Last June, we did the road trip of our lives. We were moving across country and found the cheapest way to do it was ourselves. So we bought a trailer and packed up our belongings and made a road trip out of it. We were crazy. We were wild. And we sure had fun! We left Los Angeles with our 1 1/2 year-old daughter and 3 year-old son in our F-150 truck and headed towards Tampa, our future home that was over 2,600 miles away.
First stop was Williams, AZ— which reminded me of Radiator Springs in the movie Cars. My parents treated us to a Wild West Train to the Grand Canyon, which was their memorable way of saying good bye to us. We walked the rim and stood in awe of the beauty. This was my fourth time to the Canyon, and the amazement and awe never dulls. If anything, having kids running around the Grand Canyon’s rim just gets my heart rate up.
From there we went to Albuquerque, NM and took a small detour to Tinkertown Museum (which is bizarre, fun and inspiring.) They have a saying “we did all this while you were watching TV,” which is pretty cool in our book (we don’t watch TV either).
After we got our crazy fix, we took off for Oklahoma City and scored on a hotel through Priceline. The view was awesome and the kids enjoyed peering out the window more than watching the hotel room TV. In Oklahoma City, we went to the Cowboy Museum and let the kids play dress up and Ryan looked at some famous paintings from Nicolai Fechin.
We stayed the next night in Little Rock and skipped the town. We were too eager for our next destination: Nashville! We stayed 2 nights in Nashville and went to the Grand Ole Opry House, took a tour of country celebrity homes and ate at restaurants that served alligator and catfish.
Then we headed south to Atlanta to visit some friends, where we rested up, ate like kings and laughed a lot. We even went to Yellow River Game Ranch where the kids got to feed and pet roaming deer and bunnies.
After 10 days on the road, we pulled into our new home in Florida, unpacked the truck and wished we could do it all over again.
Have you done a road trip with kids?
Share some of your favorite trips or memories while out on the road. Interested in being featured on Family Sponge? Feel free to email us your trip pics and stories— we would love to share other family-friendly trips.
This summer we’re taking a train ride to kansas and oklahoma
We can’t wait and I know Jake will Love it!
This trip looks awesome! I remember when I was 11, we moved from California to Miami, Florida. We road tripped our way to Florida and I have a lot of great memories from that trip. That Grand Canyon train is now on my to-do list.