It's Not Always About the Destination

While on road trips it’s not always the destination that’s important, it’s also what you see along the way.  When planning my cross country move to Calgary, my friend and I sat down and planned our route, hotels and then started looking up all the different ‘Largest Things’ in Canada. No road trip is ever complete without seeing the largest monument or statue in the country/world. A drive that could have taken us four days we stretched out to seven days to fit all the largest things into our drive. We mapped out how to get to them and had all the addresses written down that we followed. We mainly stayed to the Trans Canada Highway and did not venture too far out of the way because we did not want to waste too much time.

Sometimes as you drive you find random things to stop at like my friends and I when we drove all over Nova Scotia. We were driving down the highway and looked to the left and saw

a random large Native American statue. So of course we had to stop.

Another fun thing that I just heard about from a co-worker when I told her about this blog was Geocaching. Geocaching is a scavenger hunt across the country. People have hidden boxes you can find with treasures that other people have left. Once you have found the box, you sign the guest book, take the treasure and leave your own treasure for the next person to find. You can plan road trips around finding these which kind of sounds fun. I will have to definitely remember this when I go on my next road trip. 

Before You Start....

Before you head out on your journey, there is one thing that you must know very well, your mode of transportation. Be it a car, motorcycle, RV or bicycle, your mode of transportation is the most important part of a road trip. Be comfortable with your vehicle, know the good and bad sounds, know how many kilometres you can go on the highway before you need to fill the tank, take your vehicle into the shop for an inspection, check the oil, air pressure in your tires, fill up on windshield fluid, etc. There is nothing worse then driving down the highway and your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.

Purchase a CAA membership while traveling, even if you get it just for the journey and you cancel it. It is worth paying the membership price then having to find a tow truck and spend a few hundred dollars to get the car towed.  While travelling it would be better to splurge on the CAA Plus membership because if you need a tow it will tow you up to 250 km before they start to charge you for every kilometre after that. The basic membership will only tow you up to 10 km, it could get expensive with the cost of repairs.  As the Scouts say, Be Prepared.