Solo multi-day roadgeeking adventures

[formulanone]

Like I said earlier, I travel regularly for work. Eating alone at a restaurant, you may think other people are staring but they aren't. They dont even notice. I have had a few issues with waiters unhappy that a party of one is take an entire table during the dinner rush (smaller bill means smaller tip), but that was only two or three times. My advice is to just sit at the bar, even if you don't want to drink. Restaurants have sit-up bars primarily to cater to solo diners and the service is usually better anyway since the bartender is right there.

I do this a lot, but usually I prefer to hunker down into my room with some take out or cook (if possible), and chit-chat with my wife and kids on Skype or phone, and catch up on work and/or photos. Other evenings, I'll explore the town I'm working at that week, although in the early months of the year, there's not much light out, and sometimes not much in the morning hours, either. If it's a huge project, I'll hang out with my co-workers a few times, but sometimes I'm alone at my job in a town I've never been in.

On the other hand, there's almost always a vacant booth during lunch, and bringing out your laptop means you're all business (even if you're just checking out a forum instead of doing work on your break).

I avoid the bars (never was much of a drinker, I'll have one or two socially), as my co-workers have told me tales of hearing "you're not from around here, are you?". If someone says it at a restaurant, it's not intended to be an insult.

I am fortified with solitude. I love to just sit in my recliner-like seat of my van, gazing into the center lane. I drive slow most of the times also. I drive during the day for the most part. When dusk approaches, I pull over and rest till dawn. Or paint the town red. I also live in my vehicle whenever I'm on road trips. When I was a child, I had dreams of exploring every mile of the Interstate system. I'm halfway there. I think I can speak for most in here that I thought I was the only road geek in the world. So I got used to the idea of flying driving solo. I have taken road trips with other people once or twice.

Well said.

My wife is a great companion, she's quite relaxed with not having to drive. I've gone on multi-day or whole-day road trips with my friends in college and just for the sake of it a few times as well. But as we've all grown up (numerically, that is), we tend to be more alone in our travels, and after being away from home 5-6 days a week, I usually am not in the mood for galavanting about anymore on weekends (I'll make exceptions, but with kids, those distances are ever shorter).

[J N Winkler]

Driving roadtrips in the company of others are very much the exception for me, although I have taken several over the years--to Arizona and New Mexico with my father (several times), to South Dakota and Wyoming with a friend (once), and to Alaska with a couple of friends (we rented a car and split the cost and driving).  A friend and I went to Turkey together many years ago, but we used coaches exclusively for interurban travel.

I tend to travel alone because it rarely happens that a planned itinerary interests a friend and me at a time when we both have the leisure to travel.  Normally I don't push hard for group trips.  I tend to feel a little "lost" when travelling with more than one person ("two's company, three's a crowd"), plus if the third person is hearing, I am at a mild added disadvantage.  Also, back in the early to mid-noughties when I was still actively taking sign photos, I would stop frequently (say three to four times an hour) to take pictures.  If the sun was particularly low in the sky and positioned so as to illuminate the sign surface evenly, each stop might last as long as fifteen minutes while I did a comprehensive photo study of a given sign, or walked around to photograph other nearby signs (this is fun to do on, for example, the TCH going through Calgary because so much of it runs through parkland).  I enjoyed taking these photos but for a travelling companion, even a fellow road enthusiast, these stops would have posed a major test of patience.

For long trips I tend to camp in the summer and to stay in motels in the winter.  I have reversed the two, however.  At Big Bend in the winter I had a choice between an $8 campsite and a $80 motel room, so I took the former (although the night was uncomfortably cold).  In the summer I sometimes pick motel rooms because there are no campgrounds in the area, because they are relatively cheap (why pitch the tent if I don't have to?), because it is hot and sticky outside and I need to be presentable the next day, or because I need a break from the madhouse of KOA campgrounds.  I like to shower and change my socks and underwear every day, so I am not a fan of no-facilities camping (though I went backcountry at Denali, and have used no-facilities campgrounds when developed sites were not available reasonably near).  In my experience independent RV campgrounds are usually quite good, while KOA campgrounds are fairly uneven.  I am comfortable pitching a tent, but I am not outdoorsy--my main motivation for camping is generally to keep my per diems down, so if the campsite is accessible by car, I invariably put two pillows and an inflated air mattress in the tent as well as a sleeping bag.  Banff National Park in Canada is the place to go for no-facilities camping:  you can strike your tent at dawn and go to the hot springs in town, which are open to the public, for a warm soak and shower.

