What is a Big Trip?

That’s a great question and thank you for asking. Rather than providing a textbook definition, I prefer to give a little personal history that will explain the term “Big Trip”.

We took our first Big Trip in the summer of 2005. I had decided to quit my job. This would be the first summer in 17 years that I had more than two weeks off. I had the whole summer and beyond. An occasion as epic as leaving the rat race deserved a worthy celebration. We decided to embark on the vacation to end all vacations.

The kids were 11 and 9 and life was just streaking along. Kathy and I were seeking a memorable family bonding experience to start our new life. A Big Trip involves family.

As our new life did not include a significant income stream, we decided whatever we were going to do over the summer had better not cost much money. A Big Trip is done on the cheap.

We took inventory of what we did have: a minivan, a tent, sleeping bags, and Six Flags annual passes.

That’s not much but it’s a start.

Next, we studied a map of North America. Where did we want to go? Our Six Flags passes got us into all of their affiliated parks for free. In 2005 that meant visits to such places as Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, Buffalo, Montreal, and Baltimore.

With a $50 National Park Pass we could visit every national park across the nation for free. We were looking at places like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, and Mount Rushmore.

A Big Trip covers a lot of miles. If done correctly, you should dip your toe in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

What about accommodations? We decided our goal was to live out of the tent as much as possible. No doubt at times the weather would force us to seek shelter in a motel. Do we try to make reservations?

Before we had kids, Kathy and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon. We decided it would be fun to hop in the car and just pull into a motel when we were ready to stop.

We made it into Flagstaff around 11 pm and the entire city was sold out of motel rooms. It was a disaster.

With that experience in mind, we decided to wing it because that’s how we roll. We had a phone book sized Good Sam campground directory that helped to locate parks that would accept tenters. For you young people, in 2005 phone books were used to help find phone numbers and the publication was 5 inches thick.

Have we ever had an evening like that night in Flagstaff? Maybe a couple. But not enough to make us plan too far ahead.

A Big Trip involves accommodations on the fly. This creates way better flexibility to do what we want to when we want to. Want to stay an extra day? No problemo. What about changing the destination? No worries at all.

Let’s recap. A Big Trip is:

* Family

* Cheap

* Bi—coastal

* Flexible