2024 Road Trip Plans

[Hunty2022]

There's been threads like this for 2022/2023, and possibly more years, so I'll make a thread for next year.

For me, I have a trip planned for Luray Caverns, VA on January 1, for my New Years Trip. That could get me deeper into Rappahannock County and Page County. Other possible trips for me in 2024 include:

Cape Charles, VA (spring)
Hinesville/Savannah, GA
Ocean City, MD (summer)
Washington, DC
Virginia Beach, VA (summertime)

[Max Rockatansky]

Just a Las Vegas weekend trip and a Placer County bridge hunt (both in January) for me so far.

[Bruce]

For the April eclipse, I plan to drive down to Dallas, since it also coincides with a Sounders away game there. Currently weighing options, but I definitely want to see Glenwood Canyon and clinch a few states on the way to and from Texas. This will be my first time crossing that far across the Continental Divide on a road trip that starts at home.

[Rothman]

Sounding like Texas is going to be quite crowded for the eclipse.  Given that people seem to be heading to the spot of greatest magnitude/length of totality along the border in the U.S., I'd imagine that traffic flowing back to San Antonio, Austin and other cities is going to be horrendous along the likes of US 90.

[MATraveler128]

As of now, I plan to pick up a friend from college in June so I'll be going to Charlotte and stay a night there and then we will drive down to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area in Florida. Possibly stop and visit Tallahassee as well as Charleston and Savannah. I also want to possibly include St. Augustine, but that might be a bit expensive.

[MikeTheActuary]

Having successfully completed the bucket list item of visiting all 50 states in 2022, I've started considering the next challenge of visiting all 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

I'm debating whether to take a road trip up to NB/NS/PE in the summer, or to fly and drive to get BC/AB/SK/MB, or to take a train from Vancouver to Winnipeg.

(The western Canada road trip option is least likely.  Initially I was just going to drive between Vancouver and Winnipeg, but then I saw how expensive that one-way rental would be.  Not sure I want to invest the additional vacation days to do a round-trip drive....plus, I like trains....)

[Rothman]

Having successfully completed the bucket list item of visiting all 50 states in 2022, I've started considering the next challenge of visiting all 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

I'm debating whether to take a road trip up to NB/NS/PE in the summer, or to fly and drive to get BC/AB/SK/MB, or to take a train from Vancouver to Winnipeg.

(The western Canada road trip option is least likely.  Initially I was just going to drive between Vancouver and Winnipeg, but then I saw how expensive that one-way rental would be.  Not sure I want to invest the additional vacation days to do a round-trip drive....plus, I like trains....)

In all seriousness, whatever tips you have from visiting Nunavut, please post/share when all's done.

[JayhawkCO]

In all seriousness, whatever tips you have from visiting Nunavut, please post/share when all's done.

Get a credit card with Air Canada as a transfer partner and use Aeroplan miles to fly on Canadian North.

[oscar]

Having successfully completed the bucket list item of visiting all 50 states in 2022, I've started considering the next challenge of visiting all 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

In all seriousness, whatever tips you have from visiting Nunavut, please post/share when all's done.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13406.msg2005014#msg2005014

Nunavut is a super-expensive destination. But if you're willing to settle for just one place in Nunavut (I suggest territorial capital Iqaluit), watch airline websites for occasional fare sales and tour packages.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A friend and I are planning to go to Texas in April and maybe see what happens from there. I don't have any solo trips planned yet, which I'm sure will come, but I'm still mentally reeling from the police incident that marred the end of my last roadtrip and I'm struggling to recover the appetite for more solo adventures.

[Rothman]

A friend and I are planning to go to Texas in April and maybe see what happens from there. I don't have any solo trips planned yet, which I'm sure will come, but I'm still mentally reeling from the police incident that marred the end of my last roadtrip and I'm struggling to recover the appetite for more solo adventures.

You post about the incident on the forum somewhere?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A friend and I are planning to go to Texas in April and maybe see what happens from there. I don't have any solo trips planned yet, which I'm sure will come, but I'm still mentally reeling from the police incident that marred the end of my last roadtrip and I'm struggling to recover the appetite for more solo adventures.

You post about the incident on the forum somewhere?

Never the whole story as there was no need for me to share/didn't want the political arguments about such activities/whatever, but I have mentioned it in passing a handful of times.