On an extended roadtrip I prefer to avoid both Interstates (except ones which are of unusual engineering interest) and night driving.  I have not always succeeded in avoiding the latter, however--sunset does not always occur at a convenient time.

I am usually comfortable averaging somewhat less than 300 miles a day on mostly two-lane roads, though occasionally I do endurance runs to get from Wichita to areas of high topographical relief when I begin a trip (I don't really want to overnight in the shortgrass prairie, or on the periphery of areas already familiar to me from short-distance roadgeeking).  I tend to pay more attention to projected nutritional requirements when choosing a place to eat; I don't find myself in a chain restaurant that often, though I don't go out of my way to avoid them.  Chains and two-lane travel tend not to go together very much, in any case.  In the past I have used AAA TourBooks to identify and screen dining options on the road.

It sort of surprises me to see people report feeling self-conscious when entering dining establishments alone.  I have done this many times, and cannot remember worrying even once about the fact that I was alone.  Possibly my experience is skewed by being deaf--this means that I have to heighten my awareness of contextual cues so I can get in, order, eat, pay, tip, and get out frictionlessly (it takes time to write things out and reading lips never works as well as many hearing people think it should).  Even so, in two-lane America, restaurants are rarely packed to maximum occupancy, so a person dining alone is generally not displacing paying covers.

The one time I felt painfully conspicuous was in Kremmling, Colorado, at the tail end of a late summer roadtrip in 2003.  Kremmling is in the US 40 corridor well north of I-70 and is very much a blue-collar town catering to hunters and railroad workers.  A sign in my motel room asked guests not to dress their kills or wounds in the room because mud and blood were very hard to get out of the carpet and sheets.  The restaurant and bar across the street did quite good breakfasts and dinners, but everyone else in there wore flannels, jeans and heavy boots--I was the only person in there in lightweight clothing and ordinary leather walking shoes.  People's eyes turned toward me, looked me up and down, and registered that I did not belong.  I felt a bit like a pied-noir in the souk, although no-one was anything but courteous to me.

Edit:  I prefer to take my own car on roadtrips rather than renting one.  For trips of the length I usually take, I want a vehicle which fits me like a glove, and I also want the highway miles to balance out the city miles.  I don't usually worry about maintenance (although in the past I did, to the extent that I packed oil-change equipment and did oil changes on the road).  By far the worst repair adventure I had was having to have the rear rotors replaced in Berkeley after several thousand miles of uninterrupted metal-to-metal contact since Edmonton.  The shop was busy, but was able to squeeze me in specially on a Friday afternoon, so aside from the cost the experience was very tame compared to the standard RV repair saga.

[corco]

I like to shower and change my socks and underwear every day, so I am not a fan of no-facilities camping

This is actually one of the reasons I like no-facilities camping. If I'm in the middle of nowhere along a creek/lake/slow moving river, I'll bring a bar of soap and some shampoo with me and bathe in the river. Not a big fan of communal showers at KOA or organized campgrounds.

[realjd]

I avoid the bars (never was much of a drinker, I'll have one or two socially), as my co-workers have told me tales of hearing "you're not from around here, are you?". If someone says it at a restaurant, it's not intended to be an insult.

I've had some interesting conversations with folks I otherwise wouldn't have met that started out this way in a bar. Usually, once they see you're just looking for a cold beer and some wings, they either leave you be or get excited that an outsider likes the same things they do and they come chat.

The exception to this would be biker bars affiliated with the larger biker gangs. Regular biker bars are fine, but if you walk in and everyone is wearing a Mongols or Hells Angels vest, just turn around and leave! Thankfully I've never encountered a place like that, and I've been to my fair share of random dive bars.

[texaskdog]

I avoid the bars (never was much of a drinker, I'll have one or two socially), as my co-workers have told me tales of hearing "you're not from around here, are you?". If someone says it at a restaurant, it's not intended to be an insult.

