Virginia to Graceland for '08 Spring Break

[momof2]

Hi All - I'm thinking of a short road trip (800 miles) because I can't imagine my crazy 2 yr old on a plane just yet. Want to take the little one and my 7 year old to Memphis but figure we'll need to stop somewhere about halfway. What's a reasonably interesting place to stop for a day with two kids before gearing back up for Memphis? We won't be doing this until April of 2008. Thanks for any and all help - this is my first foray into non-flight travel!

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

...either Tennessee or Virginia. It depends on where in Virginia you call home. Please let us know so we can be of help.

AZBuck

[momof2]

Thanks AZBuck - I'm in Richmond, VA. Mapquest tells me to take some relatively quiet highways down the southwestern tip of VA to get to Memphis so I'm clueless about what might be along the way!

[AZBuck]

I'm actually very surprised that MapQuest is recommending "some relatively quiet highways", unless you consider I-81 to be relatively quiet (compared to I-95). Your basic route is I-64/I-81/I-40 and halfway is in the Knoxville, Gatlinburg, Great Smoky Mountain area. It is, of course, very easy to find enough to do in that region to amuse your children for a day.

Since you have to cover a little over 400 miles on each driving day, you won't have a lot of time for sight seeing along the way. Still you will have time to take 2 or 3 half hour to hour breaks to let the kids out of the car for some exercise and to let off steam. It is usually not hard to find such places - state parks are particularly good for this purpose. Try to find someplace to stop about every couple of hours. In your case, some possibilities would be the southern end of Shenandoah National Park and Claytor Lake State Park on Day 1 and Evins State Park and Montgomery Bell State Park on Day 2. But other choices abound and only you know what will be most interesting to your children, but then you do have some time to think about it and do a little further investigation.


AZBuck