I was driving east on I-80 about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha, with the cruise set at 75 as I passed some trucks in the left lane. A cop in the median pulled out after me apparently thinking I may have something of interest to investigate. He caught up to me about two miles down and took up a position waiting for a traffic violation, which it was a windy day as it often is in Nebraska and it probably blew me onto the white line so he pulled me over at that point for a "sobriety check". He wasted no time in ordering me out of the car to his cruiser and (my assumption) used computer issues to stall for time to create a fake "reasonable suspicion" narrative.

He asked to search the car and I refused, but he believed he had cause not to take no for an answer and called for backup. The drug dog got a fake hit giving them access to my car. I was released after nothing was found. But I have struggled a lot with the personal violation as well as the fear it will probably happen again especially in the Plains states where this activity has become naitonally infamous with numerous lawsuits filed in Kansas regarding this kind of pretext stop policing.

[Rothman]

Really wonder what benefit there is to the police to harass people like that when they come up empty.  Why spend time essentially making stuff up when there probably are real law breakers out there?

[Max Rockatansky]

The last pretext stop that happened to me was on I-20 west of Abilene when I was moving back to the west coast during January 2016.  I had an out of state (Florida plate) and was deemed to be on the road at a "suspicious time" of 6 AM.  The highway patrol man followed me for about 20 miles before finding a reason to pull me over.  I handed him my military travel order and told him I wasn't stopping at Carlsbad Caverns during the day.  That seemingly put everything at ease, he told me his district was having issues with out of state drug running due to people avoiding I-10. 

I used to get stopped every once in a while when I was younger.  A younger guy by himself with an out of state tag seems to a popular pretext stop. 

[1995hoo]

The last pretext stop that happened to me was on I-20 west of Abilene when I was moving back to the west coast during January 2016.  I had an out of state (Florida plate) and was deemed to be on the road at a "suspicious time" of 6 AM.  The highway patrol man followed me for about 20 miles before finding a reason to pull me over.  I handed him my military travel order and told him I wasn't stopping at Carlsbad Caverns during the day.  That seemingly put everything at ease, he told me his district was having issues with out of state drug running due to people avoiding I-10. 

I used to get stopped every once in a while when I was younger.  A younger guy by himself with an out of state tag seems to a popular pretext stop. 

I haven't been subject to a pretext stop, but when I was 24 years old I thought I was going to be. I worked in Montgomery that summer and I was driving down to Alabama the day after Memorial Day to begin my job. Right after I merged onto I-59 in Georgia, my Valentine One picked up a chirp of instant-on radar from behind me. In my rearview mirror, I saw that a cop had just pulled out into traffic. I set my cruise control at 68 mph (speed limit was 70). He proceeded to follow me, frequently hitting me with further bursts of instant-on radar, but he finally took the last exit in Georgia. Not sure why he didn't figure out sooner that I was obviously wise to his presence, but perhaps he was looking for some other excuse to stop a young out-of-stater.

[Rothman]

The only weird stop I had was in west Texas.  My then-fiancee and I were driving a loaded Versa hatchback with out-of-state plates somewhere around Loving County.  Texas State Trooper pulled us over, ostensibly for speeding.  Asked where we were headed and I said Dallas.  He made a remark that we were off the beaten path and my then-fiancee semi-explained county clinching ().  He never told us how fast he caught us going and when I inquired for more specifics about why he pulled us over, he just said something like, "Oh, I can go back to my car and bring back how fast you were going" quite pointedly.  I dropped it and we were sent on our way.

[1995hoo]

Regarding 2024 road trip plans, aside from my usual fairly regular business travel to New York (via Amtrak), we have a trip to Florida planned to visit relatives for which we will fly down to Fort Lauderdale and rent a Tesla (this year a Model 3 instead of the Model Y we tried last year). Then in the summer our anniversary falls on a weekend, so we're considering a trip to the Omni Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania. That trip would present the typical conundrum of finding a new route through very familiar territory. I think I might use some sort of route involving US-30, as I have never taken said road from Breezewood west to Bedford. Our next-door neighbor regularly travels up to State College to visit relatives; she says she always uses US-30 there to avoid the toll and that it's a decent road, so all the more reason to check it out.

[NWI_Irish96]

Likely to do a 3-day trip in late March that will be one of these three:

MI/OH: US 24, US 127, US 223, BL I-75 Pontiac, BL I-96 Howell, I-77, I-270, I-271, I-480, Ohio counties-Seneca, Huron, Knox, Holmes, Coshocton

IL/KY: US 40, US 45, US 50, US 51, I-69, I-165, Kentucky counties-Carlisle, Hickman, Fulton, Graves, Calloway, McLean, Tood, Logan, Allen, Monroe

IL/IA/MO: US 54, US 67, US 136, US 150, I-55, I-64, I-270, Iowa counties-Keokuk, Wapello, Davis, Missouri counties-Ralls, Pike, Lincoln, Jefferson, Ste Genevieve, Perry, Cape Girardeau

[jmacswimmer]

I think I might use some sort of route involving US-30, as I have never taken said road from Breezewood west to Bedford. Our next-door neighbor regularly travels up to State College to visit relatives; she says she always uses US-30 there to avoid the toll and that it's a decent road, so all the more reason to check it out.

