The other day I saw one of those on-line questionnaires designed to phish for security info disguised as a quiz; “how many of these states have you visited?” But it did get me thinking, so I put together a list of all the states and countries I’ve been to. It’s not overwhelming. Nobody is going to mistake me for a travel influencer. The official count – 23 states and 6 countries. I’d guess that makes me an average traveler, maybe a touch above? It is possible my state count is higher… early on in my career there was a bunch of flying to visit customers that’s mostly a blur now. Anyway, I’ve been to about half the country.

Here’s the reality though – of those 23 states, I’ve only really seen a handful. “Seen”, meaning drove through a significant portion. Did sightseeing. Ate at restraunts. Did the tourist thing. The rest were business trips, driving through to get somewhere else, or saw only a tiny portion.

And now that we’ve reached retirement age, it’s time to truly travel and see ’em all. Both Mrs Troutdog and I have been talking about travel for some time. We both agree that we want to see the USA more than other countries at the moment. The problem? We can’t agree on how to see the country.

Mrs Troutdog wants to travel in a mega-land-yacht RV so we can sleep in our own bed each night and not be pooping in public toilets. She wants home cooked meals rather than eating out every day and having to go to a restaurant just to get coffee in the morning. I want to travel by car so we can be nimble and flexible, able to easily stop at every roadside stand advertising deep fried Twinkies. We’re at a bit of an impasse.

Full disclosure – we used to own a mega-land-yacht. In fact we lived in it for a year, so we’re very familiar with that sort of travel.

Impassioned pleas have been made on both sides of the argument. Power point presentations and white boards have been involved. Hundreds of hours of YouTube videos have been viewed looking for an edge to win the discussion. Friends and family now cringe and leave the room if anyone brings up the “travel” question.

The thing is, when you step back and think about it… it’s a silly discussion. Two thirds of the people in this country would give anything to be fortunate enough to be in our shoes. We’re very blessed to even be having this discussion. We worked hard, saved our pennies, and now find ourselves in a great place in life. We’re able to do as much or as little travel as we want. I don’t take that for granted.

So here we are. I think we’ve come to a temporary compromise. We’re going to pick a handful of things to see and places to visit in shorter 3-4 day trips. We’ll either drive, or fly and rent a car, and do the hotel thing. We’ll use this to not only sightsee, but to evaluate that sort of travel. Do we like that sort of flexibility, or is the whole hotel/motel, eating out every meal vibe a no-go for us?

It will be an interesting experiment. One I’m looking forward to. I see Route 66 calling my name. How about you? What’s your preferred method of vacation/travel?

Of course with the price of gas, food, and lodging these days… we may have already missed our grand travel window.