Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape Photography Locations => Topic started by: Slobodan Blagojevic on March 16, 2015, 07:08:26 pm

Title: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on March 16, 2015, 07:08:26 pm
I am a great fan of road trips, so how about this one, the ultimate American road trip? There are two routes in the article, one visiting national parks and monuments, the other cities:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/10/a-data-genius-computes-the-ultimate-american-road-trip/
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: bretedge on March 16, 2015, 11:33:26 pm
Cool, but my ultimate road trip doesn't follow someone else's route.  I spent four months on the road in 2005 with no real itinerary or agenda.  If something looked cool/interesting/weird, we stopped.  Best four months of my life.
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Peter McLennan on March 17, 2015, 10:59:52 am
I'm with Bret.  My road trips are driven by geography and weather. Freedom is the keyword.  The last thing I want is to be controlled by someone else's itinerary.
Get it while you can.  I think that they'll be impossible one day soon.
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: langier on March 17, 2015, 12:47:54 pm
Too much tech involved. I still use my 1955 Rand McNally road atlas for planning my trips :-) I prefer the road less traveled, one that starts without an "I", the one where you will find the real gems and monuments of America, seldom found on any one else's list or map :-)

It's the journey, the finding of serendipity that is the real adventure awaiting!
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: bretedge on March 17, 2015, 10:47:26 pm
Too much tech involved. I still use my 1955 Rand McNally road atlas for planning my trips :-) I prefer the road less traveled, one that starts without an "I", the one where you will find the real gems and monuments of America, seldom found on any one else's list or map :-)

It's the journey, the finding of serendipity that is the real adventure awaiting!

I'm the same way, although my atlas is a wee bit  newer than yours. ;-)  Seriously though, I'd rather use a paper map over GPS any day.  We stay off the main highways as much as possible, too.  Over the years I've found so many wonderful places by just wandering somewhat aimlessly.
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Peter McLennan on March 18, 2015, 12:06:43 am
My three favourite words on my Rand McNally?

"Closed In Winter"

Always a sign of a reeeeeely good road. :)
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: bretedge on March 18, 2015, 02:50:44 am
My three favourite words on my Rand McNally?

"Closed In Winter"

Always a sign of a reeeeeely good road. :)

Haha! That's a great tip!
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on March 27, 2015, 12:19:54 pm
Speaking of ultimate road trips... hard to beat this one:

Drive from Europe to the U.S.? Russia proposes world's greatest superhighway (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/24/travel/trans-siberian-road/index.html)
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Praki on April 02, 2015, 05:31:52 pm
Putin collects the toll?
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: MikeHudson on April 07, 2015, 03:39:20 pm
I drove to Alaska in '88 with a couple college friends (starting in Chicago)- we still refer to it as the Ultimate Road Trip. No real agenda, except to make it to Alaska, then down to Oakland to drop off one of the guys. 9500 miles total. Best trip ever. I'm trying to figure out how to do it with my two boys now, before they head off for college in the near future.

Traveling with two non-photographers meant having to miss a lot of photo-ops, but I want to do it again now on my own terms. Getting to Alaska isn't the goal, the journey along the way is.
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: langier on April 07, 2015, 07:09:45 pm
Even today, that journey could be that of a lifetime! As a road, it would be easier to travel than today which requires land and sea, air and rail, but still either would be a real adventure. Even from Homer/Fairbanks, Alaska to Patagonia, Argentina is quite an adventurous trip today and requires portage around the DariƩn Gap of Panama, much like the gap between Russia and Alaska through the Bering Straight, which in 2011 was envisioned as a rail tunnel, twice as long as the Chunnel.
Title: Re: The Mother of all Road Trips: the Ultimate American Road Trip
Post by: Jimbo57 on April 08, 2015, 04:41:04 am
Speaking of ultimate road trips... hard to beat this one:

Drive from Europe to the U.S.? Russia proposes world's greatest superhighway (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/24/travel/trans-siberian-road/index.html)

It's a heck of a long way round to drive from London to New York.

A much shorter route would be a bridge from Shetland to Iceland, another from Iceland to Greenland and then down into Newfoundland. Much the same as they did with the Florida Keys.