Road Trip (1.Viewing)

just returned from a big road trip in the US, went through Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado. Highlights were Rushmore, Deadwood area, MLK civil rights museum, Graceland, Little Rock, Yellowstone.

When you watch the news you often see a crazy world, but it's great to be driving out there on the open road, most of these states are flat with endless farm fields and grasslands. And you get to meet a lot of people and they are usually super friendly and welcoming. Almost nowhere we went was crazy busy, hardly got stuck in traffic or had to wait in a long line, even at Graceland. Yellowstone was busy but not crazy busy. Felt more like traveling in September than summer at times.

Usually when I travel I get a domain inquiry or sale, but not this time. Maybe in September when summer's over, lol.

Welcome back. How many KM was that in total?

About 7100 km

Sounds like you had an incredible road trip. Did you take videos? Could've created your own YouTube channel with all the content.

domains said:

just returned from a big road trip in the US, went through Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado. Highlights were Rushmore, Deadwood area, MLK civil rights museum, Graceland, Little Rock, Yellowstone.

When you watch the news you often see a crazy world, but it's great to be driving out there on the open road, most of these states are flat with endless farm fields and grasslands. And you get to meet a lot of people and they are usually super friendly and welcoming. Almost nowhere we went was crazy busy, hardly got stuck in traffic or had to wait in a long line, even at Graceland. Yellowstone was busy but not crazy busy. Felt more like traveling in September than summer at times.

Usually when I travel I get a domain inquiry or sale, but not this time. Maybe in September when summer's over, lol.

Click to expand...

Nice! We did 9396 kms last fall. I use the "Road Trip" app to track big road trips just for the fun of it, I don't usually bother tracking mileage and gas purchases otherwise. Honestly, a road trip is a nice change of pace from the stupid over-tourism. I read an article yesterday about how bad its gotten with tourists and I felt guilty as charged, having visited most of the places they listed, and many were very recently too.

And yes, road tripping means you get to see the beauty of all of the small town places you drive through. And I find people generally friendlier in smaller towns too, so its just a more enjoyable experience for a multitude of reasons.

The only problem with road tripping is the amount of time it takes, so I get why people tend to fly somewhere when they get their two weeks of vacation, but if you can swing a nice long road trip, its worth doing, just be sure to stop and smell the roses along the way.

silentg said:

Sounds like you had an incredible road trip. Did you take videos? Could've created your own YouTube channel with all the content.

Click to expand...

I think if we were doing videos for social media posting it would have felt more like work than a vacation. But if you could fund road trips or a lifestyle doing that it would be great. I guess some people do do that.

domains said:

just returned from a big road trip in the US, went through Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado. Highlights were Rushmore, Deadwood area, MLK civil rights museum, Graceland, Little Rock, Yellowstone.

Click to expand...

That must have been really nice. Congrats!. Not every person gets to do that.. except you are @rlm (He does anything and everything and he can do it!!!)
My question to you would be, how long did it take you to cover the 7000+kms? I am guessing a min of 5 weeks?

domains said:

I think if we were doing videos for social media posting it would have felt more like work than a vacation. But if you could fund road trips or a lifestyle doing that it would be great. I guess some people do do that.

Click to expand...

yeah, I think it would quickly begin to feel like a job rather than a vacation!

Eby said:

That must have been really nice. Congrats!. Not every person gets to do that.. except you are @rlm (He does anything and everything and he can do it!!!)
My question to you would be, how long did it take you to cover the 7000+kms? I am guessing a min of 5 weeks?

Click to expand...

We averaged about 700 km per day when driving, so the travel there and back was about 5 days each way. We spent almost a week just around Memphis. An average driving day would be driving about 700km but stopping at one or a few sights on the way. The speed limits on the main highways were usually 60 to 80 mph, which would be 96 to 129 km/hr. It's a good way to see a lot of sights but for a short time, there are some places like Yellowstone I'd go back to and spend more time if I could. Also Deadwood SD.

domains said:

An average driving day would be driving about 700km but stopping at one or a few sights on the way.

Click to expand...

Well, I can't handle more than 500Kms a day these days.. My days of driving 800Kms are behind me. LOL

domains said:

there are some places like Yellowstone I'd go back to and spend more time if I could.

Click to expand...

I would imagine.. never been there, but the photos I see are incredible.. Nothing like capturing that beauty with the naked eye. Happy for you.

domains said:

When you watch the news you often see a crazy world, but it's great to be driving out there on the open road, most of these states are flat with endless farm fields and grasslands. And you get to meet a lot of people and they are usually super friendly and welcoming. Almost nowhere we went was crazy busy, hardly got stuck in traffic or had to wait in a long line, even at Graceland.

Click to expand...

Most of the US states are sparsely populated and feature a lot of usable land for farming and housing, so unless you go to a big city like NY, LA or Chicago, you've still got "elbow room, cried Daniel Boone!" and people there are mostly nice. Having the needed space to move around and live is a proven factor in overall happiness.

I go down to other parts of the USA here and there, and it's a noticeable contrast to current Canada, when it used to be exactly the opposite. We're now less friendly and helpful, have a lower standard of living, overall education and literacy rankings favor the USA. our violent crime is rising fast while theirs is falling (!), our population density in livable areas is 2X higher than theirs (over 90% of Canadians live within 160 km of the US border & 94% of Ontarians live in Southern Ontario).... I could go on.

The USA also has about 1/12 of the population migration per capita that Canada does, and it actually takes in less people than we do in total.

I go down to Vermont, Maine or Connecticut and it's just like Canada used to be - nice hard-working people who value education, and with lots of room... Even the southern states are pretty good and I went down to Texas to visit a friend and the people down there would give you the shirt off their back - it kinda makes me sad for all that we've lost in Canada over the last 8-9 years, and is probably never to return.

And sure, it's not all great down the USA, but as a country, we used to be the envy of the world. Now we're a laughing stock.

That was often one of my thoughts, there is sooooo much open land, you could step off the road and start walking into a field all day and not reach the end. Forget overcrowding, there is almost endless availability of land to be populated, if there was the will and people wanted to live there. I imagine Canada is probably the same when you get out there driving the provinces.

domains said:

I imagine Canada is probably the same when you get out there driving the provinces.

Click to expand...

But only 10% of Canada is deemed "livable" while the vast majority of the US has the climate and conditions that are conducive to human life, and some of what doesn't, like parts of Nevada and California, they terraform. In the US, there are small towns and cities everywhere, while in Canada, we have monstrous swathes of land with absolutely no one living there.

Canada is a physically large country, but in reality, our livable land space could fit inside Texas, thus Canada's 2X real-world population density compared to the United States. That 94% of Ontario's population lives in small parcel of Southern Ontario is a telling stat.

For reference, here's a map of Canada's national highway system:



And here is the US national highway system:

There's a lot of livable space that sits unused just in BC alone. There may currently be no infrastructure there, but with infrastructure, it would be livable. I've been to every corner of BC and everywhere between and there's a lot of empty land right next to the highways.

rlm said:

There's a lot of livable space that sits unused just in BC alone.

Click to expand...

Once you get away from the Canadian Shield (which is essentially rock with a thin layer of soil - if that), the North and Arctic regions, the Mountains, the dirt Plains, and a lot of the East Coast + some harsher climate zones, that pretty well leaves BC.

So you're not wrong.