallon of gasoline is higher than it has been since the dawn of the Automobile Age. The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline edged up 0.5 cent last week to 291.9 cents per gallon as of May 1, which is 68.4 cents higher than last year. Prices rose for the fifth week in a row, reaching their highest level since October 3, 2005. The West Coast showed the largest regional price increase of 12.2 cents to 313.1 cents per gallon, the highest regional price in the nation. California prices were up 13.4 cents to 320.2 cents per gallon.

Continued steady world oil demand growth, combined with only modest increases in world spare oil production capacity and the continuing risks of geopolitical instability, are expected to keep crude oil prices high through 2006. Summer (April 1 to September 30) regular gasoline pump prices are expected to average $2.62 per gallon, 25 cents higher than last year's average of $2.37 per gallon. Retail diesel prices are also expected to average $2.62 per gallon this summer.

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Americans per capita consume more gasoline than ever before – nearly 500 gallons per person every year. (Dick Cheney’s home state of Wyoming topped the table of gas users, at over 600 gallons per person

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Read an interesting overview of how the gasoline business works

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Fun on the road -- Five tips for ensuring Highway Harmony

In my Road Trip USA book I give lots of detailed advice about things to do and see along the Great American road, suggesting places to stop, when to go where, and where to go when, and generally try to be helpful and enthusiastic about all the great stuff there is to see in the USA. However, sometimes the most important stuff is the hardest to convey -- trying to tell people "how to have a good trip" is a lot like trying to tell people "how to have fun" -- but it all boils down to making sure people remewmber the whole point of a road trip: which is, to HAVE FUN. I don't know if it's our national Puritan streak or what, but Americans sometimes seem to forget that it is OK to giggle. (Or play catch, or pose for silly pictures at some semi-historical statue...)

That said, over the years I've come up with some helpful , handy "on the road " tips for how to make the most of trip, whether it's a two-week family summer vacation, a long-haul RV tour, or a weekend trip with friends. So here's my “Top 5” list of road trip tips, which could just as easily be broken up into 10 or 15 or more… Yes, many are obvious, perhaps annoyingly so, but here they are, offered in the spirit of maximizing "smiles per mile"...


#1: Before you go, make sure everyone gets involved in the planning. This really helps everyone feel that the trip is theirs, rather than something they’re being dragged along on. Let all travelers – not just the driver! -- choose some of the stops along the way. Take advantage of those computer-literate kids, and get them to cruise the Internet and research the best places to see.

Summer in particular is full of special events and small-town fairs and festivals, and even a brief visit to one of these can make for great memories. For a start, check out websites like festivals.com or , for music fans especially, festivalfinder.com.

Also, a visit to library or a bookstore makes a great pre-trip planning session. The travel sections (at your local library, look for Dewey Decimal # 917) have shelves of books brimming with ideas about everything from hotels to minor league baseball teams, so you can know what’s out there before you pass by. Check them out!

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#2: When packing, try to give each traveler easy access to his or her favorite things—maybe bringing a backpack per person for sunglasses, iPods, books and games. Pack things you won’t need for a while in deep store, but make sure you can reach things you’ll need along the way—like Frisbees and baseball gloves -- without having to dig through everything.

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#3. If you’re road-tripping, make the car as comfortable as possible. Bring pillows and blankets, and have healthy snacks and drinks easily at hand. Play silly games, like spotting “out of state” license plates. Guess what crops are growing in those endless fields -- and stop at a roadside stand to buy apples and snacks for the road.

Save the video player for long stretches of anonymous Interstate, and instead talk to each other, or listen to a good audiobook. Listening to stories is something of a lost art, but a car journey is the perfect place to sit and listen--all together, without making anyone carsick. There are some wonderful stories available on tape or CD, often read by accomplished and engaging actors, and they last for hours.

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#4. Once you’re on the road, take some good advice from those yellow highway signs.

Be Prepared to Stop: if you see something that looks interesting, stop the car and check it out.

Stop Look Listen: get out the car and use all you senses. Life is much more interesting up close than it is at 75 mph. It’s easy to get going again, and you don’t want to spend the rest of your life wondering about that giant sombrero standing along I-95. Being open to the unexpected, serendipitous (?) encounter is what makes a road trip a memorable experience , instead of just another long drive

Eat at local cafes, rather than the familiar chains, and sample local specialities. The whole point of travel is to have new experiences, isn't it? One summer's quest for the perfect piece of berry pie could turn into a lifetime adventure.

Go shopping: local shops, especially ones selling "antiques" or "collectibles", are great places to get a sense of a place. In small towns all over the country, these shops are like local history museums, and are often a gold mine for knick-knack collectors and for meeting local people.

And of course, the best advice comes from the inimitable Yogi Berra:

" When you come to a fork in the road, take it. "

:-)

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#5. Don’t be so worried about getting to your destination that you miss out on the fun of being together with friends and family. We Americans sometimes turn things that should be a pleasure -- like a family vacation -- into something more like hard work, a task to be completed.

So remember -- vacations should be FUN. Go bowling in some middle-of-nowhere town. Be open to unexpected encounters, weird sights and roadside oddities.

Smile for the camera, and as often as possible, make sure the answer to that eternal on-the-road question, “Are we there yet?” is … “YES!”.

Happy Trails!