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Pick Your Departure Time Carefully When Driving To and From Vegas

July 1, 2009 at 1:25 PM | 0 Comments

Last week we drove out to Las Vegas from Los Angeles and boy, was it a doozy. While we were happy to save on airfare (weekend tickets to Vegas start at around $150 round-trip; gas was about $75), we just happened to choose the worst times to leave Los Angeles on the way out there and to leave Las Vegas coming home.

We left on Thursday at 4:25pm from Santa Monica which is prime traffic time in L.A. but we couldn't skip out of work any earlier. This was also the day that Michael Jackson died and everyone was flooding the Westside to camp out at the UCLA Medical Center. So try to avoid departing on a day that a major pop icon dies in Los Angeles. For instance, when Britney kicks the can in Malibu, put off your trip for another few hours or possibly a day, if her death was "too soon."

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Victorinox is Making Tricked Out Airstream Trailers

June 19, 2009 at 5:18 PM | 0 Comments

If you don't go anywhere without your trusty Swiss Army knife (or watch), then you'll appreciate the limited edition Victorinox Airstream Trailer that will be created to commemorate the brand's 125th anniversary. From The Autoblog:

Airstream trailers have always occupied the ultra cool end of the travel trailer spectrum with their sleek aluminum shells and retro vibe. Throw in some Swiss Army cues that include Victorinox timepieces, kitchen cutlery and Swiss Army Knives themselves, and we feel safe saying the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

The trailer also comes complete with sitting area and a small bed (with a Victorinox wool blanket of course.) But you have to really cherish your Swiss Army brand to want one of these trailers. Only 125 of them will be made and the starting cost is $59,000. It does however, come with a commemorative serialized plaque with the Swiss Army cross and shield emblem and all the Swiss Army accessories you could ever want.

Related Stories:
· Airstream [Official Site]
· Airstream and Victorinox Hook Up for Limited Edition Swiss Army Trailer [AutoBlog]

Can Memorial Day Kill the Staycation?

May 22, 2009 at 11:11 AM | 0 Comments

Is this the weekend we finally get over the staycation hump? Forecasters say low gas prices (and restless traveler syndrome?) will reignite the great American road trip this summer, with the AAA predicting a 1.5 percent increase in road travel over last year's Memorial Day weekend.

Of course, just when travel might be getting a much-needed boost, that frequent Memorial Day irritant – rain – is back on the horizon to ruin it all. Florida and most of the Gulf Coast will get dumped on this weekend, as will much of the South, Plains, and West. Which is great news for cyborgs, as Christian Bale's Terminator Salvation tries to bump Angels & Demons and Star Trek from the top of the box office.

So how's it looking out there? Is America done with the staycation? Or will the weather forecast keep you home once again this weekend? If you haven't already taken off for the weekend, let us know what your travel plans are in comments below.

Related Stories:
· More Americans hit the road to kick off summer [Reuters]
· A slow moving weather pattern continues [weather.com]
· Memorial Day travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Atwater Village]

Four Days and 1,407 Miles Later, We Turn In The Rental Car

May 15, 2009 at 2:26 PM | 1 Comment

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

If 24 hours before, we'd been dreading a six-hour drive, the final leg of our one-way road trip started with a bit of melancholy of a different sort. Not because we'd been having a bad time but because it meant my trip--through South America, through the Gulf Coast and onward to Oklahoma--was about to end. It'd been so long since I'd stayed in one place, I didn't know what might happen when we arrived in Oklahoma.

But I put facing doubt about my future on hold while Pat Faser at the Fairfield Place served up a big plate of veggie frittata, sausage links, fresh fruit and a truly Southern biscuit alongside orange juice and coffee. I'd say the emphasis at this B&B was on breakfast if the bed hadn't been so comfortable.

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Driving From New Orleans to Shreveport, With a Stop for Beignets

May 14, 2009 at 11:42 AM | 0 Comments

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

Day three of our trip dawned, and my girlfriend and I woke with a sense of dread. Another 300+ miles to cover? And on this stretch, which a number of New Orleans natives told us was mind-meltingly dull? We needed a vacation from our Road Trip.

Luckily, breakfast in Nola was much better than it was at the Coombs House. After asking the all-knowing Twitter for a breakfast recommendation--trendy, right?--we headed to Morning Call in Metairie after @alexanderbasek pleaded "Do not miss." He didn't send us there for the extensive menu: You'll be having coffee and beignets like we did. But how tasty they were--and we might've been the only tourists in the crowd of cops, little old ladies and middle-aged men mentally drowning in their tiny porcelain cups. It was, as we'd hoped, the anti-Cafe du Monde.

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Driving From Apalachicola to New Orleans...with a Lunar Lander!

May 13, 2009 at 11:46 AM | 0 Comments

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

At nearly 400 miles, the second leg of our trip, from Apalachicola to New Orleans would clock in at more than six and a half hours, but on the upside--I thought, anyway--my girlfriend and I would get a killer breakfast from our hosts at the Coombs House Inn to start the day right. But though the sausage and apple stratta was tasty, the atmosphere in the deathly silent dining room was more chilly than a morgue in Siberia.

Eager to get on to a town with a bit more life to it, we set out for New Orleans, planning to stop for nothing but gas or bathroom breaks. But cruising past signs for the USS Alabama--presumably a battleship!--we were intrigued and decided, in true Road Trip style, to drop in. Totally. Worth. It.

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Driving From Orlando to Apalachicola... with Alligators!

