What happened to road trips?

The road trip is the vacation. This isn't about saving money on flights. It's about getting in the car and enjoying the country.

But if that is the vacation itself, then what we are talking about does not compare. Either your are taking a road trip vacation, or you are going to a destination and are getting there the best way for you. Maybe more people are just not as interested in the road trip vacation anymore, that is why flying is more prevalent.
 
I think the vision of a vacation has changed. The road trip used to be the vacation. Now it is the means to the end (destination).

I'd love to road trip more. But most of my vacations have to be solo because I'm on a school vacation calendar with ample vacation time, and my husband gets minimal vacation time. And I live in the northeast, where traffic is a nightmare. I've done long car trips solo, but a true solo roadtrip doesn't really sit well with me. So, I do destination vacations, because I can fly solo and not worry about being the baby faced 30 something female broken down out of cell service on some back road.
 
Haven't read all responses yet but wanted to touch on this--

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.
Then to me you're not talking about the same things. Your first post seemed to be about flying to your destination and complaining about costs as opposed to driving there:
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.


IMO different things and thus why the answers are what they are about lack of vacation/time spent on road.

Road trips which are often about exploring different places/points of interests along the way and where that is the main aspect to the trip. That is different to me than driving to your main destination as opposed to flying.

For instance we could drive to Orlando but that would take 2 days to drive there and 2 days to drive back. We would fly rather than drive. On the other hand we did a road trip in 2014 where we drove to Nashville (stayed the night), went to Asheville (stayed the night), drove to Myrtle Beach (stayed 3 days 2 nights), drove to Savannah (stayed the night), drove just north of Nashville (stayed the night), arrived back home. Now that was a road trip. People can and do make road trips out of going down to Orlando BUT they have additional time for that vacation which generally speaking people don't have that much time.
 


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.
I enjoy road trips and travel by vehicle rather than flying often. My next trip will be 8 days and I’m looking forward to it.
 
I have done many this summer. I live in Niagara Ontario. I have done road trips to Cedar Point twice, Kennywood in Pittsburgh and an Indians game in Cleveland. Any road trip that's less then 5 hours is worth it. Since I get 4 weeks vacation, I take advantage of it going to different amusement parks.
 


We live far from almost everywhere we wish to go to so road trips are difficult. Despite that, we still do go on them. During Spring Break last school year, we had fun driving to New Mexico and going to a variety of places. It was quite the adventure and included driving through a snow storm and a haboob on the same day. My kids will never forget that and would have never experienced that if we had flown.

Since it takes so long just to get anywhere in a car from our house, we sometimes will fly somewhere and rent a car for a road trip. Last summer we flew to London and had a month-long road trip through Scotland and England. That was tons of fun and having the car instead of relying on the train allowed us to visit some remote places and enabled us to be spontaneous. One of our most memorable experiences was taking a tiny ferry out in the country that barely accommodated two cars (including our rental car). The kids got to visit the ferry's bridge and witness dolphins leaping in the air.

The previous summer we flew to Boston and spent a few days there. After that, we rented a car for a brief road trip that ended in Cape Cod before we returned to Boston for our flight home. During that road trip, we had some fun things planned such as spending a morning on a lobster boat and attending Redcoats and Rebels at Old Sturbridge Village. Since we were driving, we were able to take unplanned side trips such as visiting an apple orchard.
 
On our east coast road trip right now!

UK to Orlando (2 weeks) then...
Orlando to Charleston (beyond hot!)
Charleston to Richmond (fabulous- try the Omni hotel)
Richmond to Washington (fantastic! Loved seeing all the places we've only ever seen on TV or films)
Washington to Gettysburg (Loved it- Go to Gettysburger for dinner- great people, yummy food. Trivia quiz on a Wednesday night)
Gettysburg to New York (where er are now!- Dropped our car off when we'd checked in)
New York back to the UK next week)

Loving our road trip. If we had flown would we have seen a covered bridge? Or been on a carriage ride with an Amish guide? Or even have made it to Gettysburg?

Road trips are the way to go.
 
On our east coast road trip right now!

