Tag: road trips

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Find Healthy Food on Your Summer Road Trip (There's an App for That)

May 14, 2013 at 3:00 PM | by | Comments (0)

No more Bob's Big Boy. Pass on the Perkins. Can the Cracker Barrel.

The day has finally come that the all-American road trip can be filled with healthy choices to eat instead of fast food and Cheet-os. Thanks to Shft, a multimedia website co-founded by Adrian Grenier and Ford Motor Company, the days of eating at a greasy spoon are over with a shift to wholesome and healthy fare. Besides, who likes driving with orange fingers anyway?

The '"sustainable culture" website has teamed up with the car company to create an iPhone app called Food Tripping to help those Jacks (and Jills) hitting the road this summer in the quest to see America. All from your iPhone, you can find fresh, healthy, local food options in between seeing the largest ball of twine or Corn Palace.

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Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City: Braving the Hectic Traffic

April 30, 2013 at 12:58 PM | by | Comments (0)

Driving in a foreign country takes guts and few cities illustrate this need as well as Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. The metropolis is dominated by scooters and road rules are merely a suggestion of how locals get on with their daily duties.

It's not uncommon to witness scooters with three or even four people along for the ride, plus children standing on the seat. We even spied the Vietnamese equivalent to delivery trucks—mopeds piled high with boxes of goods and even a handful of giant rolls of foam. It seems unsafe and pretty crazy, but we never felt our well-being in danger once. All in all, it's reminiscent of the movements of bees in a hive; it just works.

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How 'RelayRides' Uses Facebook to Get You Into a Rental Car

April 30, 2013 at 9:44 AM | by | Comments (0)

We’ve mentioned various bits and pieces of car sharing programs in the past, but if there’s one that’s leading the pack it might just be RelayRides. The basic premise behind these programs is that you can offer up your car to someone else when you’re not using it. Feel free to take the neighbor’s car for a spin if you’ve been eyeing it in the driveway, and he or she can do the same with your car when you’re away for the weekend. RelayRides takes care of insurance and all the other boring details, so you just put the pedal to the metal and go.

So far RelayRides has cars in almost 1,500 different cities across all 50 states, but they’re eager to expand even further. Now they’re bringing their car sharing idea to social media, as they’re getting ready to do the Facebook integration thing.

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The Return of the Cheapie One-Way Rental Car Deal

March 20, 2013 at 9:55 AM | by | Comments (0)

We’ve seen some pretty good rental car deals in the past, and that’s especially been the case during the spring and the fall. Rental car lots are filled with cars that need to get out of the warm weather states—or heads toward them—so they’re usually pretty good with giving away one-way rental cars for little more than the cost of gas and taxes. Hertz has always been at the forefront of these road trip sales, but it looks like things aren’t quite is fun this year.

In the past Hertz has offered one-way rental cars for as little as $5 per day, but this year they must be in need of a little more spending cash. They’re still ready to run their Florida Drive Out and Arizona Drive Out sales, but this year the deals start at around $18 per day.

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A Visit to Arizona's Barringer Crater, AKA the Best Preserved Meteor Site in the World

March 12, 2013 at 12:06 PM | by | Comments (0)

Know what's cool? Space. Know what's even cooler? When things floating around in the vastness of space come pay a visit to earth. Ok, that's only cool when it happens thousands of years ago and doesn't hurt anyone. Luckily for us, that's exactly what happened near Winslow, Arizona 50,000+ years ago.

Formerly known as "Canyon Diablo Crater," this meteor crater, now known as the "Barringer Crater," is said to be the world's (that's right, world's) first proven and best preserved meteor crater. It's so well preserved that NASA used it in the '60s to train astronauts preparing for Apollo missions to Earth's moon. They did this because the crater very closely matches those found on the moon.

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The PT Cruiser Has Ended Its Rental Car Run, May It Rest in Peace

March 7, 2013 at 10:14 AM | by | Comment (1)

If you’re renting a car anytime soon consider yourself lucky. Sure you might not get a Camaro or a Corvette to zoom around in during your weekend away; however, it’s the car that you’re not going to get that’s the most enjoyable. We’ve known for a while that the iconic—in a bad way—PT Cruiser was well on its way to being history, but now it sounds like things are pretty much official.

Travelers are now safe to approach the rental counter free from fear, as the PT Cruiser is no longer an option at most of the major rental car companies. The big boys like Hertz, National, and Avis have long gotten these off the rental car lots, as the last of the PT Cruisers rolled off the assembly line back in 2010. Bloomberg Businessweek wrote an obituary dedicated to the car, but they do note that with those new car sharing schemes that it might be a while before it truly ever disappears.