I've had some interesting conversations with folks I otherwise wouldn't have met that started out this way in a bar. Usually, once they see you're just looking for a cold beer and some wings, they either leave you be or get excited that an outsider likes the same things they do and they come chat.

The exception to this would be biker bars affiliated with the larger biker gangs. Regular biker bars are fine, but if you walk in and everyone is wearing a Mongols or Hells Angels vest, just turn around and leave! Thankfully I've never encountered a place like that, and I've been to my fair share of random dive bars.

Yes, just like in the movies

[texaskdog]

I've been scared to take my totaled-in-an-accident-but-still-runs 2000 Buick Lesabre anywhere, but we did the 4 hour (each way) trip to Galveston last weekend.  Car seems to run better on longer trips even if the gas mileage is horrible.

[formulanone]

Yes, just like in the movies

Well, considering I have an occasional strong mouth, a weak fist, and a low tolerance for alcohol, I'll avoid taking any chances!

Seemed to be most of the mentions of these "incidents" were of really small towns. Rarely, I've been personally queried why I'm taking pictures, but more often than not, locals have been extremely helpful in pointing out historic and interesting sights, making chit-chat, as well as offering some local information you probably wouldn't find anywhere else. I never really care if I come off looking like a tourist.

[hbelkins]

I am becoming increasingly hesitant to travel at night, especially during the fall, because of the explosion of the deer population. The number of dead deer I've seen along the roads really alarms me. Last thing I want to do is to be driving down some interstate a day's drive from home and plow into Bambi. After the Bennington meet last fall, my goal was to make it to the Scranton area for an overnight stay. Most of the drive down I-88 and I-81 was after the sun had gone down. I was a nervous wreck, especially because I had seen so many dead deer along the interstates in West Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania on the trip north.

That is on top of the loss of the ability to do a lot of sightseeing and the loss of quality of photos.

[J N Winkler]

This is actually one of the reasons I like no-facilities camping. If I'm in the middle of nowhere along a creek/lake/slow moving river, I'll bring a bar of soap and some shampoo with me and bathe in the river. Not a big fan of communal showers at KOA or organized campgrounds.

Don't you have problems with the water being unfiltered and unheated?  The one time I went backcountry, washing in the river was not really an option for my buddies and me because the water was chilly, fast-moving, and so full of glacial till that it permanently dyed white socks a sort of off-gray.

It has actually been quite a while since I camped (I haven't actually been able to take a monthlong camping roadtrip in almost ten years), but I don't recall the showers at developed campsites being universally communal.  There are some campsites where the shower nozzles are all in one big room, but some others have individual shower stalls.  Much depends on when you actually go to take a shower.  When I am at a campsite I usually go to bed shortly after sunset because there is literally nothing to do in the dark, unless I choose to burn through battery-powered artificial light I'd rather save for after-dark car emergencies.  In most parts of the US this usually means I can get up at dawn (around six AM for much of the summer) having gotten my full eight hours of sleep, and then have the showering facilities almost to myself.

As I see it, the biggest nuisance surrounding camping is dealing with the possibility of rain.  I have long been willing to spend extra (as much as $20 per night) to avoid dealing with a wet tent in the morning.  It is always added effort to pitch the tent with a rain cover (in fact, every time I have pitched the tent myself, I have done so without the rain cover), and because campsites are in regular use during the summer, grass doesn't grow in the usual tent sites, which degenerate into dusty patches that fill with liquid mud when it rains.  A muddy tent in the car trunk is apt to get everything else dirty (it is worth taking a binliner along just to cover this contingency), and very hard to get clean without access to an outdoors piped water supply and a garden hose.  By far my worst experience with a muddy tent was at a KOA in Mariposa in 2003; fortunately the rainstorm hit after I had already emptied out the tent and was getting ready to pack it.  That was actually the last night I camped on that trip--I hosed down the tent after I returned to Wichita five or six days later.

[corco]

Don't you have problems with the water being unfiltered and unheated?  The one time I went backcountry, washing in the river was not really an option for my buddies and me because the water was chilly, fast-moving, and so full of glacial till that it permanently dyed white socks a sort of off-gray.

