If you are complaining of the rising costs of gas, airline tickets
motels and attractions, this travel experience, outlining strategies used
our 7 day road trip, may give you new hope.
FIRST REQUIREMENT: One Patient Road Warrior
Keep in mind, you must like driving or have a partner who does
and not just for scenic, laid-back roadways, but hardcore, highway
traffic. To make your travel savings a reality, you have to be willing
to rough it a little, and be alert and healthy each step of the way.
In this day and age, your own well maintained vehicle is the first key
to your travel power.
GETTING YOUR VEHICLE IN SHAPE TO RUN
Needless to say, you can't put the cart before the horse. Meaning
if your vehicle is not healthy and ready to run at full pitch, better
think about the plane, train or bus.
In our case, the Plymouth Voyager van had a few items of delayed
maintenance which we took care of at the beginning of our planning.
Since it is also a work vehicle for our cleaning and maintenance
service, this work was due anyway.
Our list of repairs and tune ups included: new alignment
and two new tires, oil change, check of our shocks, AC, engine
, transmission. All systems were checked and certified
okay by a qualified shop, that had many stores nationwide
and could guarantee the work. We did not add the cost of these
repairs to our trip since it was our time of year to accommodate them
anyway in our general business budget. Now we had confidence
to create our destination.
CUSTOMIZING THE MAP
Since our budget wasn't extravagant, we devised a destination plan
that would save money right from the start without compromising
our fun and sense of adventure. We also wanted to make the trip
more purposeful: we were going to scout a possible new place
to relocate ourselves in the near future. With all this in mind, we went to work making our lists .
a) Calling Friends:
If you have good friends in an area, who have been there awhile,
you can potentially be house guests and learn very much about an
area you can't always get from newspapers.
We had two good friends in New York State in an area that
was scenically loaded with waterfalls, parks, mountains
and a historic downtown district. When they both extended
the offer that we could stay, we circled the town on our AAA
map and set the departure and tentative arrivals dates based on
MAP QUEST. Having two possible stay locations is good, in case
one is a wash-out.
b) Get On The Internet
Since we were going in our work vehicle, we thought
maybe we could do a little work at the time we were on
vacation. We went on-line to a site that advertised
work and apartments in the area and found a temporary
position with a property owner who need work on
a few apartments. He was advertising for help the very
week we planned to be in that city. An Internet contact
brought us together, and we set a tentative date to meet
when we got there.
Depending on your type of work or skill, if you are service
based and have business cards and the ability to free lance,
a trip to the Internet may surprise you with an opportunity
to make back some of your expenses, at your travel
destination. Later in the this article , I describe how much
that process made for us.
c) List of All Travel Carry-ons
Now that our destination, time table and vehicle were
set, and the nature of our purpose highly defined;
we compiled a list of everything we needed to
carry with us.
The list became: clean clothing, personal toiletries, two pillows,
sheets and one blanket, two towels ,dry, healthy food stuffs
for energy boosting, vitamins, stocked cooler for drinks
and fresh fruit and only a few perishables, camera,
car care package of oil, fluids, tire changing gear,
clean rags, small satchel of tools that could be used
on the job at out destination, resume and business cards.
In addition, I had just published a book of poetry on-line
and had supplied myself with bookmark and postcard
promotional tools, so I would take a handful of each on the road.
We made a separate file for the paperwork, and an
easy to reach open box for the maps, trip tiks and
critical information which sat between the front two
seats. Now we would set about making our van
comfortable for the long haul.
PREPARING VEHICLE COMFORT
To spend more than one day in your van or car means,
you need to maximize interior comfort. Although, this can be
done in a car, an SUV or van is more conducive to the
task.