Besides being free, I think US 30 is actually faster if connecting from Breezewood/I-70 to Bedford/I-99/US 220 because of the indirect Turnpike connections at either end. I did use this stretch of US 30 once when making that exact connection, and it was a nice drive - at least 4 lanes throughout, and only a handful of lights. After the light at S Breezewood Rd immediately west of I-70, there's only 4 lights, all past Everett closer to Bedford, before reaching the US 220 interchange. The turnpike, FWIW, is also visible from US 30 at the couple locations where the routes squeeze together on either side of the Raystown Branch Juniata River to pass thru water gaps.

[1995hoo]

I think I might use some sort of route involving US-30, as I have never taken said road from Breezewood west to Bedford. Our next-door neighbor regularly travels up to State College to visit relatives; she says she always uses US-30 there to avoid the toll and that it's a decent road, so all the more reason to check it out.

Besides being free, I think US 30 is actually faster if connecting from Breezewood/I-70 to Bedford/I-99/US 220 because of the indirect Turnpike connections at either end. I did use this stretch of US 30 once when making that exact connection, and it was a nice drive - at least 4 lanes throughout, and only a handful of lights. After the light at S Breezewood Rd immediately west of I-70, there's only 4 lights, all past Everett closer to Bedford, before reaching the US 220 interchange. The turnpike, FWIW, is also visible from US 30 at the couple locations where the routes squeeze together on either side of the Raystown Branch Juniata River to pass thru water gaps.

Thanks. I note the Omni Bedford Springs is south of town, too, so the US-30 route cuts off the redundancy of going north to the Bedford exit on the Turnpike and then having to come back south again. You just exit where the sign says "Bedford Business District" and connect through there.

In the past we've used US-220 several times between I-68 and Bedford either to go to the resort or when passing through to or from somewhere else (most recently on the way home from Toronto when I just didn't want to use I-70 south of Breezewood).

[boilerup25]

For me, I already have multiple likely trips planned.

February 2024: Trips from West Lafayette to Columbus, Ohio and Madison, Wisconsin.
Summer 2024: I have some trips I plan on taking from Morris County to go deeper into Sussex County and Warren County. I also am considering taking a trip to clinch CR 511 and NY 210 in Greenwood Lake. I also plan on taking trips from North to South Jersey (and back again). Those ones are still unknown, though.

[MikeTheActuary]

Having successfully completed the bucket list item of visiting all 50 states in 2022, I've started considering the next challenge of visiting all 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

I'm debating whether to take a road trip up to NB/NS/PE in the summer, or to fly and drive to get BC/AB/SK/MB, or to take a train from Vancouver to Winnipeg.

(The western Canada road trip option is least likely.  Initially I was just going to drive between Vancouver and Winnipeg, but then I saw how expensive that one-way rental would be.  Not sure I want to invest the additional vacation days to do a round-trip drive....plus, I like trains....)

Just blocked off time on my calendar and made the appropriate reservations.

I'm going to go visit New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia -- collecting a few counties, and maybe playing ham radio from a park or two.  (I'll be in PEI on Canada Day, when the Canada Day contest is held on HF.)

[hbelkins]

I second the recommendation of US 30 over the turnpike between Bedford and Breezewood. I stayed at Breezewood for the Sideling Hill tunnel meet a few years ago and never put a tire on the turnpike. I came up US 220 from Cumberland and stayed on US 30, and then drove 30 back to the meet point in Bedford, back to my motel in Breezewood for the second night, and back across 30 to 220 for the trip home.

[cockroachking]

Likely driving to Arkansas and back in May, hopefully including Texas and Oklahoma. Other than that, just some more clinching in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic most likely.

[jlam]

Here are my 2024 plans (domestic and interstate):

Winter I
No plans so far

Spring
Gunnison/Crested Butte

Summer
College Tours

• Many Colorado Universities
• Wyoming
• Montana State
• South Dakota Mines
• TBD

SoCal Wedding Pt. 2 (likely by plane)

Fall
No plans so far

Winter II
SoCal again (probably)

I will update this as time goes on.