Heating and speed can be a problem in the early spring, but I've been dealing with snowmelt rivers the majority of my life, so I guess you could say I'm used to it? It's very similar to getting into a hot tub- you have to get used to the temperature and ease your way in and then not spend too long in there. You're definitely hypothermia-prone if you spend more than a few minutes in there, but you get used to it. I actually prefer a river that's moving at a low enough speed that I can control myself but isn't at a standstill- seems warmer.

I'm actually kind of grossed out by the warm water back east.

There isn't much that can be done about fast-moving water- if it's springtime and the rivers are rushing, that's probably not a good time to take a bath in the river. I do most of my roadtrips in the summer when the days are longer and I'm not likely to be slowed down by weather, and when I do go out in the winter I nearly always stay at motels. I'm fairly comfortable sleeping in anything as low as about 25 degrees (I have a very well insulated sleeping bag and then I can bundle up as necessary), but if there's snow on the ground it's not worth the hassle. I've gone ice camping and built an igloo and all that with friends, but solo it's kind of a pain in the butt.

When it's that cold outside, I don't really feel like I need to shower anyway.

As far as sediment, I usually skinny dip and take a towel.

[vdeane]

I've done single-day roadtrips but not yet multi-day.  I do plan on three-day roadmeet trips once I'm working; I wouldn't mind doing other multi-day roadtrips as well.  At this point there aren't many interstates to clinch without them.

Do people plan out lodging before hand or just stop at places on the way and see if they have cheap rooms?

[NWI_Irish96]

I was just thinking about something. Every year from 2007 through 2010, I took a multi-day roadgeeking trip by myself for a few days. I love getting away and taking these trips by myself because I can go off, do my own thing, and not have to worry about whether another person is being entertained. These trips usually involve clinching new highways (or new stretches of highway) and staying overnight at inexpensive motels along the way. For anyone who's curious, all these solo trips for me have been within my home state of Michigan (except for one trip that involved jaunting into Indiana for a little while).

Doing entire road trips (several hundred miles) in a single day can be very exhausting, and I truly enjoy staying in different hotels/motels (reasonably priced). I know lots of roadgeeks like to do long drives all within a day and then just return home in the evening.

Is it a pretty strong consensus in the roadgeek community that people like to take these kinds of road trips alone? I'd be willing to guess that a lot of people who participate in the forum are introverted and really value their alone time. Is that a good guess?

I was not able to take a trip like this in 2011, and it's looking like I won't be able to in 2012 either with everything I have going on this year. I'd be curious as to what people's thoughts are on this topic.

Did a solo trip in the summer of 2001 that went from Chicago to Yellowstone and back over 8 days/7 nights.  One of the best trips I ever took and don't regret it a bit.  Got to cross 4 states and almost 2000 miles of interstate off the list that I likely would have never gotten to otherwise.

[oscar]

As I see it, the biggest nuisance surrounding camping is dealing with the possibility of rain.  I have long been willing to spend extra (as much as $20 per night) to avoid dealing with a wet tent in the morning.  It is always added effort to pitch the tent with a rain cover (in fact, every time I have pitched the tent myself, I have done so without the rain cover), and because campsites are in regular use during the summer, grass doesn't grow in the usual tent sites, which degenerate into dusty patches that fill with liquid mud when it rains.  A muddy tent in the car trunk is apt to get everything else dirty (it is worth taking a binliner along just to cover this contingency), and very hard to get clean without access to an outdoors piped water supply and a garden hose.  By far my worst experience with a muddy tent was at a KOA in Mariposa in 2003; fortunately the rainstorm hit after I had already emptied out the tent and was getting ready to pack it.  That was actually the last night I camped on that trip--I hosed down the tent after I returned to Wichita five or six days later.

Yeah, I always hated that about tent camping.  So I got a camper shell when I bought a new pickup in 2006, and park sleeping bags, a mattress pad, and other camping supplies in the pickup bed.  No setting up or breaking down camp, rain isn't an issue (except when I forget to shut the shell's side vent windows), and I can already crawl in back for a quick midday nap as needed.

My truck gets only about one-third the gas mileage of my car, but I'll take the truck if I expect to be camping.  I still have my tenting gear, but now I never use it.

