Epic Road Trip to the Southwest (on a budget!)

Show of hands – who wants to jump in a car and ride 4,000+ miles? (me…jumping up and down…waiving my arms)

I love a good road trip! It’s been a passion of mine since I was young. My father farmed and didn’t care for being away from home. Also, annual vacations weren’t really a thing back in the 70’s and 80’s in the rural area I was from. I was fortunate to visit California twice as a kid (once by Amtrak train and once by car) and the pacific northwest as a teen. Those vacations lit a fire in me that still burns today.

Travel in general gets me super excited but I’m a nervous flyer. Flying is convenient (until you get stuck in an airport for 12 hours). It works well when kids are really young or when you don’t have much time off work. But it’s also expensive, especially if you need to rent a car on the other end. And what about all those interesting stops along the way that you miss when you fly?

Road Trippin’

I’ve road-tripped over much of the United States as an adult. It started with a belated honeymoon in 1985, when at the ages of 20 and 19, my first husband and I set out in our 1977 Plymouth Arrow hatchback with its nonfunctioning speedometer and gas gauge and headed for Florida to see his sister and to visit Disneyworld for the first time. Many more excursions around the country would take place during our almost two decades of marriage.

Sadly, that marriage ended but my love of road trips didn’t. God blessed me with a wonderful Christian husband in 2007 who is also a willing sport when it comes to my love of travel. He and our son are a bit behind me on their state counts because of my tours before they were in the picture but we’re working on getting them caught up.

They were able to check several states off their lists (and I checked off a few new national parks) back in March when we used their spring break week to drive to Tucson, Arizona. I may share more of our adventures as I have time, but I’m especially pleased with all we were able to experience during this particular vacation.

I’m not currently employed like I was in years past. This is both good and bad. The good – it affords me flexibility I never had when I was working. It was difficult to line up my availability with my husband’s time off. He’s a teacher so his days are set in stone by the district. It’s been so wonderful to have the time to make memories with them! And the bad – there’s a whole lot less money to work with in the travel budget now!

To Tucson We Shall Go

Our crazy spring-break-road-trip idea actually came about the previous fall when my stepson took a job in Tucson and relocated there from Iowa. He sent photos of his visit to Saguaro National Park shortly after his move. So beautiful! The hubby mentioned that I love the Southwest and he suggested we visit over spring break. When we saw all the places we could visit on the route down and back we agreed to try and make it happen…and the number crunching and planning began!

Things almost hit a snag when he called a month before our scheduled departure to tell us he had accepted a travel nurse position and would be temporarily relocating to New Jersey until May. But, he said, the apartment was still available in Tucson if we were interested. My in-laws traveled down and “wintered” in Arizona at the apartment for the remainder of February and all of March to keep an eye on things and feed the hummingbirds. A “reunion” with them in Tucson sounded like fun even though we see them every couple weekends here in Iowa. The trip was still on!

We loaded up the car, boarded the dogs, and hit the road as soon as my husband was home from work on Friday, March 9th and pulled back into our garage the evening of Saturday, March 17th. Between those two dates our car’s odometer logged 4,144 new miles. In addition to the quick reunion with the in-laws, we spent time at the following places:

• Cadillac Ranch – Amarillo, Texas (you can graffiti cars – legally!)
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park – New Mexico
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park – Texas
• White Sands National Park – New Mexico
• Saguaro National Park (both West and East Sections) – Arizona
• Mt. Lemmon – Tucson, Arizona
• Grand Canyon National Park – Arizona
• Petrified Forest National Park – Arizona
• Garden of the Gods State Park – Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Scout’s Ranch (home of “Buffalo Bill” Cody) – North Platte, Nebraska

Vacations Aren’t Free

The vacation I’ve described here would have been financially out of reach had we paid full price for our hotels. Thankfully, we didn’t have to. I’ve diligently worked to acquire credit card travel points and there were enough saved up to afford us decent hotels (well, most were decent…not so much the Super 8 in Wichita). Other than that one, we did okay with the likes of a La Quinta, a Holiday Inn Express, a Hampton and a couple Tru by Hilton. Six nights in hotels and our points covered all but $70!

