Mytravelnorthamerica

I'm just new to this so not exactly sure if what I'm posting is allowed and please take this down if not allowed. I have just taken this from my blog which I have not linked as again not sure on the rules. Below is from a road trip myself and my wife took in 2019. I absolutely love travel and in and around USA in particular. It keeps me sane in this world and have a true passion for it. I appreciate anyone reading over this and any comments as well. I don't claim to be an expert and all the below is personal opinion and also all photos have been taken by myself. Thanks

A review of the Road Trip we took in May of 2019 around Florida, Georgia, North & South Carolina, Tennessee & Louisiana.

Why a Road Trip? The main reason for a Road Trip is the fact you have the freedom to go and do what you want when you want. You can take those little back roads and see the small towns that generally a tourist would never see. We had visited the States on several occasions in the past and although we loved it, we always thought it would have been nice to visit more places while we were away and see a bit more. On one occasion we did travel around a little by rail and really enjoyed this but you need to pre-book in order to make sure you get a seat on the trains. Taking the train can also restrict you to a set timetable and also takes away some of the spontaneity.

We had talked about hiring a car before but to be honest I was still a bit of a nervous driver as I had not long passed my driving test and it would have been very unfair to leave all the driving to one person. We had looked into it a fair bit and did some research on the best routes and where to go etc. While looking into this we stumbled upon a YouTube channel which we ended up and still do love. We decided to start and finish the trip in Miami and booked hotels only on the first and last night we were there. We used an App called Hotels Tonight and also Hotels.com to book Hotels as and when we got to places with us, at times booking accommodation literally as we were in the car parks of the hotels. Doing this gives you as much choice as you want on where you go and for how long. We really enjoy driving and seeing new places so the driving itself was not a chore at all and was part of the fun for us. I think 1 or 2 of the days we spent around 10+ hours on the road.

To start off the trip we were flying from Manchester to Miami (via Atlanta) so we drove down to Manchester the day before and stayed at an Airport hotel for the night and paid to park our car at the hotel as well. This is quite handy and often works out a good bit cheaper than just parking at the Airport along with a hotel the night before. Most hotels that offer this service will either offer a shuttle service or a Taxi to and from the Airport for you. We booked the flights direct with Virgin Atlantic and paid to go Premium which we had never done before with them. We were sat in what is known as the ‘Bubble’ on their 747 Aircraft, it was quite an experience going upstairs on a Plane and had never done this before. We really enjoyed this as there seemed to be more leg room and overall space on Virgin Premium than on the likes of BA or United that we had tried in the past. The service as always was great with the staff attentive as ever and only too happy to help out. You have access to the wonder wall with Premium which is basically a trolley stacked with snacks you can help yourself to whenever you’re feeling peckish. You also are served your meals on proper plates and given cutlery instead of the norm of plastic knife and fork.

This next part is the only issue I have with Virgin and I would urge everyone to keep an eye on this as well. After booking our flights Virgin changed the flight times on us more than once and although we had initially given ourselves around 4hrs to transfer in Atlanta, due to flights being rescheduled or moved we were left with 90mins which is just not enough time – it’s not even close. The Airport in Atlanta is huge so it can take time to get around depending on where your next flight is departing from but the main issue was customs. When we arrived in customs we were already sure we would more than likely miss our connecting flight. The queue seemed to go on forever and they didn’t seem in a rush to get extra staff in to help clear it either. Quite a few of the passengers on our flight were due to take a cruise departing from Miami and when these people tried to plead their case to move up in the queue the people working at the Airport really did not care at all. We eventually made it through customs and thankfully our connecting flight was late otherwise we would have missed it but it was very stressful and not how you want to start off your holiday after having a relaxing flight. Like I said before I really urge people to keep an eye on this and contact Virgin if they leave you next to no time for your Transfer.

STOP 1 – MIAMI

So to be honest this was more of a base camp to start and finish off the trip. When we arrived we stayed at the Miami International Airport Hotel which as the names suggests is inside the Airport. It’s probably a little more expensive than other Airport hotels especially with it just being a room for the night but it was so convenient that we picked up our luggage and were in our hotel room in a matter of minutes.

The next morning we had to pick up the car we would be driving for 2 weeks. We were not sure whether to go for a SUV or perhaps look at a sports type/convertible like a Mustang. We decided on the SUV which did turn out to be the correct choice for many reasons. More room for storing bags etc. and also there was a terrible love bug problem in Florida at the time we were there and they had stations set up on the highways for cars to stop and wash their windscreens and number plates as it was that bad. Just imagine that in a convertible! The car we got was a Ford Explorer which was, compared to UK cars quite a big SUV with plenty of space which you do need when you are looking to travel around 3,000 miles.

