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What’s the Best Stop You’ve Ever Made on a Road Trip?
Be it for business or pleasure, we often find ourselves seeking a destination far away from home. The road trip happens for many reasons, some are more fun than others. But any excursion can be made enjoyable in its own right, and stops (of the planned or unexpected variety) are essential to the experience.
We should all be so lucky to have a Buc-ee’s travel center en route to our destination, but that’s just the bias of an automotive journalist who was born and raised in Texas. As gas stations/conveninece stores go, I openly admit to also liking both Sheetz and Wawa on road trips (don’t roast me in the comments one way or the other, East Coast readers) but sometimes the best stops are further away from the interstate. Here’s my contribution to this question for you loyal Hagerty Media readers.
Will Rogers’ Birthplace, Oologah, Oklahoma
Many years ago, I was a corporate suit. And as a loyal business drove, I rented cars across this great nation. Thanks to the handy Google Maps app on my trusty iPhone 4, I learned that the birthplace of Oklahoma’s Favorite Son was a worthwhile stop on my road trip from Tulsa to Kansas City. The historical building did not disappoint, and the experience even made me enjoy my rental car (a Ford Fusion Hybrid) even more. This diversion was beautiful and enlightening; it did a fantastic job keeping my mind off the fact I’d been on the road for 10 days and I was getting a bit homesick.
The road trip was so enjoyable that I was inspired to write an early Vellum Venom column about a rental car that kinda looked like an Aston Martin from the front. That was back in 2013, but the fact that I still vividly remember it proves the juice was worth the squeeze. Side excursions on road trips are worth the effort, provided you have the time for them. And if not, maybe you should make the time.
Now the question comes back you, dear Hagerty Media reader:
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My favorite was while we were cruising WV, we found Point Pleasant and the Mothman. Totally unexpected but huge fun. On another trip we found the home of the Harikrishna’s in WV. Big place with giant elephant statues. Really amazing is they slept in the barn above the farm animals. Smelly dreams me thinks.
On a road trip with two grandkids some years back, we stopped at Buffalo Bill’s Pizza and Grill in Wisconsin Dells, WI. It was a great place for the kids. Our drinks and meals were delivered to the booth on electric train flatbed cars. There was a stuffed bison for the little ones to sit on. In an adjoining room was an entirely indoor roller coaster. All sorts of games, displays, historical artifacts, and fun stuff to get all of our minds off the boredom of many miles couped up in the vehicle.
My wife read this and pointed out that I mis-remembered the name of the place – it’s called Buffalo Phil’s, not Bill’s! Sorry about that, 99.
A spur of the moment stop at Gettysburg battlefield. We were on a tent camping vaca back in the days before internet and cell phones. Every days drive included perusing the Woodalls camping guide (The only amenity required was hot showers) for where to stop for the night. After cruising up the east coast from our home in Florida where the rule was that the roads traveled had to be the ones closest to the Atlantic ocean, having made up into Canada, were headed home a more inland route. We arrived at battlefield late in the afternoon and were lucky enough to tag along with a docent guided walking tour. The timing (golden hour) combined with the guides ability to paint such a vivid picture made it special. I still get chills.
After we visited the Noah’s Ark Encounter in Kentucky about 5 years ago the road trip continued to get better (Great trip even before the Encounter). We stumbled upon Buc-ees’on I-65 South and was thoroughly amazed starting with the number of gas pumps. As we continued south and passing the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, I turned into the driveway over my wife’s objections, I said we will just go in for an hour. Surprised that we received a guided tour and that I couldn’t get my wife to leave. Fabulous Museum, the sinkhole cars were all on display (restored and unrestored). We enjoyed the museum immensely and months later when I brought home a C7 convertible on a test drive she only had four words to say ——— BUY THIS CAR TONIGHT!!!
Visiting the NCM turned out to be one of the greatest road trips I’ve experienced since that alone convinced my wife we should add a C7 convertible to the stable.
We even Caravaned back to the NCM last August for the 30th Anniversary with almost 300 other Corvettes in my group.
2 tourist traps. Yeah stopped at Uranus on way to Branson. Yet another tourist trap I’ll never go back to. Most memorable is driving my daughter to California when she moved there. Stopped in Winslow without mentioning its significance. Another tourist trap. Took some pics by Easy and spent 20 minutes there. On the way out of Winslow things clicked in her head. She lit up and said that’s what uncle Steve used to listen to. Then she cranked Take it easy on the car stereo. To this day we hear that song and it brings back memories of that road trip. Good times
So, your “best stops” were both “tourist traps”, at least one of which you’ll never return to? Thanks for those ringing endorsements!
We stopped at the Ritzville Washington Depot Museum once once our way home from the Idaho Panhandle. We got personal tour of a fully restored railway telegraph office and a couple of photos from the 1950s.