[Chris]

I usually do 2 or 3 multi-day trips in Europe every year, and I do them all solo. Of course it's cheaper to split the cost (especially with $ 9 gas and high tolls over here), but I really like to drive whenever and wherever I want to. I've driven in 14 European countries in the past 4 years. I usually go in the summer and camp on campsites, because they're much cheaper than hotels and roadside motels are not as common in Europe as they are in the United States, it's hard to find a place for the night for less than $ 80 without prior reservation if you want to stay in hotels/motels. Campsites usually cost me about $ 10 - 15 and a lot of them are offering free WiFi nowadays. I also like to be outside in nature after a long-day trip, just relaxing and reading a book or use my laptop while the sun sets, or take a long walk in the woods after my day of driving.

I usually do 1 or 2 trips that are 2 - 3 days, covering about 1,500 - 1,800 miles, and another major trip that takes a week, covering about 2,500 - 3,000 miles. Sometimes I stay at a central location and venture from there on out, other times I move to a different region every day. European gas prices are high, but fortunately I drive diesel which is often cheaper and gets a much better mileage, I usually average about 48 miles per gallon on multi-day trips, so the cost of taking a road trip is doable.

[J N Winkler]

As far as sediment, I usually skinny dip and take a towel.

I am happy to leave clothes-on bathing to the fetishists--my concern was more about sediment being deposited on the skin.

[oscar]

Do people plan out lodging before hand or just stop at places on the way and see if they have cheap rooms?

I usually just roll the dice, make as much progress as I can in daylight, and start hunting for cheap digs around sunset.  Even with the most conservative settings for my trip-planning software, I usually fall behind schedule for one reason or another.  Also, sometimes I'll make spur-of-the-moment itinerary changes.

[corco]

I am happy to leave clothes-on bathing to the fetishists--my concern was more about sediment being deposited on the skin.

Ah- I guess I don't really notice it.

Yeah, I always hated that about tent camping.  So I got a camper shell when I bought a new pickup in 2006, and park sleeping bags, a mattress pad, and other camping supplies in the pickup bed.  No setting up or breaking down camp, rain isn't an issue (except when I forget to shut the shell's side vent windows), and I can already crawl in back for a quick midday nap as needed.

I kind of want to get a Ford Transit Connect when I buy a new car next year for that reason- it gets decent gas mileage, and if I pull the back seats out the load floor is comfortable.

I rented a Ford Fusion a couple years ago and that was actually really comfortable to sleep in too- fold the back seat down and put your feet in the trunk and the floor was really comfortable and the perfect length with a sleeping pad, so I might also go the midsize sedan route since the gas mileage there is even better.

[corco]

Do people plan out lodging before hand or just stop at places on the way and see if they have cheap rooms?

I try to manually calculate out speed and stuff down to the minute so I know where I'll be, allowing more time than I need for breaks, so on a sunrise-to-sunset trip I usually have an extra hour or so. If I'm in a hotel I always make reservations, but if I'm camping I'll have a preferred destination and then I'll know of a few other locations within 20 miles or so just in case.

[AsphaltPlanet]

I usually just roll the dice, make as much progress as I can in daylight, and start hunting for cheap digs around sunset.  Even with the most conservative settings for my trip-planning software, I usually fall behind schedule for one reason or another.  Also, sometimes I'll make spur-of-the-moment itinerary changes.

I generally find a hotel at the end of the night as well. The odd time I will book in advance, but when I am on the road I have a habit of zigging when I thought I was going to zag. It doesn't usually cost too much more to book in last minute at a hotel.

I generally prefer doing multinight trips in September. Not only is the weather often spectacular, but gas and lodging is usually cheaper since it is not peak season.

[J N Winkler]

I usually just roll the dice, make as much progress as I can in daylight, and start hunting for cheap digs around sunset.  Even with the most conservative settings for my trip-planning software, I usually fall behind schedule for one reason or another.  Also, sometimes I'll make spur-of-the-moment itinerary changes.

I follow basically the same approach--I generally have an idea where I want to be, but not how I will get there, or exactly when.  I feel it detracts from the sensation of being on vacation to have everything planned down to the last minute; I also don't like to make assumptions about my ability to make time on unfamiliar roads.  If I have Internet access and can book online, sometimes I will reconnoiter lodging options and make a booking online if I expect to have difficulty finding cheap lodging from the road, but I haven't done this for roadtrips as a rule.  I am actually more likely to book in advance when backpacking through Europe because I don't like hunting for lodging when I am humping forty pounds on my back and hips.

