Road Trip.. Do you plan or Wing it? Any tips for motel deals?

LauraLeigh

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#1
Anyone do the traditional old road trip?

We did family road trips for years when the kids were young, mostly through the White Mountains area, often traveling from NS to Maine, NH, Vernont, NY then Ontario and back... We never booked rooms and never had a problem!!

Last summer we did the exact same route on the motorcycles and it was a nightmare motel wise!! So many Mom and Pop motels were closed or run by people who no longer had the same ideas of cleanliness... One night we rode until near 1am and finally found a room for near $300!!!

So this year we are doing two trips, one for Friday 13th in Port Dover that will be a 4 day trip (Niagra Falls/ Port Dover/ Goderich ON & Wasaga Beach) and another 10 day trip to the Tail of the Dragon on the NC/TN border...

Finding and booking motels is frustrating, and it means determining how far between stops... And not getting off course which was half the fun!!! Thankfully for the longer trip we are at the same motel for several nights.. I knew it would be important to book that early because of being in high season for bikes..

So do any of you do old fashioned "Road trips"? Do you wing it or book it?

Crap wanted to have a poll... Hit finish too fast...

1) Wing it all the way!
2) Plan motels
3) Plan "every" detail
4) Book weekends, wing the rest...
5) Acadian Rappie Pie (Look it up:p)
 

LauraLeigh

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#5
Yup. Very close! Maybe an hour and a half or less.
I am a bit nervous about it to be honest.. We are riding it on a Tue morning, when it's hopefully not as busy or overrun with speed demons.. I rode Mt Washington so I should be fine... Worried more about other idiots..
 

Snark

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#6
We generally plan ahead, mostly because we usually have a dog with us, so finding dog friendly motels beforehand is a must. On our annual trip to NC, we drive straight through (and plan to arrive at the beach within the 2 hr. window allotted by the rental agency to pick up the keys).
 

Doberluv

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#8
I've always planned ahead....at least for most of it. I've taken many road trips. I really like that kind of travel where you can see lots of things. If I hadn't planned most of them out, I think I would have wasted precious time waiting till the last minute for arranging things to see, places to go, where to stay etc. In some cases, motels or hotels aren't a worry, but depending on seasons or what not, that can be a problem if not planned ahead. I've always liked my AAA membership.That can be helpful, especially in case of emergency.
 
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#10
When we went on our 3 week cross canada trip. We just winged most of it. We had plenty of time to. We stayed at friends houses, camped and slept in the truck. and one night in a hotel. Since we had Blaze. We figured we could still wing it by camping out/sleeping in the truck. we knew he could stay at friends houses with us (all have good dogs and are dog friendly).

If we do our Nova Scotia drive this summer, we will wing it mostly again. As we dont mind camping or sleeping int he truck, even now that we have 2 dogs. Its a adventure IMO :)

Fromt what i hear of port dover. id deffiently book your hotel for there now. My BF's parents go every year, and tell me its very busy.
 

Kimbers

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#11
We know the general destination, but that's often it. When we went to Canada, we just stopped when all of the four capable drivers were too tired to drive and slept on the ground in sleeping bags. 'Cuz we're fancy like that.
 

LauraLeigh

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#12
If we were in a car we may chance winging it again like we loved...

On the bikes, not so much... Hard to sleep on a solo seat! And last year it bugged me to get soaked huge dollars for a crappy room because it was getting late and riding tired is a very bad idea....
 

LauraLeigh

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#15
Naw... Too old to sleep on the ground:rofl1:

Actually... We thought of that to be honest, but decided against it fora few reasons, space being a premium on the bikes being the main one... Wet rainy days another... By the time we pack a tent, two sleeping bags etc we loose most of one bike to just camping gear
 

Dekka

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#16
I love to wing it. Other than the first few nights in the US, our nearly 4 week trip around 12 states was very winged lol. But we were camping vs moteling. We stayed in a hotel/motel twice. Once in PA when it was very very wet and all our stuff was wet. And once in IL because it was late, we had been driving for nearly 12 hours and couldn't find a decent camp sight. Not once though did we have to sleep in the car!

Our best find was a campground in IN. We didn't like the one we had picked (I would say what direction we were going in and Maf would look at the AAA books and pick campgrounds that had what were were looking for in that direction in the morning...) got lost and found a fantastic spot in the middle of Amish country.
 

LauraLeigh

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#17
Camping is fun, be far easier to wing it too....

We considered a trailer for Jeff's bike so we could camp easier (bring small stove, air mattress etc) but not sure we want to have one on, may take the feel we like away.. We may borrow one and try it
 
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Kristen1980

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#18
Before we had kids we used to wing it and just GO but now that we have 2 little ones I have to plan. We usually make our annual trip up to San Francisco each year and we've been to San Diego. Our big family trip was to Hawaii but I wasn't able to go bc I was prego with Park.
 

katielou

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#19
We wing it.

Only time that has ever done me bad was coming in to Vegas last year. Yikes!

Still I would rather pay more than be stuck to a schedule.
 

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