When my husband and I began discussing ideas for our honeymoon, visions of Fiji and Europe were swimming around our brains. However, when we began to look up hotel and airfare prices online, we quickly realized that our entire life savings would be needed to take us someplace that exotic. Because we didn’t think it wise to begin our marriage thousands of dollars in debt for a few days on a distant beach, we decided to come up with some more affordable options. Quickly, the idea of a road-trip for two formed, as we discussed the fact that neither of us had really gotten to see much of the country we live in. When you come from middle class mid-west suburbia, trips to the beach and/or mountains just aren’t all the frequent.
After a surprisingly little amount of discussion, we decided upon a trip to the West. While we hadn’t seen much of the East Coast, the West just seemed more romantic. I am a teacher, so I had the summer off, and my husband’s boss was nice enough to give him three weeks off for our trip. When we totaled up the money we spent on gas, food, supplies, souvenirs, lodging, and miscellaneous costs combined, it averaged out to about $75 a day for each of us. We did cut costs by packing picnic food like cheese, crackers, salami, and granola bars so that we wouldn’t have to depend on restaurants for every meal. We also bought a 2003 Pontiac Vibe just before the trip, which was large enough to hold all our supplies and still got about 35 miles to the gallon, on average. We stayed with friends and family along the way for 10 out of 22 days and camped four times, which helped cut down on lodging costs a lot. However, we did splurge on a $140 meal at Bouchon in Las Vegas (which was worth every penny!). We also spent about $150 in various wineries on tastings and bottles to take home. All in all, for what we paid for our trip, we could have laid on a beach somewhere exotic for about 3 days and flown straight back home. A three week getaway was definitely more relaxing than that! It also gave us a lot of quality time to enjoy together without the stress of schedules or expectations. We really “played it by ear” which made the whole trip seem like an adventure.
We decided to drive over to Colorado, make our way down through Arizona to stay with some friends in Phoenix. From there we took the four hour drive south through the desert to Rocky Point, Mexico (located at the tip of the Sea of Cortez, which separates Baja California from mainland Mexico.) From Mexico we headed back up through Phoenix to Las Vegas, then over to Southern California, where we got on Highway 1 and headed up the Pacific Coast. We stopped in Ojai, San Luis Obismo, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Berkely, and a small lodge set snugly on the rocky cliffs of Jenner, just north of Montego Bay, where the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean. From Jenner, we wound and wined our way through the Russian River Valley, stopping at several of the multitude of wineries along the way to Sonoma. From Sonoma, we drove to Yosemite, stopping for laundry and an oil change in Santa Rosa. After Yosemite we took a long drive through the deserts of Nevada and Wyoming and the salt fields of Utah so we could make it to western Nebraska for my husband’s 10 year high school reunion. A lot of people who had been at the wedding (which had taken place a month earlier at that point of the trip) seemed taken aback when we told them we were still on it!
We had an atlas and a California Froemmer’s Guide to help us find things to do and places to stay and eat along the way. I would highly recommend the California Froemmer’s guide, as we may never have found some of the beautiful places if we hadn’t had that handy little book. We did bring a laptop along in case we needed driving directions or hotel information. It was easy to find coffee shops with free wireless internet where we could plan our itinerary for the next few days, sip on iced coffee, write postcards, and check email. Sometimes just driving through the downtown area of a city with my laptop turned on, I could get a strong enough connection to get online!
When you are deciding where to go for your honeymoon, a road-trip is a great option because it allows the two of you to make lots of decisions about the trip together, so you can do what you feel like doing each day, and not have to stick to a strict schedule. If you haven’t been able to travel much, or have only flown to big cities, you are in for a real treat. There are so many beautiful sights and quaint little towns along the way when you venture off the beaten path a bit. Remember to take lots of pictures, and have a great time!
