New York to Tennesse and back, help please.

First Time road tripper. Leaving from Catskills area, have 6 days to trip it up. Looking to drive north, or west, or both. Maybe to Canada, looking for some cool spots to check out along the way. Any recommendations?
Thanks in advance.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

The limitation (5 days round trip from the Catskills, heading north-ish and/or west-ish) really isn't much of a limitation at all. With that general target, your RoadTrip could include everything from nearly deserted areas of central Québec to the hustle and bustle of Chicago, and pretty much everything in between. So before anyone can help you, you're going to have to come up with a far more meaningful definition of what you want besides "cool". What are your ambitions for this trip? Which targets within the vast area open to you pique your interest at first blush? Where do you want to go? We can't plan a trip for you knowing nothing more than what you've told us. You need to get involved and make the first choices.

AZBuck

My brother and I will be driving to Tennesse (from New York) next week to see the Jack Daniels plant. Along the way we are thinking about stopping in West Virgina and Kentucky. When heading back north we plan on stopping in North Carolina, Virgina and Maryland.

I have found a few places to stop along the way, but was wondering if anyone can make any recommendations. We are looking for interesting/neat bars, resturants, festivals or movie drive ins. We also would like to stop some where where we can rent ATVs, and spend a day or two driving around in the woods on them.

I dont know if we will have enough time to do all this, but we hope to also stay at a lake cabin perhapes. The type of place where we can rent a boat and do some fishing.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

You've still left us with a lot of unanswered questions.

Are you still looking at a 6 day trip? You say you're planning to stop at Jack Daniels and 'a few other places' but it would be very helpful to know what those other places are. With several hundred miles of road in each direction, there a ton of possibilities and narrowing it down will always be the tough part.

The more details you can tell us, the easier it will be for someone to give you some helpful feedback

Leaving Saturday Morning, returning the following Saturday. Driving to Kentucky on saturday, and then renting ATV's (White Sulphur Trail..Daniel Boone National Park) Possibly camping there that night or looking for somthing else to do there. Monday driving to Jack Daniels in Tennesse (spend the night there, spend a second night in Nashville). Then Wednesday driving up through Virginia, West Virgina, Maryland (still looking for things to do there) Would enjoy spending a day/night at a lake cabin where we can rent a boat and do some fishing.

Its still a work in progress, just trying to get some ideas.

Thanks

Before you even get started, your first day is very problematic.

Depending upon your exact starting and ending point, you're looking at a trip that's between 800 and 900 miles. That's far too much to be doing in one day, even at a sprint, and you certainly wouldn't have time to set up camp or do anything else that day. And the idea of doing ATVing that day wouldn't be possible, unless you can rent one around midnight!

You're looking at 15 hours on the road - factoring in only the bare minimum of stops. Even if you do it safely, you're going to be exhausted even into the next day making it very difficult to have fun on an ATV trail.

I'd strongly suggest you scale that first day back rather significantly - we recommend limiting yourself to 500-600 miles maximum for a full day on the road. The other days don't seem like they'd be that bad, and your return trip should be fine, but that first day is a real problem.

Hello toptree,

While I do some off-roading, I'm not an ATV-er so I'm not on top of such matters. But, I do know there are a number of ATV parks in middle- and east-Tennessee and nearby Kentucky. There is one near Oak Ridge, TN which involves several thousand acres of old strip mining areas. There's a smaller one near Mountain City, TN which is probably "only" a few hundred acres. A very large ATV/off-road area is near Harlan, KY. The challenge may be to find where ATVs can be rented. Some searching for the developed parks is the logical starting point, however.

Tennessee is full of reservoirs thanks to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). I am comfortable in guessing pontoon boats can be rented on just about any of them. One in particular--Dale Hollow Lake, in the Cumberland Plateau hills north of Nashville, is particularly known for smallmouth bass and supports a large destination-travel business.

Don't overlook an easy but fun mountain bike ride at the Virginia Creeper Trail, centered at Damascus, VA, just 15 miles east of I-81 near Bristol, VA. The VCT includes a 17 mile all-downhill segment, which on weekdays when the crowds are not present can be treated much like a dirt-bike motocross ride. It's within a few miles of the ATV park near Mountain City, TN, too (Callantee?).

You're also going fairly close to some world-class whitewater rafting along the New, the Gauley, and the "Yock" in WV. That'll get your blood pumping.

Those are a few things to keep in mind as you sort out what to look more specifically at.

Foy