We set off on our way from Miami to our first real stop which was going to be Daytona Beach.
Are we nearly there yet?STOP 2 – DAYTONA BEACH
Famous beach…. Lousy weatherThis stop may seem a little strange but it’s a place I went to around 20 years ago now for Spring Break after watching films like American Pie in the late 90’s/early 2000’s and being fascinated by the whole culture of it as we don’t really have anything like that back in the UK. The drive from Miami to Daytona Beach without any stops is around 4hrs and it was a bit of a baptism of fire driving abroad for the first time. As we approached Daytona we were greeted with two issues. The first of which was the love bugs. They were EVERYWHERE and I do mean everywhere. When we got to our hotel they had left a note to say that due to the problem you could not open any of the windows. The second problem was we hit a little spot of rain! When I say a little spot I mean we had to pull over (no it’s a cardigan but thanks for noticing) as we could not see the road at all. If you have been to Florida before you know this can happen and there’s also every chance that within 30mins of this the sun would be shining and there would be no evidence of the heavens opening.

Before getting to the hotel we decided we better stop off somewhere and get some supplies as we were due lunch and also if the rain come back later we may not get out and about like we planned. This is where we discovered the magic of Walmart! The only place in the world you can buy bread in one isle and then in the next a shotgun or even a crossbow! All joking aside I think we ended up visiting around a dozen different Walmart’s if not more across various states. As we were driving we would load up on things like juice and snacks which saves a fortune compared to buying from gas stations. This is also where I started my fascination with the Walmart boneless BBQ chicken wings! I think I had some at each of the stops and honestly they could have been my breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was away and I would have been happy. They were also very cheap as well and I’m sure around $5 or $6 for a box of them. Anyway back to Daytona Beach – I sort of went off on a tangent there……. We stayed in the Hilton Daytona Beach and the room was very nice and with the no windows policy we were relieved when the Air con was working fine.

Luckily the rain stopped long enough for us to take a walk along the beach and look around the place I drunkenly stumbled around all those years ago. There was not too much to do from what I can remember but Jennifer did try her first ever corndog!
Ocean Deck Beach Club and pass I still randomly have after near 20 yearsPersonally for a little nostalgia hit I wanted to check out the Ocean Deck as I remember this being one of the main Spring Break spots and yes looking back now it doesn’t look the greatest!

STOP 3 – SAVANNAH

We said goodbye to Daytona Beach and Florida as we made our way to Savannah in Georgia.

We noticed straight away the heat picked up in Georgia and the thunderstorms of Florida where long gone.

We had already pre-planned to spend a day shopping at the Tanger Outlets not too far outside of Savannah. We did not pack much as we knew there would be bargains to be had here and we were not disappointed. At the time the exchange rate was still not too bad so you could pick up a bargain or 5! Sadly over the years this is probably now a thing of the past.

After we had finished up shopping we booked our hotel in Savannah which was the Holiday Inn Historic District. The hotel was located within walking distance of everything which was nice. The hotel itself was ok but we had a nightmare with dogs in the room next to us going mental as they had been left alone. Savannah is a lovely little place to walk around with lots of nice buildings to see and plenty of Cafe’s etc.
Georgia QueenSavannah City Hallin and around SavannahWe were in Savannah for a night and a day and we just wandered around without really doing too much or anything of note.

STOP 4 – MYRTLE BEACH
Next stop was Myrtle Beach, now neither myself or Jennifer are really beach type people so this was more of a place to stop for a couple of nights and it looked really nice. The drive was especially nice and the Sat Nav seemed to take us through a lot of the back roads rather than the normal highways so we got to see a few nice little towns on the way. What we did notice is you would pass maybe a place that had no more than 5 or 6 homes or even trailers but right next to it there was a church. This was the same all along the drive with what seemed like 1 church for every handful of houses.
Sunset at Myrtle BeachWe stayed at the Holiday Inn Hotel Pavilion which was right on the beach and had some amazing views at night and at sunrise. We stayed on the 9th floor which was second from the top so had better views than most. The hotel itself was nice enough with a decent breakfast with the usual choices of bagels, pastries etc.
View of the beach at nightAs I said this stop was more just something along the way to our next destination that we were going to spend a few days at so we did not do much other than walk along the beach and enjoy the views.

