It’s roughly 3,000 miles from my home to Key West, Florida. Add in a few detours and I totaled just shy of 7,000 mile for my last road trip of 2024. This was my third extended trip this year, for a grand total of 15,970 miles.
The plan for this adventure was primarily Florida, home to three National Parks, some legendary scuba diving, and my first visit to Disney World since 2000. The result was..
. a bit of a mixed bag. A lot went right, but a number of other things (most out of my control) did not.
Most notably, hurricane Milton, which did a lot more serious damage than just to my plans. Regardless, it was quite an adventure. Here’s how it went.
The machine My longest road trip, in 2021, was 10,000 miles in a Mazda Miata . Great fun, but a bit grueling. They’re loud and raucous by design.
I was able to fit camping gear and luggage in no problem, but space was tight (as you can imagine, it’s basically the smallest car you can buy in America). In 2022-2023 I converted a 2014 Ford Transit Connect into a campervan and I’ve put nearly 30,000 miles on it since. It is a brilliant road trip machine.
Quiet, comfortable, reasonably economical (~25mpg), and temperature permitting, a place to camp. Best of all, a solar-powered refrigerator offers endless supplies of cold soda and water. I don’t expect everyone to convert their daily driver to a specialized road trip vehicle, but I definitely recommend a 12v refrigerator.
You can make do with a cooler if you’re staying at h.
