The Wandering Hart

Road tripping across the US is a really fun experience no matter the route you take, but it can also be really hard! Below are my top tips for making the whole trip a little easier and a little more fun.

1. Create a road trip playlist – and double the number hours of songs you think you need. Having a downloaded playlist of songs is critical for those long driving days through places with patchy service. But there’s also nothing worse than getting sick of your playlist 2 days in! We actually made a playlist as long as our longest driving day (10 hours) and still wish we had made it longer so my advice is make the playlist as long as you possibly can.
2. Plan fun roadside attraction stops along the way. Apps like RoadTrippers can provide a great way to look at your route and find fun, kitschy stops to break up the long drives. This is how we found, for example, the Corn Palace. Planning ahead at least a few of these gives you something to look forward to on the longest days.
3. But be flexible for additional stops! A few of the stops, such as the potato museum, we found pretty last minute or even only through signs. Building in some time in your planned driving days for flexibility allows for even more fun stops to break up the monotony. Some of the last minute stops were our favorites!
4. Alternate camping with AirBnBs or hotels. We spent most of our trip camping for 2 nights and then staying in an AirBnB or hotel for 2 nights. Alternating can keep things cheap and fun by still allowing you to camp but ensures you get opportunities to take a nice shower regularly. Also, I recommend trying to use AirBnB where you can find them! We were surprised to see how much cheaper and nicer they were than the hotel options in places like Twin Falls and Omaha.