Total cost for the trip (not including the Shutterfly album I just now completed) came to $2,142. Here’s how it breaks down:

Gas prices took a big jump a few weeks before we left. We were paying close to $5 per gallon in Arizona. There was the benefit of our nights in Tucson being free since we were staying at my stepson’s apartment. But if you don’t have pets or you have a friend or family member who is willing to watch Fido for you on the cheap, you could easily do this road trip for $2,000 by using travel points for your hotel stays.

Remember, this is a budget vacation! It’s about seeing sights and making memories, not treating yourself like royalty. Those meals above – they weren’t consumed at any trendy local restaurants or even Texas Roadhouse or P.F. Chang’s. Other than some super-tasty grub from Bear Canyon Pizza in Tucson we made due with the likes of Taco Bell, Church’s Chicken, McDonalds, and Del Taco. We were excited to stumble upon an In-N-Out Burger just off the interstate in Colorado Springs. Some snack and lunch items came from supermarkets and Targets along the way. And finally, we did buy a large variety box of bagged chips and another containing an assortment of individual bags of popcorn at Costco before we left so that we didn’t pay the exorbitant prices at convenience stores. I’d much rather pay $.40 for a tiny bag of chips than $1.50 or more.

Was Frugal Worth It?

Did we “miss out” by being frugal? I certainly don’t feel like we did. The hubby and I treated ourselves each morning to Starbucks (or in some cases a local coffee shop if Starbucks wasn’t available). An $80 national park annual pass afforded us the opportunity to experience God’s amazing creations in six national parks! Our hotels, while not posh or upscale, were adequate for our needs and I never felt that we were in a sketchy area (again, other than Wichita – note to self for if we every head out that way in the future). And we returned with hundreds of beautiful photos along with the memories of actually witnessing these places with our own little eyes.

The only person who may have missed out is our preteen son. He was so engrossed in his video games and movies that he barely took notice of the scenery while we were driving. He doesn’t share my love of nature. Taking electronics away makes him grumpy which causes him to pester us – no fun when we’re all stuck together in a small space for hours at a time. It was easier to let him have his fun during the car ride. He was good about engaging with us when we were out hiking the parks…as long as our hikes weren’t too long. We did leave him at the apartment in Tucson with his grandparents the day we hiked the Kings Canyon loop at Saguaro. He enjoyed swimming in an outdoor pool in March (something you don’t do in Iowa) while the hubby and I shared a rare “date day”!

And about those hikes – I learned the hard way when we were touring Iowa state parks that I had zero pair of decent hiking shoes! I’m not sure-footed on a good day and after slipping in my house and breaking my shoulder a year ago, I wanted the grippiest footwear I could find in my price range before I started climbing around on rocks in the Arizona desert. Much research led me to these Merrill Women’s Moab 2 Vent Hiking Shoes (on my feet in above photo) which I was quite pleased with! I paired them with Darn Tough Light Hiker wool hiking socks. The lightweight wool socks provided padding and yet kept my feet cool and non-sweaty in my hikers in the mid-80’s Arizona heat.

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I’m already getting antsy pondering the possibility of another road trip in the future. We should have enough credit card points and cash back to pay for 3-4 hotel nights by next summer. I’m uncertain with rising prices that we’ll be able to do anything as involved as our Tucson vacation though. Maybe we’ll save up points and hang out close to home for a year. Iowa has over 60 state parks and we bought a tent the summer before I broke my shoulder that we’ve not taken out since. We’ll have to see how things play out.

I am reminded of these verse as I close. I will do well to remember as I make my plans that ultimately they’re all in God’s hands.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For your are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:14-15