Food along the way

[mavpalyana]

We will be taking two road trips with small kids this spring/summer. One from Minneapolis to West Yellowstone, and the other one from Minneapolis to Fort Walton Beach, FL (moving).
Does anyone know of a way to find out what places to eat are along the way? Is there a website that can show you where food chain restaurants are if you put it your start and end location??
We just get sooo tired of fast food all the time (although I am not sure the our kids get sick of chicken nuggets and fries:))

[Mark Sedenquist]

Does anyone know of a way to find out what places to eat are along the way?

Grocery stores offer some of the best travel food out there. Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum!

Is there a website that can show you where food chain restaurants are if you put it your start and end location??

I have never heard of such a site, but Travmatix probably comes the closest for Interstate highway travel. Here are some ideas about road trip food that you can prepare and an article about road trip snacks.

Mark

[Midwest Michael]

There is so much food beyond fast food and chain restaurants, I always think it is such a shame to spend time on a roadtrip eating from the same restaurants you can find in your hometown.

There are some exceptions, for example, If I'm out west, a stop at In and Out Burger is a must stop, as is a quick visit to Sonic if I see one along the way. But those are because those particular restaurants aren't places I can stop at on an average day. Of course there will be the occational time where there is a McDonalds or Subway right by the gas station and I'm in a hurry, but I try to keep those stops to a minimum.

More often I find the road is a great way to discover new restaurants, and hopefully find some good local food. Certainly asking locals where they eat is a good bet, but generally I find almost any non-chain restaurant is worth taking a chance on. Even in the worst cases, they'll generally have the same pre-processed foods that chains will have.