[Alex]

I've done single-day roadtrips but not yet multi-day.  I do plan on three-day roadmeet trips once I'm working; I wouldn't mind doing other multi-day roadtrips as well.  At this point there aren't many interstates to clinch without them.

Do people plan out lodging before hand or just stop at places on the way and see if they have cheap rooms?

We usually have an idea of where we want to stay, but do not preplan the actual lodging well in advance. Instead we pick up one of those room savers coupon books at a rest area or whatnot and use those. Gives us an idea of what is available and the rates are pretty much set based upon the coupon. Also determines if the place has free wi-fi, which is a must on marathon road trips.

[A.J. Bertin]

We almost always rent a car too, why put the miles on our own personal vehicles?

I own a 2001 Saturn SC2 coupe with 226,000 miles on it. It's been a VERY reliable car for me over the years, and I've taken it on many road trips. It's a small vehicle that gets good gas mileage, but it's at the point where it's burning oil and I find myself putting a quart of oil in every thousand miles or so.

That said, lately I've found that if the trip I'm taking is within, say, a 300-mile radius of home, I'll use my own car. For longer trips lately, I've decided to rent cars. This summer I will be taking a road trip with a friend of mine to California and back. (It's a trip I've been wanting to take my entire life, so I am super-excited about it.) For this trip, it goes without saying that I'll be renting a car and putting at least 5,000 miles on it during that 9-day stretch.

[A.J. Bertin]

I refuse to drive somewhere new at night- why even be there if you can't see it?

I'm the same way. Part of the reason I like to clinch new roads is just for the scenic value ... to "experience" them and actually see the sites. I don't like driving on new roads at night either because I can't really see the scenery.

[A.J. Bertin]

I like the solitude of driving solo. Sometimes I find myself rocking out to my iPod while other times I drive in complete silence.

Amen to that! Except for me, I don't own an iPod. For my listening pleasure I either have a stack of CDs with me or I find local FM radio stations to listen to. Sometimes I'm listening to a CD, sometimes a radio station, and sometimes silence.

I also photograph roads somewhat uniquely. I generally don't take a lot of photos of road signs while driving. Rather, I prefer to take pictures of highways from unique vantage points, whether they be from freeway overpasses or preferably high rock cuts adjacen to the highway. Most people aren't patient enough to spend a couple hours photographing a short segment of highway. I have generally shied away from large organized road meets for this reason. I personally find little satisfaction in just driving a road and taking pictures from behind a pane of glass.

Exactly. That's the big thing about roadgeeking alone. You can take your time on photography or seeing mundane things that the average non-roadgeek has no interest in.

Sometimes if I'm in a bit of a hurry, there are occasions when I do take photos behind the glass while I'm driving. I don't prefer that, but sometimes it's necessary.

[bulldog1979]

When my ex and I were together, we decided on my day off to grab lunch at a Cracker Barrel. Now for those that know me, you'd have thought I went to the one off the 44th St exit on I-196 there in Grandville. Instead, we went to the one in Elkhart, IN. That clinched US 131 for me, and the return trip by way of South Bend and US 31 got most of that highway in Michigan. (The next week, we took a slightly longer way to the beach in Grand Haven to get the rest of US 31 in Michigan.)

Another time, we took a day drive to Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Marshall. I ended up clinching M-96, M-311, M-78 and a set of BL I-94s. The last big roadgeeking trip we did together was coming back to Grand Rapids from Cedar Point using US 223. Those trips were a lot more enjoyable for me than some others I did solo because I had someone to talk to. Living in Grand Rapids with family in the UP, those 7.5-hour drives to get home get boring, and not even the dog in the car with me is enough.

Now I've been staying with my family for the last few months, and I talked my parents into a motorcycle ride on March 18th during our warm spell that took us down M-95 east on M-69 and US 2 and back home on M-35 and M-553. That clinched M-69 for me, and my parents were willing accomplices. Two days later we took H-58 to Grand Marais, and there was still some ice melting on the road where they don't plow it. Unfortunately, my plans were foiled that time when they took H-58 back instead of M-77 and M-28 (no clinch of M-77 for me). All in all though, I'd rather have someone to talk to, because I get enough alone time in the car with regular trips as is.