Stop 5 – Gatlinburg Tennessee

We had a near 7 hour drive ahead of us driving into Tennessee which included driving through The Great Smokey Mountains so it was going to be a picturesque drive. On our way there we were aware of a famous tourist trap called South of the Border! As the name suggests this was on the border of South & North Carolina. It’s really just somewhere to stop grab something to eat get a drink. There are a few things to do but most of it is for show. There is a huge fireworks Warehouse, a souvenir shop, a café, a viewing tower with an arcade and I am sure there was a crazy golf place as well but we did not check. It was quite a cool place to see and somewhere that most people will not have been.
South of the BorderAfter leaving here it was non stop until we got to Gatlinburg Tennessee!
Welcome to TennesseeGatlinburg was somewhere we were really looking forward to visiting and we had seen plenty of videos about it before deciding to stay here. We stayed here for 4 days – 3 nights and stayed in Reagan Resorts Inn which was nothing fancy but was right on the main street so very handy. Upon check in we were advised to keep an eye out for their resident bear that they see from time to time! Unfortunately we did not see any bears roaming around while we were there.

The town itself is very much geared towards tourism and is sort of like a seaside type of place in the UK just on a grander scale perhaps. Multiple Tourist shops selling souvenirs and your usual stuff you expect to see. There are quite a few shops selling fudge and some sort of hard candy you could see being made through the shop window as you passed by. Most of these shops were very similar with none really standing out. There were plenty of places to eat with everything from your traditional style American restaurants and Pizza places to the likes of Five Guys to a little place selling Turkey legs to go!

A massive attraction to Gatlinburg is the Moonshine. This part of the country was famous for Moonshine back in the days of prohibition and up and down the strip there are a few of these Moonshine distilleries offering you their product and trying all sorts to lure you in. They offer you 10 shots of Moonshine for $5 and once you have had these shots you get a voucher back for the same amount which can then be used to put towards the cost of buying any of their products. All the places offer this so you could genuinely walk up and down the strip and get very drunk for little cost. There are various little other shops you can visit and when we visited there in May they had a Band playing country music and lots of rocking chairs set out for people to sit and watch it. This music is not usually my kind of thing but I could have sat rocking on those chairs in the nice sun all day it was so relaxing.
Moonshine anyone?As well as the shopping, food & drinks there is so much more to do. You can stop in at one of the few 5D cinemas showing films (we didn’t go into any of these) you also have the ‘Ripley’s believe it or not’ museum and lots of Mini Golf places. Gatlinburg is home to the Pinball Museum so if this is your type of thing it’s well worth going. You pay for a wristband and this gives you unlimited access to all the Pinball machines and Arcade games machines and you can play as long as you want.

Outside of the main entertainment you can chose to go up the Sky Lift which gives you amazing views of Gatlinburg from high up. You can buy a pass for this and ride it as many times as you want in a day. We went up during the day and at night and the view at night time was very good. We also went up the Ober Gatlinburg this takes you up a mountain via an Aerial Tramway where there are other activities you can do such as a mountain roller coaster, Alpine slide and there’s also an indoor ice rink with shops and places to go to eat and drink.
View from Skylift during the day and at nightAt top of Ober GatlinburgThere was plenty to do and see in our 4 days here and we really enjoyed our time and would come back again.

Before heading off to our next stop we noticed there was a flea market not too far from here and set off earlier the next day to go and have a look around there. We love things like this even though for the most part it’s total rubbish on sale. It was a bit of a eye opener seeing so many people wandering around with gun holsters on their jeans/trousers like it was the most natural thing in the world. This is Tennessee and they idolised Donald Trump here! There were numerous stalls at the flea market selling Trump merchandise and in fact even the Airport in Atlanta was selling Donald Trump chocolate!!

I think we bought a couple of small things from here but cant remember exactly what but we enjoyed it and it passed a few hours and again it’s not really a normal tourist thing to do either.

Stop 6 – Nashville Tennessee
NashvilleNext stop was Nashville Tennessee, home of Country Music! This was a Place that we had both wanted to visit. We stayed at the Hutton Hotel in Downtown Nashville. This was a very nice hotel and we managed to get a good deal which included free breakfast and bar credit for a few drinks. The Breakfast here was a proper Breakfast and not just the likes of Muffins etc. So this is why you would normally need to pay for it. There was also a Peloton bike in the gym which I could use as this was back when I was using the bike a lot. The hotel offered a free car service that would take people to where they wanted to go (within reason). There was only the one car though so to be honest unless it was not very busy you were quicker just walking as it was not too far.
Breakfast at Hutton HotelThe main strip in Nashville is filled with Bars and restaurants so you have plenty of choice! There are a few places with rooftop bars so we made use of this and you got a great view of the main strip. What I will say is the drinks were quite expensive in Nashville so be wary of this and take enough cash out with you or budget enough to be able to enjoy a few drinks.
Rooftop BarAs Nashville was around the halfway point of the trip we spent the next day in a laundromat (Yes seriously). We found one in a random part of town and washed all the clothes we had already worn to try and cut down on the washing when we got home.