One of our favorite pitstops was a random forest road of Highway 26 near Mitchell Oregon where we had an impromptu picnic.
Random and eccentric or quiet and in the woods are best.
Little BigHorn Monument. Driving to Livingston, MT from SD with my friend Jax from Nairn, Scotland. She spied it off the side of the Interstate so we pulled in. I was kind of shocked that it was kind just a roadside attraction. It was a holiday so admission was free. It later in the afternoon and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. I was able to get a couple of pics that were just staggeringly beautiful. One was of the iron sculpture at the Indigenous Memorial looking over the plains at golden hour. A very real piece of American history. Number two is Culloden Moor outside of Inverness, Scotland. Being of Scot’s descent, it was humbling and melancholy. That battle changed Great Brtiain forever…
Roberts Grill in El Reno, Oklahoma, as part of a bucket-list trip last fall of Route 66 from Chicago to California in my 2007 stick-shift Corvette convertible. I had my first authentic Oklahoma onion-fried burger there. El Reno is supposed to be the town where onion-fired burgers were created in the Great Depression as a means to stretch out limited amounts of ground beef. There are two other places in town that also make them and I am sure they also are mighty good. But I chose Robert’s Grill, which dates back to 1926 … it’s basically a lunch counter in non-descript building. There were a lot of great stops on the Route 66 trip but for some reason I keep thinking back to Roberts Grill … I apparently have a soft spot for great burgers in mom-and-pop greasy spoons!
On return trip from OKC to upstate NY, had seen sign for Daryl Starbird museum just southeast of Tulsa. It was a Tuesday and website said they were closed. Took a chance and called, a woman answered and we explained we were on way back home so this was only day we could visit. She told us that the detail guy was there so she would be there for awhile so come on in. We arrived,met the pleasant woman, paid or admission and had the entire museum to ourselves for almost 3 hours. On exit, we stopped and talked to the woman who turned out to be Daryls wife. He was off on a road trip but she told us about his endeavors and builds. Great experience and fantastic cars. Unfortunately, museum closed and most cars went to national hot rod museum. Wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
I was on vacation with my parents in Oklahoma. We were at a service station in Oklahoma and my dad asked the proprietor if there were any sights to see in the area. He suggested Woolaroc Museum that was nearby. Best way to describe it was a kind of minature Smithsonian with a little bit of everything. And there was a wildlife preserve to boot. Everything a young boy could be entertained by and more! Anyway, I’ve never forgotten that place. We ended up spending most of the day there.
While not exactly what you’re looking for I think still qualifies. – I was hitchhiking back from Frisco to NY ( long story ) when I found myself in the middle of nowhere outside of Salt Lake City. It was literally, yes literally, so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. But the Milky Way overhead was indescribable. Coyotes really did started howling which made me laugh thinking – ‘So, this is all it all ends. I kept going for no real reason until a Best Western Plus ‘Landmark’ Inn off in the distant nothingness. Salvation may lay ahead or a mirage. I wandered to the front desk like a wasted salt incrusted dirty hippy and asked how much for a single. – ” I’m sorry but are singles are..” It wasn’t cheap but far from expensive by northeast standards.- The guy at the desk became more than helpful after he ran my Am Ex. Room Service.
If you were hitchhiking on a road, then it counts as a ‘road trip’ for sure! I’m sure that many of us would say that seeing a lit motel sign in the pitch darkness after a long day has been/would be a very welcome stop indeed.
Driving from Jackson, Wyoming to Glacier National Park, I fueled my truck in Makay, Idaho. Asking what there was to do in town, I was informed that the 4-H rodeo was in town. I played my banjo all night for the kids and parents at the communal bon-fire. One of the best times ever.
81N in PA, right where 81 connects with 84 (I can’t remember the exit number; somewhere in the high 200’s), there was a gas station that my ex and I stopped at, on our way up to MA to visit family. In the shop (and this was a tiny family-owned type of place) they had some deviled eggs. The guy said that his wife makes them. We bought some. Let me tell you, I can now die a happy man. They were so incredibly good. Best stop, ever!
Best road trip was camping in a rental Pinto wagon in Maui, to the Waimea Canyon. When we couldn’t see enough from the road, we walked along the ridge taking pictures. We were so captured by the fantastic scenery, the next day we booked a helicopter ride to see more, which was inaccessible by car or on foot. There were gigantic waterfalls in every direction you looked. Most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. A couple days later were burning up film on the big island, filming lava hitting the ocean in complete darkness. What a sight. Burned up a lot of film back in those days.
I ment Kaui not maui
1974 car camping trip from Miami to the Grand Canyon in a Porsche 914. After transmission breakdown and repair finally made it to the Grand Canyon. At dinner at El Tovar on our wedding anniversary, my wife told me she was pregnant with our first child.