Road Trip? Things To Think About

Often when I think about travelling I am disappointed at how much you miss by flying between cities. Especially in Australia the capital cities are spread so far apart, driving is often not considered as an option. Instead just automatically looking to book a plane ticket and fly. What if you just got on the road, and headed off on a road trip?

There are some people who just head off on a holiday thinking of nothing more than the next step. However, I am the sort of traveller that like to know what is coming. I like to plan ahead and book hotels, book the transport, to know how and where I will be staying. Of course, this does not always work out well for a road trip.

I often think about some of the challenges that I may face if I was to plan a road trip. The aspects of working out what to do along the way. Working out where to stay and whether it was possible to book ahead. Knowing how much time to allow getting between places. Also knowing how far you can expect to be driving without missing anything.

What To See Along The Way

I know on my very first trip away I went to Melbourne for a week. For this week I was pretty lucky to find Melbourne had something called the See Melbourne Card. You paid one price for the card and could access a whole lot of different tourist attractions. It saved me a whole lot of hassle trying to figure out what was good to see and where it was.

When it comes to a road trip figuring out what to see is a whole different story. You are rarely in a single place for too long and constantly moving along. Depending on your goal and your approach if you pass something you miss it. Obviously, there is always options to revisit places, but that is a whole other discussion. From my point of view, it just means that is a lot of research and planning before getting started.

Where To Stay

The last big overseas trip that I took was around 80 days, all but three nights were booked before I left. As mentioned above I am the sort of person that likes to know where I will be sleeping at night.

With a road trip, this can be a challenge to organise. Depending on where you are heading and how long you are planning to travel, who knows where you might end up. It can be very difficult to identify just how long it will take to travel between two places. Especially if you do not know what you might want to stop and see.

In reality, I presume this is more of an issue in my mind than a real problem. There are plenty of people every day that are travelling and finding a hotel where they are. A part of it probably comes down to picking your times to travel.

How Much Time To Allow

The point of time goes in hand in hand with where to stay. One day you may find you travel 300km and make few stops. While another day you might get just 50km because there is so much to see.

I considered the idea of a Road Trip to Melbourne from Brisbane. Technically if you were to drive straight through you could be there in less than 24 hours. But this would allow no more time than the essential stops for food and comfort.

At the same time, you could allow yourself 12 months and probably easily find more than enough to fill it. The real question I suppose is how much time you want to allow yourself. Which then could be converted back to what you see, and potentially where you stay. It just depends on what you prioritise.

Could A Road Trip Be In My Future?

The whole topic of a road trip, I suppose is based in the reality I would like to go on one. Although I am a planner at heart, I am looking at what I need to change to take a road trip.

While I am looking at some options for where and when I might go. I am going to have to spend a bit of time thinking through the options and see what appeals to me. Either way you can be sure if I head off on a road trip I will be sharing it here.