Pre-College Road Trip

comfortablycurt
Sun, 17 Nov 2013 01:13:19 +0000

There are likely a lot more variables here than you’ve considered.

After high school, I spent about 3 years traveling the country and going to a lot of music festivals, doing a ton of camping, and just generally seeing the country. I’m a very low maintenance person, as were the people that were with me. Myself and one of the other guys that was with us were both very mechanically inclined, which came in handy a number of times. Cars break down. Especially when you’re putting thousands upon thousands of miles on them at a time.

Trips like this are inevitably going to cost a LOT more than you think they will. Gas and food alone are going to cost a lot. A real lot. Even roadside campsites will often cost a lot more than you think they will. Factor in the countless side trips to random things that you come across, countless impulse munchie purchases at truck stops…factor in the fact that you’ll probably spend twice as much in gas as you’ve estimated as well. All of the side trips and turn arounds, those times when you realize you’ve been going the wrong way for the last 40 miles(it happens) and countless other unseen factors.

As others have mentioned, most hotels won’t even rent rooms to people that are under 21. Many roadside campsites won’t either. There’s too much liability involved.

That said, a trip like this is something that you would remember for the rest of your life.

Eat a lot of blackbean fajitas and grilled cheese sandwiches made fresh on a campgrill at a rest stop and you can save a lot of money. A couple months worth of stops at Dennys is going to add up to a rather hefty pricetag.

One of the best things I found out back when I was getting my wanderlust out of my system was that national parks let you pitch a tent wherever you want. For free. This was about ten years ago though, it may be different now.

I’d also point out that this wasn’t exactly a “with permission” kind of thing. It was more like me telling them that I was taking off for a while. My parents were always pretty loose with me though. In my case, a “while” ended up being about 3 years. It was a great 3 years though. I got to live in California, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, for at least some length of time.