What happened to road trips?

RamblingMad

I'm an 80s kid too.
Joined
Mar 29, 2019
Growing up in the 80s, I went on road trips a lot with my parents. My friends also went on these trips.

Now, I don’t know anyone that road trips anymore. They fly everywhere and complain about how much it costs.
 
Road Trippin' Family here. Live in Ontario Canada and we love to road trip. We always drive down to Disney World. We make sure to take some side trips either on our way down or on the way back. We don't typically do side trips both ways.
We did a big trip about 10 years ago now. I had a work trip in North Carolina. Packed up the family and they joined me. We drove down to NC, I did my 4 days of work. Then we drove slowly from NC all the way up to Prince Edward Island. Stopping in Washington DC, New Hampshire, Maine and New Brunswick, just to name a few stops along the way.
Last year we flew to California and drove from LA up to Santa Barbara and then down to San Diego. We are thinking next summer or in the next couple of years to fly to Seattle and drive all the way down to San Diego.
 
We do it. We hate flying and DH is el cheapo so we drive. Plus our DDs are 9 hour drive and all our extended family is a 5 hour drive. We are DVC members who go to WDW a lot and HHI. And we like to cruise and drove to port all but one time. In July we even drove the 5 hours to HHI for just 1 night and then drove back. And for like 8 years my DDs played travel softball and we drove all over for tourneys. DH even drove them straight home from Broken Arrow, OK to Baltimore, without stopping for the night.
 
Last edited:


Growing up in the 80's as well, flying to places just wasn't as commonly done. I can remember one vacation in my whole childhood growing up where we flew (WDW, of course).
 
My family didn't really do roadtrips growing up. We rarely staryed more than an hour and a half from home. My kids however have been on several. We've driven from WA state to WDW and back twice. Countless trips from WA state to Disneyland and back multiple times over a ten year period. These days we roadtrip from TN to WDW a few times a year, but we're now trying to fly when possible.

Roadtrips take time, something we don't always have when we want to enjoy the destination.
 
We are flying to Newfoundland next week. Then we will drive all over the island for twelve days. 22 hours of driving time planned. Is that a road trip?
 


I just got back from a road trip. Spend one day driving from Maine to New Jersey. We spent 4 days visiting Sesame Street Place, Diggerland and Hersheypark. Then one day back. Didn't even think of flying.
 
Roadtrips take time, something we don't always have when we want to enjoy the destination.

gas prices and lack of vacation time. If I'm going somewhere for a week, I don't want to spend 2-3 days of that week driving.

Same here. I don't want to waste 4 days traveling, when I could have that time at the destination.

I think that's it right there. People don't have a lot of vacation time, so they don't want to 'waste' it spending most of the trip on the road.

I do actually enjoy short road trips. We drive from eastern MA to upstate NY every summer, and we've done a lot of fun side trips on the way. We drove when we went to DC as well.

But about 10 hours is my limit. We fly to WDW because, for that vacation, we want to spend our time in the parks, not on the road.
 
I think that's it right there. People don't have a lot of vacation time, so they don't want to 'waste' it spending most of the trip on the road.

I do actually enjoy short road trips. We drive from eastern MA to upstate NY every summer, and we've done a lot of fun side trips on the way. We drove when we went to DC as well.

But about 10 hours is my limit. We fly to WDW because, for that vacation, we want to spend our time in the parks, not on the road.

This assumes that the end goal is some destination. A road trip is where each location each day is the destination.

You can do a loop of the National Parks out west, where you visit a different park each day or stay for a couple days.

My childhood road trips were about exploring, not spending all day on the road.
 
This assumes that the end goal is some destination. A road trip is where each location each day is the destination.

You can do a loop of the National Parks out west, where you visit a different park each day or stay for a couple days.

My childhood road trips were about exploring, not spending all day on the road.
This is how our trip plan looks. No more than four hours or so on the road every couple of days. The last day as we head to the airport is a longer day.
 
We just got back from a 2 week road trip through Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado! We don't fly unless it's to Disney, which would be a LONG drive and we want to make the most of our park time. Flights here are expensive, and there is a lot to see out there, so road trips make for a great trip for us!
 
Growing up in the 80s, I went on road trips a lot with my parents. My friends also went on these trips.

Now, I don’t know anyone that road trips anymore. They fly everywhere and complain about how much it costs.

We did a road trip a few years ago. We were going to end up at a ski resort so DS could try snowboarding, but there wasn't enough snow to worry about it. Instead, we ran through North and South Carolina and Georgia.

We've done road trips from Nevada to Utah (camping) and Nevada to Cali (Disney, beaches, zoo/safari park, Santa Monica), in years past.

I spent 3 summers with my parents (who were long haul truck drivers) criss-crossing the US. We hit every state except Florida (and of course, Alaska and Hawaii). I love road trips, lol. Sometimes it's more about the journey and less about the destination.
 
My parents always took us on road trips mainly because my dad would do the driving. I've done them since the 9 hour drive to my sisters was the same time as flying. However now unless I'm going somewhere relatively close I refuse. It's just me and my boyfriend and TPA is a somewhat bigger airport so flights aren't that expensive anymore. My time and sanity is way more important.
 
Lack of $ and consecutive vacation time.

Regret that we didn't have enough of either to do this more when our kids were younger. But life is what it is.

Took a great week this year with our 4 almost adult kids and toured St. Louis (10 hours away) and surrounding areas. But dang, $4000 for food and lodging. Not easy with medical bills, car repairs, and college expenses. And then we all have jobs and have to synchronize time off.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top