UK to Orlando (2 weeks) then...
Orlando to Charleston (beyond hot!)
Charleston to Richmond (fabulous- try the Omni hotel)
Richmond to Washington (fantastic! Loved seeing all the places we've only ever seen on TV or films)
Washington to Gettysburg (Loved it- Go to Gettysburger for dinner- great people, yummy food. Trivia quiz on a Wednesday night)
Gettysburg to New York (where er are now!- Dropped our car off when we'd checked in)
New York back to the UK next week)

Loving our road trip. If we had flown would we have seen a covered bridge? Or been on a carriage ride with an Amish guide? Or even have made it to Gettysburg?

Road trips are the way to go.
We saw Gettysburg...drove up there after landing in BWI. So yes you could have seen Gettysburg if you flew (assuming you can fly into BWI) :)

Flying doesn't mean you can't go do stuff that you're listing. What it probably means is people taking separate vacations and focusing on each area. They'll fly to NYC area and see NYC, they'll fly to the D.C. area and see stuff there. We would fly into Boston area and drive down into the Cape Cod area and stay there and then drive the whole Cape Cod part seeing all the towns along the way all the way up to Provincetown (P-Town) for instance. For you coming from the UK that can make a big difference.
 
We would fly into Boston area and drive down into the Cape Cod area and stay there and then drive the whole Cape Cod part seeing all the towns along the way all the way up to Provincetown (P-Town) for instance. For you coming from the UK that can make a big difference.

That's sort of the plan for next time, then flying down to Orlando for the last 2 weeks of our vacation. We usually do a month. It's a long way for the UK and we like to pack in as much as we can
 
We went on road trips as kids and as an adult I take my kids on them, too. I think road trips help you to see the smaller areas while flying into a place I find we tend to stick with the more popular, tourist areas. But we don't believe every road trip must be a week or two. We've done plenty of weekend road trips over the years. We get out a map, draw a circle around where we live that is equal to the very furthest we're willing to drive on a weekend, and we search for fun or historic or lovely natural places within a given direction in that circle. :)

We just drove 600 miles this weekend. We had a great time.
 
Just got back from an 11 day road trip yesterday. Fifteen hour from Ontario to Williamsburg Virginia. Me and dh, my two daughters and my older daughters boyfriend. We spent the majority of the trip in Williamsburg but made stops along the route to spend a night each way and do fun things to break up the drive. Hershey park was a favourite stop. We all had a fanatic time!

We used to do more road trips when the kids were younger, now we fly more but I think we enjoy the road trips just as much because we really enjoys all the stops and seeing different places along the way. It’s just hard to get enough vacation time for everyone for longer road trips, or time off school for the kids, especially now that my kids are older and have their own jobs and commitments. Sometimes we have to leave some behind.
 
I know people who go on road trips, including our family. I am also in a FB travel group the focuses on traveling with children worldwide--a number of folks do road trips. There are a few who take or have taken extended road trips. They either have younger kids or homeschool, from their posts and blogs. Of course there are many who fly to their destinations, and one or two who discuss rail travel in the US and abroad.
 
We drove to Disney from New England 10 times in the 2000’s. Our kids were small, we had a minivan. Cost was a consideration but we made awesome memories. That being said, the drive home is torture. New Jersey turnpike and Connecticut anyone? We would come home exhausted and have to go to work the next day. So we went back to flying. I do get nostalgic for those vacation departures at 8pm, breakfast at “our” Cracker Barrel” in Virginia, etc.
 
Alive and well for us. We drive much more often than we fly. DH and I prefer road trips. We only fly if time and distance require it.
 
I guess time is a big factor. You can cover many more miles in a few hours than you can in a couple days. It is probably safer. Also, I get really antsy if I spend more than a couple hours in a car.
 
For me personally, driving anything over a few hours is miserable. My head hurts from focusing on the road, my back aches from sitting, my legs ache from inactivity. Not fun. Give me a plane ride any day. Plus I drive a ton in RL every day - vacation means no driving for me.
 
We would drive to some place like FW, 1977 I was 15, but stay along the way.

Oh and wanted to add, WDW at the time was a 3 day max trip. We did 2 days MK and one day River Country. So it was not the 7 day 6 night destination it is now. We stopped at Williamsburg for a few days down and probably Myrtle Beach on the way back.

Also FW was super expensive it was almost $30 a night for a pop up site. Could only stay a few at those super high prices. :)
 
For us, it's limited time off. Hubby only gets so much time and never wants to blow it all on one event. Driving wherever we are going and then back eats up too much time.
 

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