Summer is officially here and for my family, that means road trips. When I was a kid, car road trips meant driving as fast as you could go to get to your destination, without sightseeing along the way.
As an adult, I have learned that a true road trip is about the journey, not the destination. With each road trip vacation, my husband and I have let the road guide us instead of being a slave to our travel guide. Finding the unexpected and having the time to truly experience, it has often been the most memorable part of each car trip.
BMW 6 Series Convertible is a Great Road Trip Car
On a road trip on the California coast, we piloted our BMW 6 Series convertible (my road test car for that week) on a curving, mountainous road inland to the seldom-visited Mission San Antonio de Padua. When the Ford F-150 was redesigned a few years ago, we drove the pickup a circuitous 1,800 miles from Texas to California, stumbling upon the tiny mountain town of Ruidoso, New Mexico where we rode a stagecoach replica along a portion of the old Santa Fe Trail.
Gas prices may be high, but car travel is still one of the best choices for an inexpensive and exploratory family vacation—and it's a great way to see our beautiful country and the treasures hidden within. Maybe on this year's car road trip you'll choose to travel with others to save gas.
NADAguides.com chose this year's list of Best Road Trip Cars with gas mileage in mind—and if your car won't carry everyone (or maybe isn't quite ready for a long distance drive), each one of these cars can be rented from national rental car agencies.