So, in just a week or two we’re loading the crew up in the truck and heading out on a 3,000-mile journey to nowhere.

Sound crazy?

Which part? The 3 kids in a truck for 3,000 miles in 8 days, or the journey to nowhere? {smile}

We’re excited. It’s been a long time since we took a family vacation. Ok, we pretty much never have. We travel to visit family and call it a vacation. We go to parties, family reunions, the beach, all that family stuff–which we totally love, don’t get me wrong!  But so far we haven’t really gone anywhere that was just about us, our household, our little crew, doing our own thing. We’re usually hodge-podging a little bit of our own “thing” into other people’s “thing” while we’re in town. {smile} Besides, we like traveling.

So we decided to take a trip to see things we hadn’t seen and do things just the way we wanted to do them–and nothing else! And in case you hadn’t looked at the price of plane tickets for a family of five lately…we’re driving. {smile}

Here’s the thing–the DRIVE is our vacation. We’ve got a few stops planned along the way for things we want to see, but there’s no “destination” we’re trying to reach and return from. We’re just driving in a big loop and seeing everything along the way.

There will be some camping, some hotels with swimming pools, some random college drive-thrus to see a football stadium the boys saw on TV, some snacking (probably a lot of snacking!), some license plate bingo, some audiobooks and some s’mores, some antiquing and selfie scavenger hunting, some Food Network restaurants and hopefully we’ll see an alligator. From a distance. A big distance.

The point is all kinds of little, tiny, wonderful, just-us-and-our-favorite-things, exploring our world together, moments.

Hopefully.

I’ve been doing this parenting thing long enough to know that sounds super-cheesy and unrealistic. Articles like this one and this one give me hope though–they get it too! We won’t be completely screen-free. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little movie break as “personal space” now and then along the way. But this trip is very family-time-focused for us.

We’ve put a lot of thought into how to make this as relaxed as possible. We’ve included everyone in the planning to get buy-in from the whole crew. Each of the munchkins got a couple things on the Wish List and we did just enough planning to make sure we hit at least one for each. And we’ll see how many others we can sneak in–even if it’s just a drive-by!

Also–thrifty! I’d say cheap, but that sounds so not-fun! But we have a modest budget and plan to stay in it.

So I’ll be sharing several posts about all the great ideas we’re going to be testing out on our trip–and when I get back I’ll tell you how they worked out!

Do you have any favorite road trip memories–or tips!–to share? 

Check out other road trip posts…

Road Trip Activity Cases for Kids

DIY Travel Stickers

Road Trip Journal