May 12, 2009 at 3:02 PM | 0 Comments

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

When I was young and on a family vacation involving a rental car, my dad would spend at least 10 minutes in the garage after our interminable flight, getting acquainted with his temporary ride while my mom and I would moan and beg for him to get on the road already. Thanks to that childhood trauma, I never do that, even if it means I have to figure out how to work the car while doing 70 through a construction zone on choked Orlando highways.

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A Rental Car Road Trip on a Shoestring Budget

May 11, 2009 at 1:59 PM | 4 Comments

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

There's something uncanny about planning a one-way road trip through the southern United States from an internet cafe in Cartagena, Colombia. But plan ahead you must, if you want to take advantage of the incredibly cheap one-way rental car deals out of Florida on offer right now.

Why the bargains? As the companies gear up for summer road trip season, they realize all their inventory is at Florida airports, dumped there by snow bunnies who drove down for sun and fun but flew back home. By offering super-cheap rides to people like me--north-bound drivers with flexible travel plans--they can easily repopulate the country with rentals.

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How The Phantom Alert Might Help You on Your Next Road Trip

March 30, 2009 at 2:22 PM | 0 Comments

Aside from finding alternate routes in traffic, traversing a strange city's streets with confidence, and approximating drive time, there is now another huge benefit to investing in a GPS: it will help you avoid dreaded red light cameras. We usually check our mental rolodex of local camera locations when we hesitate to blaze through intersections, but this doesn't work on road trips.

Before your next confusing drive through the roundabouts of Boston or the stop-start traffic of Beverly Hills, look into downloading "Phantom Alert," new software for GPS systems with the purpose of diverting you from traffic cameras and even DUI checks—not that we advocate detouring around drunkenness.

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"OMG. BRB. 5-0 Just Pulled Me Over"

January 7, 2009 at 11:02 AM | 3 Comments

This could be the last text message you send from your cell phone if you get caught in the state of California under its newest driving law. As of January 1, it's been illegal to text while behind the wheel in the state. You can't even read texts or emails while you're on the road. And no Facebook status updates or Twittering while you're driving, either.

According to the California DMV:

This new law makes it an infraction to write, send or read text-based communication on an electronic wireless communication device, such as a cell phone, while driving.

Your first offense will cost you $76, with penalties going up if you've been busted before. One thing we're not clear on: Is it illegal to text or read texts while at a stoplight? (Probably. How many idiots have you seen who either don't know the light is green or move ahead too soon because they were texting?)

California now joins New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota and Washington, along with Washington, DC, in banning texting while driving. Those places also require a hands-free device while talking on cell phones as do a few other states. And while we're at it, in the state of California you can't smoke in your car if there are children under 18 riding with you. Louisiana and Arkansas also have similar laws.

Some places where you can talk on your phone and drive with one hand without the fear of the law on your tail? Hawaii, Nevada, Wisconsin and Wyoming. There are a few others too, so if you plan on visiting all 50 US states this year, consult this mega-list of state laws concerning cell phones before backing out of your driveway.

Prepping For The Great Chinese Road Trip

November 11, 2008 at 4:45 PM | 0 Comments

When we said "the great American road trip ain't what it used to be," our point was that advances in highway and automotive technology in the US have changed the character of our asphalt adventures. But China's efforts to build the world's foremost interstate system have us thinking that our next windows-down, radio-up ride may happen on the Jinghu Expressway not Route 66.

Says The Wall Street Journal:

The speed of China's motorization is stunning--some 30,000 miles of expressways were built in the past decade. Plans call for China's highway system to stretch 53,000 miles by 2020, surpassing the 47,000 miles of interstate roads in the US currently. China has roughly the same land area as the continental US.

Unlike the golden era of the American highway--which started in the 1960s and was mostly complete by the 1980s--this road boom is taking place in a poor, largely rural country where only about 10 percent of the population have their driver's licenses.

That means the highways are, for the most part, quiet, except when over-burdened trucks rumble by. But while the development opens up new travel possibilities, it also carries an environmental threat: Beijing's air already looks like this.

Related Stories:
· China Bets Highways Will Drive Its Growth [WSJ]
· Heavy Breathing Travel: Beijing Clearing the Air Again [Jaunted]
· The Great American Road Trip Ain't What It Used to Be [Jaunted]

[Photo: ernop]

The Great American Road Trip Ain't What it Used to Be

November 8, 2008 at 2:58 PM | 1 Comment

The USA might be a bit overly-reliant on automobiles to get around, but there's no denying the mystique of the great American road trip. The lure of the open road is one that goes back as far as the automobile itself, but things were quite a bit more difficult back in the day, as an interesting collection of old photos shows. A Texas programmer recently posted a photo essay from 1924, when his great uncle and a friend drove from Berkeley to M.I.T. to do some graduate study. The trip took thirty days and involved very few paved roads, which is quite a contrast to Alex Roy's recent cross-country drive that took 32 hours and 7 minutes. This predates the Interstate Highway System by decades, of course, which meant driving the old jalopy over desert, mud flats, salt beds, and gravel paths for thousands of miles. There's no denying that the trip was fraught with discomfort, frustration, and probably a fair bit of danger to boot, but it was probably one of the highlights of Great Uncle Harold's life as well. You can't stop the march of progress, of course, but by making everything easier, faster, and safer, you do kind of miss out on a little bit of adventure.

[Photo: robertlandrum.com]

Related Stories:
· Berkeley to M.I.T. [robertlandrum.com]
· Road Trips [Jaunted]