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The best way to find good road trips is to just go on Google Maps and look for any of the routes marked with black and white US highway shields. Most of them have histories going back to the 1920s, and a lot of them haven't really changed much over the years. Also look for any roads that have "Old Highway XX" in their names. You have to really zoom in to see them on Google Maps. But once you find them, you know it's a historical road.
I agree with Highway 101. It was one of my favorite road trips even before I lived in this area. North of the Golden Gate Bridge, it hasn't really changed much since the 1950s. It's the same old two lanes, with some four lane stretches that is was 60 years ago. A lot of the businesses are the same ones that served travelers 60 years ago.
back in the early 1980's my DH and I started doing the US routes. We started with US 6, MA to CA, then up the coast and took US 20 back. He was very organized and could plan trips hitting as many US routes as possible. He had a (pre-computer) spreadsheet showing all the US routes, and where they started and ended. I still have the diary we kept of all the routes and what we saw. We did it for about 25 years. We didn't cover all of them though.
More and more, the old US routes are being re-routed onto interstates. I hate interstates. Even when I drive from VT to my sister's in MA I take back roads and get better gas mileage.
A trip off the main interstates provide so much information and points of interests it's time to slow down and relax with places like this.
Anyone else have an interesting spot to visit off the main interstate highway?
America off the Interstate IS a point of interest. It is impossible to drive off the interstate without seeing a point of interest. It is so sad to hear about people who have driven across the country, or even to every state, and have seen absolutely nothing.
One of my favorites is yard sales. Maybe the only places in America where strangers will still talk to each other. I also love to eat breakfast at a main street cafe with pickups parked outside, eavesdrop on the conversations of the farmers at the next table. But such cafes are getting hard to find, the farmers all moving their socialization out to McDonalds, at the interstate ramp.
Interstate highways bring to mind a cartoon I once saw of well-heeled diners in a five-star hotel dining room, A lady at one table leans over to address a stranger at the next table and says "Perhaps you can settle an argument. Is this Cairo or Bangkok?"
America off the Interstate IS a point of interest. It is impossible to drive off the interstate without seeing a point of interest. It is so sad to hear about people who have driven across the country, or even to every state, and have seen absolutely nothing.
One of my favorites is yard sales. Maybe the only places in America where strangers will still talk to each other. I also love to eat breakfast at a main street cafe with pickups parked outside, eavesdrop on the conversations of the farmers at the next table. But such cafes are getting hard to find, the farmers all moving their socialization out to McDonalds, at the interstate ramp.
Interstate highways bring to mind a cartoon I once saw of well-heeled diners in a five-star hotel dining room, A lady at one table leans over to address a stranger at the next table and says "Perhaps you can settle an argument. Is this Cairo or Bangkok?"
It is sad that mom and pop cafes are disappearing so quickly. I know some truck drivers online, and they complain about how all the truck stop restaurants are being replaced with mini fast food courts. Can you imagine driving a truck and the only options you have for food is crap like McD's and Subway? Truck stops were always the one place you knew you could get good food, but no more.
I sometimes visit a newspaper website for the small town I was born in. When I last visited the town 20 years ago, the town still had no fast food. It still had the same Main Street mom and pop cafes it had when I was a kid. Now from what I understand, McD's and Subway have taken over the town, and put most of the cafes out of business.
They really phoned it in with their Nebraska choice. The highway they recommended goes over the Lake McConaughy Dam and maybe 5 miles of the lake's shoreline. The lake is about 10 miles off I-80. Wildcat Hills, Pine Ridge, and the Sand Hills are better drives, Avs are views you simply don't get if you stay on I-80.
The Colorado choice is kinda weak sauce, too. The Cog Railway is/was the best way up Pikes Peak, and when you get to the top there's a kitschy gift shop that sells donuts and overpriced tchotchkes. Independence Pass between Twin Lakes and Aspen or the Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Silverton are much better.
We usually find the major street or boulevard, and just ride it till the end. This is for cruising purposes.
For places outside the state, I travel by googles GPS. We just adjust the settings for no highways, and get the local route. Has Worked well in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.
I miss the road trips of the past, but nothing says I can’t start taking them again if I want to enjoy that mode of travel. In the years before the interstate highways we always enjoyed the sights of small towns along the state highways. So many towns and so many highways to enjoy it’s worth slowing down and revisiting some of the places.
One of my favorites was the Pioneer Village in Minden NE on Hwy 6. Very interesting place stated back in 1953 by Harold Warp. The things they had in there would keep you busy for several days trying to enjoy seeing it all.
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A trip off the main interstates provide so much information and points of interests it's time to slow down and relax with places like this.
Anyone else have an interesting spot to visit off the main interstate highway?
It's funny....when I saw your post, the first thing I thought about was traveling from Colorado to Nebraska and how much fun we had driving off the interstate, taking the back roads. Then you mention driving the back roads in Nebraska. Uncanny coincidence.
One of my favorite places is the museum over the interstate in Kearney, Nebraska....Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. It honors all of the pioneer trails the settlers took traveling west. Read about their near bankruptcy a few years back. I am still fascinated by that museum. Here's the link to the museum:
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