There are a lot of places along Route 66 that claim a special connection to the Mother Road, but Springfield has one of the strongest: it’s widely known as the birthplace of Route 66. In 1926, a telegram sent from the Colonial Hotel in downtown Springfield confirmed the highway’s now-famous…
Our Route 66 trip officially began from our home base in the Chicago suburbs, but we intentionally skipped Illinois (for now). After exploring much of Illinois Route 66 over the years, we’re planning a separate summer road trip (without the RV) to properly revisit and document those stops. We also…
During our three months at home base for winter, we squeezed in a few smaller trips without the RV. In January, we flew out to visit my dad in Oregon and spent a weekend at a conference in southern Illinois. Then in February, we headed out for a long weekend…
Charleston, South Carolina is one of those cities that completely pulls you in, where centuries of history meet coastal charm, Spanish moss hangs over quiet streets, and every corner seems to tell a different story. From Revolutionary War sites and Civil War landmarks to quirky museums, historic cemeteries, nature preserves,…
After a full month soaking up New Mexico sunshine, it was time to start the slow roll back north toward our home base for Christmas, and that meant a string of one-week stops along the way. One of our favorites was a cozy week in Edmond, Oklahoma, just outside Oklahoma…
After spending all of October 2025 in New Mexico, we spent a short week in Amarillo, Texas as we worked our way back towards home base for winter. We didn’t do a ton here, especially because we knew we’d back in Spring 2026 since we planned on doing a Route…
Our third and final week in South Dakota brought us to Hot Springs, a small town that ended up being the perfect finale to our three-week stay in the state. After spending a week in the Badlands and another in Rapid City, we loved keeping up our rhythm of moving…
If you’re planning a South Dakota road trip, Rapid City is the perfect home base to explore some of the state’s most famous attractions. We spent one week in Rapid City as part of our three weeks in South Dakota, starting with Badlands National Park, then here in Rapid City,…
We spent a full week soaking up everything Badlands National Park and the surrounding area has to offer, and wow, what a trip it was. From hiking through otherworldly rock formations to stargazing at the annual Badlands Astronomy Festival, our days were packed with adventure. We mixed in a little…
We spent two weeks based in Fayetteville, West Virginia, one of the “coolest small towns in America,” and packed in just about every kind of adventure the area has to offer. This wasn’t our first time here- we originally visited New River Gorge back in 2018 with a group of…