Around the country tour

[whatsup]

I would love to one day take the kids on an around the U.S. tour to see historical spots. A trip that would take the scenic routes, like old Route 66, so they could get the real flavor of how people in different parts of America live and work. Have any of you ever done that or thought about doing it?

[Bird]

We bought our first RV (slide-in pickup camper) when our kids were 2 and 5 so we did a little traveling, especially since we lived in Dallas and my wife's family was in West Virginia, but as long as you have a steady job, it's difficult to do a lot of traveling. But we went from the pickup camper to a travel trailer to a motorhome, and back to a travel trailer before the kids got old enough they didn't care to go with us anymore. But when I retired, we spent 6 years full time RVing, so at one time or another, we've seen at least some part of every state except Hawaii, and of course on 4 trips to Alaska, we've seen 4 provinces of Canada. We've been fortunate in seeing a great deal, but not everything. There are still places I'd like to see and haven't, and there are places we've been and would like to see again.

[whatsup]

Bird, that's awesome! That's exactly what I'd like to do with my kids. I would like it to be more of a whirlwind tour - only about a year on the road at most, staying in each location no more than a day or so (about 1 week per state) and staying within the continental US only.

[Bird]

staying in each location no more than a day or so

You likely would not like that at all; you'd just wear yourself out trying to move around that fast, and you'd be so busy traveling that you wouldn't have time to see much. We actually traveled faster than I would have preferred; had to be in southern West Virginia around Halloween (mother-in-law's birthday), on the Texas coast for Thanksgiving (with my parents), in the Dallas area for Christmas (with out kids), but if just sightseeing we'd usually stay in one place a week. However, we both also worked one summer in an RV resort in Virginia (about 4 months), I worked in my brother's tire dealership in Alaska one summer (4 months), and I worked most of 2 years doing natural gas leakage surveys for a company out of Georgia that had us on 3 day to 4 month jobs in Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

[Spanky]

Sometimes we take the kids for long rides, and you can always find an exit with some kind of tourist attraction off any major interstate. They don't even mind going back to places they have already been. It is good, quality, family time.

[whatsup]

You likely would not like that at all; you'd just wear yourself out trying to move around that fast, and you'd be so busy traveling that you wouldn't have time to see much.

Hmm, good tip. Then maybe it would be best to choose 1 or 2 areas within each state that we want to visit. That way we could stay about 5 to 7 days in each state before moving on to the next one.