We recently took an 11-day road trip for our honeymoon. We saw seven national parks, plus great places like Antelope Canyon, Sedona and Las Vegas. There’s no way we could have fit all the amazing things we saw into 11 days if we had driven straight from where we live.
We love to road trip, and ideally we could have driven from Orlando out West, but we’d have spent a lot of time driving instead of exploring incredible sights in the Southwest. So, we decided to embark on a new type of road trip: The Fly & Drive.
How To Plan a Fly & Drive Road Trip
Fly & Drive road trips are ideal for when you want to road trip in an area that’s far from where you live. If it’s going to take you more than two days to drive to the area you want to explore and you have a limited amount of vacation time, you may want to consider this option.
It probably would have taken us four days to drive from Orlando to the Grand Canyon. So, we first looked up flights to cities near our intended road trip route. We found a better deal to fly to Vegas than to Phoenix, so that became our starting point.
Next, you’ll want to rent a reliable road trip car. Make sure your rental offers unlimited mileage, is fuel-efficient and fits into your budget. Some rentals will also limit how much time you can spend in certain states. Our rental offered unlimited mileage in Nevada, Arizona, Utah and California. We were spending two days/nights in Colorado, so we had to calculate our route and make sure it didn’t exceed the allotted miles per day in Colorado. You should also make sure that you properly insure your rental car.
Since there are limitations on how much you can pack and what you can bring on an airplane, our first stop on our trip was actually a store. We purchased a road atlas, a cheap Styrofoam cooler, healthy snacks and our favorite beverages, including an entire case of water. Since it was winter, we also purchased a blanket in case we ran into bad weather.
The Fly & Drive road trip turned out to be an ideal trip for us. We were able to see everything on our itinerary and ultimately had an unforgettable trip. Plus, it was fun to travel in a different car than usual!
Have you ever done a Fly & Drive road trip? Tell us about it on Facebook and Twitter @DriveTheNation.