The next step of the journey was going to be a very long drive but it was to one of our favourite places on earth!

Stop 7 – New Orleans

Like I previously said this is easily one of my favourite places on earth. We initially visited here in 2009 not too long after Hurricane Katrina and even though it had been a few years since it happened you could still very much see the affects on the city.

We were quite keen to see what changes had been made since then (10 years on) and we were pleased to see the city had seemed to have really got back on it’s feet in that time. If you ever go please don’t listen to the Taxi drivers as the one we had back in 2009 tried to put the fear of god into us by saying how unsafe New Orleans was and then proceeded to give is us his card as he was really just trying to book business from us all week. It’s like everywhere else there are good and bad parts and if you use common sense you will be more than fine.

We were staying in New Orleans for 4 nights as we wanted to stay here longer than the other places. We didn’t have any firm Plans but knew the types of things we wanted to do but in no particular order really.

We stayed in the Dauphine Orleans Hotel which was nice and had Breakfast included, this was just your standard stuff again but its all you really need. On a side note it was not until we had booked the hotel and unpacked our bags and were googling the hotel that we realised this was supposed to be one of the most haunted hotels in America. That was nice and helped me sleep at night!

On day one (and I urge anyone to do this) we went for coffee and beignets. These are must for anyone no matter how many times you’ve been to the city!
Beignets and Coffee!New Orleans is a party city and known for the likes of Mardi Gras and has the famous Bourbon Street where there are no licensing laws so 24/7 drinking although be careful you will find yourself in jail for the night if you are acting unruly!
Bourbon StreetI’m a huge New Orleans Saints fan and have been for around 20 years now and this is where my love for New Orleans started. When we went over in 2009 we went to a game and that year the Saints won their first ever Superbowl. I’m obviously the good luck charm for them! We went over this time in the offseason so no games to attend but did take a walk up to the very impressive Superdome.
SuperdomeNo visit to New Orleans is complete without a visit to the swamps to see some Gators! You can either book a tour in the City and they will pick you up and drop you off or if like us you have a car you can drive out and just book directly with the company. There are a few different companies that offer this but we prefer the smaller tours where you are on a small hovercraft boat with only a few other people rather than bigger boats that seem less personal if that makes sense?

The captains who run these are really good and know the area very well and also know the alligators well. There is a thing known as swamp crack which is really Marshmallows. They throw a few of these into the water and before you know it your hovercraft is surrounded (not joking btw) with alligators. Although they are well used to human contact these are still wild animals and if they wanted in they would have no problem in jumping up!
Swamp CrackGator just chillingThere is plenty more I can go on about with New Orleans and will cover this separately in another blog post in the future.

Stop 8 – Miami and heading home

The final leg of our journey seen us needing to take on a mammoth 10hr drive to Florida to fly home. We enjoy driving but this was a bit of a challenge as, apart from stopping to fill up the car or grab some food there really was nothing else to do. By the time we got to the hotel it was late in the day so time to relax for a bit before bed.

I think in total including all our random stops and detours we drove around 3,300 miles and we loved it. It gave me a lot more confidence in driving both abroad and back home. We have since done another road trip in Canada (another post to follow on that) and we have booked a road trip in Texas later this year where we will also be visiting New Orleans again.

offerendum

I like road trips, even if they are regularly a bit more strenuous than vacationing in one place. I don't personally know the area in which you were traveling, so I found the report particularly interesting.

nequine

Sounds like you have a brilliant time! That is the advantage of driving yourself, you can pull over when you like and spend as long/short a time as you want somewhere.

raheelhammad

Traveling in your own car and visiting new places are always great.

GoBob

Excellent "Dumb and Dumber" deep cut reference in this report. Respect.

glasman19

Thanks for posting! Always enjoy different reports.

xooz

A nice "old school" trip! I see you came in May, so you would have likely had pretty good weather. I think an issue for many travelers from outside the US is that they come in the summer months, so in the deep South it gets so oppressively hot that it makes it hard to do a lot of outside activities. Spring and Fall are the times to come, as the weather is good and the flora is beautiful.

Mytravelnorthamerica

Thanks and yes we made sure we picked a time when not too hot as it wouldn't have been fun. The hotest i think from memory was Georgia which was around 30 Degrees C (86F)

BusyBee26

WOW, this looks like an amazing trip! I'm jealous

Loose Cannon

Thanks for the Trip Report and Pictures. I've never been to Gatlinburg, TN or Myrtle Beach, SC.