first road trip! need help!

[lynne2007]

A friend and I are going from Dallas to Albuquerque at the beginning of December...I know that it is not that long of a trip, but we are going to try to make it a fun one and take a few days to enjoy it. I've never been on a real road trip before. Car travel in the past has been limited to the "get there as quickly as possible" variety. If anyone could help me out with planning this road trip, that would be great. I could use some ideas for the best routes, fun places to stop, sites to see, places to eat, places to stay, etc. Thank you! -Lynne

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forum!

With a few days to cover about 700 miles, you can indeed take the time to stop at some fun places along the way. I travelled much of that area this summer. Some of the places I enjoyed were Caprock Canyons State Park and the grave(s) of Billy the Kid. I had planned to get to the Salinas Pueblos but, unfortunately got sidetracked. Another worthwhile stop just outside of Albuquerque is Petroglyph National Monument.

There is much more available in this region. What will appeal to you, of course, depends on your own preferences. How I like to start planning for a road trip is to simply do a search on the combination of the state name and the word, tourism. Follow the links where they lead until you have a collection of places that you'd like to see. The best routes, then, are just the roads that connect those places. As for places to eat, my taste runs to small town diners and mom-and-pop restaurants. I usually find these by going into the center of small to medium sized towns and just looking for something that appeals to me and that the locals seem to be frequenting.

Much of the joy of road tripping is the planning in combination with the unexpected that still manages to occur. If this is the first time you're going to be travelling with this mind set, you are in for a treat.

AZBuck