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Five Weird Spots to Stop and Stretch Your Legs on a US Road Trip

March 6, 2013 at 11:01 AM | by | Comments (4)

With the warmer weather right around the corner, we’ve started to plan our spring and summer road trips. Sure there are the usual locations that are always a good choice, but we’re looking to also to be entertained on the way there. That’s why we’re recommending a few good distractions, with what we’re calling the five things you just got to drive past:

Corn Palace – Mitchell, South Dakota

It’s exactly what it sounds like, and is clearly a road trip must. It’s one part civic center and one part awesome, as the exterior decorations of corn, grain, and grass are refreshed and renewed each and every year. They’d love for you to stop in and visit, and they don’t even charge you for checking things out. Oh—and don’t worry about finding it—type “Corn Palace” into Google Maps, and it’ll know exactly where you want to head. At least it did for us!

World’s Tallest Thermometer – Baker, California

You’re driving towards the desert, and you just need to know how hot it is outside—problem solved. Just swing by the world’s tallest thermometer and you’ll be all set. It’s right by a Bob's Big Boy restaurant—another road trip must—and is in the town lovingly referred to as the gateway to Death Valley. We’d recommend filling up the tank in Baker before continuing on your journey, and of course be sure to snap a photo of the thermometer as well.

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The Adventures of Travel Cat: Road Tripping to the Grand Canyon

February 20, 2013 at 6:01 PM | by | Comments (0)

Kitty cats. They rule the internet and, whether we realize it or not, pretty much the world too. Ever noticed how cats sometimes stake out the coolest spots in a city? This new feature—Travel Cat—focuses on exactly that. Submit a photo to be featured by tweeting or Instagramming it to us (details below).

Travel Cat spotted at: the Grand Canyon (and more!)

This week's Travel Cat is a special one. To celebrate "National Love Your Pet Day." Meet C.C. Tux, a cat who happily travels alongside his owner, Cora Sprinkle, and behaves on a leash. Of travels with Tux, Cora notes:

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Skip Long-term Parking to Rent Out Your Ride via FlightCar

February 13, 2013 at 8:47 AM | by | Comments (0)

It’s been a few months since we introduced you to the newest idea in airport parking and rental cars—FlightCar. Just in case you need a brief refresher, basically FlightCar offers the opportunity for those parking at the airport to rent out their cars while they’re not using them. Seems like a clever idea if you ask us, and now it looks like the first cars are available to rent.

Up first is San Francisco International Airport, and they’ve got room for those looking to rent out their cars and for those looking to rent cars. Rates are supposed to be competitive with what’s offered from the big boys, though FlightCar is so far claiming they'll have 50% cheaper rates than the usual rental car companies. Free insurance, free GPS, and pick-up right from the terminal look to set FlightCar apart from the usual suspects in the rental car garage.

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Macht Schnell! How to Drive Germany's Famous Nürburgring Race Track

February 5, 2013 at 9:38 AM | by | Comments (0)

Although there are many great driving roads in the world, perhaps the most famous is the Nürburgring. Built and completed in 1927 around the medieval castle city of Nürburg, it lies about 75 miles northwest of Frankfurt and 50 miles south of Cologne. Easy day trip distance, which is exactly our focus.

Though the Nürburgring is used mainly by car companies for testing and sanctioned races, examples of the latter being DTM (German Touring Car) and Formula 1, it is open to the public...if you can handle it. Nürburgring is widely regarded as the toughest and most demanding race track in the world due to its long length and sheer number of corners. Public access is typically on the weekends, and all road-legal vehicles can pay to drive on this historic road. Sports cars and motorcycles are the of course the most common sights, but even RVs and tour buses are allowed to have their turn.

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'The Guilt Trip' Takes Audiences Across the U.S. Without Ever Leaving Malibu

December 21, 2012 at 2:54 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Guilt Trip features all the components of a great road trip movie—a steak eating contest, a stop at the Grand Canyon, and endless hours gabbing in the car—but, there's just one catch: it was shot almost entirely in Malibu, CA.

The movie's star, Barbra Streisand, would only agree to join the cross-country flick if it was entirely filmed within 45 minutes of her Malibu home. The concession meant that most of the iconic locations in the movie, like the Grand Canyon, were filmed in a sound stage (specially built in Malibu) using green screen.

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Forget the National Christmas Tree; Road-trip to Visit NASA's Moon Trees

December 7, 2012 at 7:20 PM | by | Comments (0)

If you’re more bah humbug than ho, ho, ho, there are trees out there for you too: Moon Trees. These trees, located all over the U.S., don’t have sparkly lights or flashy ornaments but they have been to the moon.

Back in the 1971 Stuart Roosa brought along close to 500 seeds from five tree species on the Apollo 14 mission as part of an experiment. As Apollo 14 re-entered Earth's atmosphere the container carrying the seeds opened and the seeds all mixed together.

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