Planning Tools

Organizing the information for a trip lasting a month or more and involving the southwest and west coast can be a intimidating task. We have discovered a great tool to help with the job. It’s called TripIT and is a web based application that allows you to send it your reservations, confirmations, and other travel related emails. Once received, the application builds your itinerary and organizes things day by day. You can also enter notes and add to the automatically created text. There is a paid version, but unless you are a jet setting business road warrior, the free version is more than sufficient. Check it out at TripIt.com.

We are also amassing quite a collection of AAA tour books and maps to go along with the stack of books about the southwest and west coast. The book that we used last year, Frommer’s National Parks of the American West, is the top level document that provides the outline information to help us select what we plan to cover. There is a series of books that focus on the incredible photographic opportunities in the southwest. titled “Photographing the Southwest, Volumes 1,2, and 3.”

Take A Hike

One of the activities that we discovered on our trip last year was hiking. The hikes that we were able to take were very easy and well marked, but they allowed us to see and photograph sights that we could never have seen otherwise. This experience encouraged us to get more into hiking and get more off the beaten path. Of course, it will also help us keep up the high level of physical activity that we have worked up to over the last few years.

Getting off of the trails that are so well traveled that the bears could give you directions poses the real possibility of getting lost, at least for me. We’ve added a handheld GPS to our other hiking gear. After doing a lot of research, we selected the PN-40 from DeLorme. This unit comes with a complete set of maps for the US where other units require you to buy maps to make them functional. This would more than double the cost of the base unit. DeLorme also offers a subscription to all the supplementary aerial imagery, USGS Quads & NOAA Charts you want for a single, $29 annual fee.

The PN-40 records the location information all along the route so, it can also be used to provide data to geocode photos taken along the rute.

With a Little Help From My Friends

In addition to the normal web search and tour book research that we did for last year’s trip, we have asked our friends and family via email to send along suggestions for their favorite points of interest, POI, along our root. So far, we have received several great ideas. One friend with culinary training provided several interesting POI, but “seasoned” her suggestions with wonderful restaurants and cafés all along the way. Another happy camper had tremendous tips on hiking trails and some views that can only be seen by getting off the road.

We are incorporating all of the great advice into our “let’s try to work this in list” and we’ll keep collecting your ideas and suggestions so, keep them coming.

National Park Tour 2

We have started the detailed planning for this year’s trip to the southwest and west coast.

Arches National Park, Utah

Most of our time thus far has been spent gathering updated maps and information on the various points of interest along the way. This trip will start in Columbus, OH and follow Interstate 70 to Colorado. We are charting some points of interest along the way such as St. Louis, MO – more details later. The major focus will be on Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and ending up at our home in Florida.

This time we have decided to be more flexible about the time we have at each location. Since we will be at the end of the main tourist season rather than at the beginning, it should be easier to make reservations a day or so ahead rather than a month. We’ll see how that goes as the time gets closer.

One of the must have purchases for the trip is the 2009 version of the book The Next Exit by Mark Watson. Watson’s book is an essential tool for anyone traveling the interstate system. It’s a well organized, fact packed guide to the services available at each of the interstate exits. We learned on last year’s trip that this book is essential for traveling the interstate highway system, especially in the west where services are far less plentiful.