HIT THE ROAD

Picture this — you’re crammed up in the backseat of your family’s 2001 navy-blue Chevy Express van, swallowed up by a mountain of suitcases, coolers, snack wrappers and restless siblings. Your left leg starts to tingle as you stare out the window at the barren landscape that you’d expect from driving in the middle of nowhere. You’re nearly 14 hours into driving for the day, but your spirits are kept alive by the perfect song blasting through the speakers while the whole family sings along.

Welcome to my childhood. I proudly come from a dedicated road trip family, embarking on unforgettable adventures that have taken me to countless states across the country. Coming from a family of six, flying all of us to our destination spot wasn’t always the most realistic, so we took our traveling endeavors to the interstate. Some of my earliest memories come from my family’s first major road trip in the summer of 2005. We drove from my hometown of Portland all the way to Lengby, Minnesota, to visit relatives — nearly 1,600 miles away. Even though I was only three years old, I still recall vivid moments from the cross-country journey — stopping at Mount Rushmore, throwing a football in the seemingly endless grass fields, blowing bubbles for the first time at the lunch picnic tables, and being too scared to jump off the long plank in the middle of the lake, which seemed like jumping off a skyscraper at the time.

From then on, it was our annual summer tradition to pack up the car and take our highly-anticipated road trip to wherever we decided to venture next. Our travels on the road have taken us to Texas, California, Utah, Arizona, Michigan, and literally every state in between. We became so invested in our adventures that we even considered driving to Boston and back for a New England trip — but in reality that turned out to be my very first flying trip.

I couldn’t imagine growing up without these unforgettable adventures. Nothing compares to the feeling of starting a long journey on the road where anything is possible. As we begin to conjure up our vacation plans for the summer, here are the best reasons why you should embark on a road trip.

Quality time with family and friends

As you can imagine, much of the experience on a road trip is in the car, smashed between all your belongings, but to me that’s the appeal. It’s easy to think about the quick, simple luxury of flying on a plane, but the haphazard and cluttered chaos of the drive gives the trip a greater sense of adventure and anticipation. Depending on the length of the trip, it’s likely you’ll spend hours in the car with your fellow explorers, and some of the best memories are from the laughs and deep conversations you make along the way. If you’re with people that you’re still getting to know, you’ll have all the time in the world to learn more about them during your trip. These long drives also always include driving games and activities with the group, which is also a fun way to make the hours feel shorter with your friends. The time you spend inside the car is just as important as the places you go outside of it.

Road stops along the way

The number one reason why I always prefer a road trip over flying is the ability to make any stops or detours at any point along the way, expected or impromptu. On the way back from my family’s road trip to Detroit, we made a point to visit the baseball field movie-site from the 1989 film “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Idaho. While we had plenty of planned stops across the 13 states we drove through, many of the most memorable stops were the ones we never expected. On the second day of driving, we came across the cutest little town — Wallace, Idaho — which we ended up walking through for nearly two hours checking out the coffee shops and old-fashioned book stores. Road trips allow a sense of constant discovery, exploring new places you would have never known existed otherwise.

It’s relatively cheap

The beauty of a road trip is the complete freedom to budget however you want. While organizing the trip, there is typically a thorough process of planning beforehand, such as where you’ll stop for the night and where you’ll eat, which enables you to pre-plan your expenses and budget more consciously. With the ability to make changes to the plan at any time, you essentially have complete control of how much money you spend, and that can make the trip much cheaper.

Driving music

Before every trip we took, my dad burned a road trip CD — yes, very oldfashioned — with his own selected songs for the drive, which we played on repeat during our time on the road. Each CD became the official soundtrack for the respective trip, and hearing any one of those songs today still gives me immediate nostalgia of the places we went. Putting together a designated playlist for the adventure not only makes the drive more enjoyable, but it solidifies the memories in your mind for years to come, especially when the songs come back around later on.

The essence of the great American road trip comes down to the overused yet highly relevant saying — it’s all about the journey, not the destination. It’s an experience where the rules are thrown out the window, you’re free to roam and the world is truly yours. Roads and highways are the veins of the American landscape. They exist to be explored and rediscovered, and you never know where they might lead. So grab your most daring friends. Load up the car. Get lost. Leave your worries behind like the billowing dust of a dirt road as you drive off into the horizon, and get ready to make memories that will last a lifetime.