The Best Road Trips with a Travel Trailer
Whether you’ve owned your travel trailer for years or you’re considering making the investment, road trips are better when you do them in a Bowlus. But with an endless amount of road trip possibilities in the United States, how do you know which ones are worth your time? We’ve done our research and narrowed it down for you with our list of the best road trips to make with your luxury travel trailer.
Route 66
Let’s start with perhaps the most classic road trip of all time: traveling on Route 66. Route 66 goes from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, with a nearly unlimited amount of stops, attractions, and must-sees along the way. Nicknamed the “Mother Road,” Route 66 was one of the original highways in the United States Highway System. This history is what attracts most road trippers, because where else can you not just see but experience history?
Experiencing the 2,448 miles of Route 66 in your Bowlus is the best way to do it, in our opinion. Expect it to take between 14 and 21 days total, giving you enough time to stop wherever you want without feeling crunched for time. This will help you get a feel for not only the road but the people who call the area home. Here’s a list of highlights to see in each state:
- Illinois (300 miles): Stop by the official Route 66 museum in Pontiac, Illinois, and have your picture taken in front of the shield mural (the world’s largest).
- Missouri (300 miles): Check out the Route 66 Car Museum in Springfield, Missouri, which has classic cars and famous celebrity vehicles like the truck Henry Fonda drove in Grapes of Wrath.
- Kansas (13.2 miles): Although there isn’t much to do through Kansas, there are a few must-sees. Visit the Williams’ Store in Riverton, Kansas, the oldest continually operating store located on Route 66.
- Oklahoma (410 miles): There are a few things to check out in Oklahoma, like the largest concrete totem pole near Chelsea and the Arcadia Red Barn in Arcadia (built in 1898).
- Texas (200 miles): One of the most iconic stops on Route 66 is in Amarillo, Texas… Cadillac Ranch. It has to be seen to be believed, with ten vintage Cadillac cars buried nose down. In Andrian, Texas, you’ll be officially midway.
- New Mexico (400 miles): Check out Blue Hole, a natural swimming hole and hidden cave, and the neon signs located in Albuquerque. Gallup, New Mexico, is another place to stop in for the history alone.
- Arizona (250 miles): The Petrified Forest National Park is a must-see as the only national park located on Route 66. If you’re looking for more classic kitsch, there’s also Giganticus Headicus, a 14 foot tall Tiki head located in the Antares Visitor Center.
- California (315 miles): California marks the end of your trip, but don’t leave without checking out the strange but beautiful scenery of Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch.
No matter where you decide to stop on Route 66, the best part of the trip is that you can stay anywhere you can legally park your Bowlus. Instead of having to make detailed, complicated plans for hotels or campgrounds, our luxury travel trailer was designed for boondocking.
When you road trip in a Bowlus, you can spend more than a week off-grid without giving up your microwave or electrical outlets. With the most powerful lithium-iron-phosphate power system in the industry, you can create your perfect road trip without planning it around where you’ll stop for the night.
New England
So many road trips focus on the Midwest and West Coast, as that’s where the vast majority of national parks and wide-open spaces are. But don’t forget about the East Coast and the New England area. Take a beautiful road trip along the Atlantic coast, featuring stunning views of lighthouses, Colonial charm, and quaint oceanside towns.
A great place to start is in Bar Harbor, Maine. This small town is full of charm and is close to one of the most beautiful national parks in the entire country, Acadia National Park. The park is packed with opportunities to go off-grid, as well as hiking trails, places to bike, and natural beauty to take in.
If historical scenery is your thing, make a trip to Bristol, Maine. Inside the sleepy town, you’ll find five different historic villages—Round Pond, New Harbor, Bristol Mills, Pemaquid, and Chamberlain. There are stately lighthouses to tour, beautiful views of the Gulf of Maine to photograph, and plenty of places to park your Bowlus (check out the Lake Pemaquid Campground if you want to stay in an established campground, or find a place to boondock in the surrounding area).
Once you’re done in Bristol, take the road trip down to Lincoln, New Hampshire. The town of Lincoln is located in the White Mountain National Forest, an astounding 148,000 acres of wilderness. Make sure to drive the Kancamagus Scenic Byway, one of the most stunning routes through the park. There is also ziplining and snowboarding in the area. Once you get back to your luxury travel trailer, you can use the private WiFi to post your pictures before heading to your next destination.
Up next, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Home to 14 different lighthouses and an abundance of sandy, beautiful beaches, if you haven’t visited before, you definitely want to put it on your list. Some of the top must-sees in Cape Cod are Chapin Memorial Beach and the fun and quirky Whydah Pirate Museum.
The perfect place to end your East Coast road trip is in Catskill, New York, in the Hudson Valley. The entire area is scenic and full of things to do or places to get away from it all. Regardless of what you do, make sure that you stop by Kaaterskill Falls in the Kaaterskill Wild Forest. The forest allows for boondocking so that you can spend a night or two, cook a warm, home-cooked meal in your spacious kitchen, and take in the scenery without worrying about having to plug into an electrical hookup.
Death Valley National Park
One of the largest national parks in the entire country, Death Valley National Park is more than 3,300,000 acres, making it a road trip all to itself. The best part about the park, in addition to its sheer size, is that it contains a wide variety of different ecosystems and scenery, including canyons, mountains, and dunes. You can choose to have a different adventure every time or hit your favorites. You could visit ten times and not see the same spot twice.
If you haven’t seen it, though, one of the must-sees at Death Valley National Park is the Badwater Basic, which sits at the lowest elevation of any location in the United States. You can hike through the salt flat, but be careful when the weather starts to get hot. The nine-mile Artist’s Drive is also fun to explore, especially in the air conditioning.
There are plenty of campsites to check out when you visit Death Valley National Park. They’re sprinkled throughout the park, and some taking reservations during their busier months. Although some have hookups and others don’t, the glory of traveling with your Bowlus is that you don’t have to worry about that. Your biggest concern will be where you want to park for the night and what you want to cook for dinner on your propane gas cooking range. Once the sun goes down, you can enjoy a great night’s rest in the safety and privacy of your very own home on wheels and maybe stargaze a bit through the skylights in the roof of your travel trailer.
In Conclusion…
The road trips you can take in your Bowlus are only limited by your imagination. When you bring all the comforts of home with you and aren’t tied down by the traditional limitations of RV camping, you’ll see the world as you’ve never seen it before. The freedom and flexibility of traveling wherever you want, whenever you want, is like nothing else.
Sources:
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/travelroute66/index.htm
https://www.nps.gov/acad/index.htm
https://www.discoverpirates.com/
https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/50755.html
Death Valley National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)