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I've never been on a road trip before, and I found myself with an open week. I've been looking around the site to get ideas, but I'm in New England (right outside Boston) and it seems that most of the good stuff is down south and out west. Seeing as I only have a week I'm thinking I should stick to the north east/mid-atlantic region. Any suggestions for places to go?
Welcome to the RTA Forum!
The Southwest does have some pretty awesome areas, but there is plenty to enjoy in the Northeast too.
Personally, I've been itching to get up along the maine coast and continue up into the Canadian maritimes. There are lots of really good options.
Here is a field report from a 4 day trip through New England.
Here is another report from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
Here is one more thread with plenty of ideas and even more links of things to do in your part of the country.
When are you going -- in the next couple months, or after the snow starts to thaw? If later in the year, do you like camping (so each night you want to be near a campground of some sort), do you want to spend each night in a hotel, or each night in your car?
What do you like doing -- find something you're interested in, then pick a destination based on that: if you like whiskey head towards Kentucky, if you like the beach then head towards Florida.
Do you have a passport? -- consider Canadian destinations, or at least a path through Canada.
Have you taken road trips before, or will this be the longest you've driven? If you haven't taken long trips before, consider driving south for a day then driving in a semi-circle around Boston, always only a day away, so at any point you can rest for a day then head home if you get tired of driving. Draw your semi-circle on a map (go get one of those ~$6 Rand McNally road atlases) and pick destinations near your circle.
Do you have any goals other than "spend a week"? Like, hit as many states as possible, see as many national and state parks as possible, cover the maximum number of miles, or only drive a few hours a day and spend a lot of time in hotels?
For my last road trip I picked a nominal destination about a day and a half away (Mt Rushmore, from WA) but took the long way there and the long way back and stretched it out to 5 very full days and visited a half-dozen other "destinations" along the way. If you can, find something relatively close and use it as the center of a very big loop -- and follow the maxim, "never drive on the same stretch of road twice."
It really depends how confident you are driving distances (and how much you want to!) but I'd be considering something along the lines of heading up to Acadia National Park then maybe up into Canada. Maybe across to Toronto to see the CN Tower and then Niagara Falls then back into the US and back towards home from there.
Thanks for the advice, guys! To answer a few questions... I'm planning on leaving in the next couple of days. I don't have my passport, so I can't go to Canada. I'm comfortable driving, and I'll have at least one friend with me, if not two, so we'll be able to switch off. We're 18 and we don't have a lot of money, so it would be hard for us to find lodging; we'll probably sleep in the car.
If I was 18, lived in MA, and had a week to spend in the winter; I'd take a road trip south. Myrtle Beach, SC has reasonable motel rates in the off season, and it would be spring-type weather compared to Boston - hi temp in the upper 60'Fs & lo in the 40-50'Fs. Or keep driving south to Florida - Daytona Beach 50s-75'F.