US Road Trip
9 weeks. Austin to Seattle, the long way round! The final trip on our year of travels.
See it on the interactive map · Flyby videos
Chapters
- Austin · 5 pebbls
- New Orleans · 1 pebbl
- New Orleans To Tupelo, Mississippi · 2 pebbls
- Tupelo -> Lynchburg -> Nashville · 2 pebbls
- Nashville -> Great Smoky Mountains · 2 pebbls
- Blue Ridge Parkway · 3 pebbls
- Skyline Drive To Washington D.C
- Washington D.C To New York · 5 pebbls
- New York To Salem · 7 pebbls
- Maine · 5 pebbls
- Westwards! · 2 pebbls
- Chicago To Yellowstone · 12 pebbls
- Grand Teton and Utah · 8 pebbls
- Zion And Las Vegas · 5 pebbls
- California, Here We Come · 1 pebbl
- Joshua Tree To San Diego · 3 pebbls
- San Diego To LA And Beyond · 9 pebbls
- Sequoia And Yosemite · 3 pebbls
- Bay Area And Wine Country · 2 pebbls
- Oregon · 5 pebbls
- The Finish Line: Seattle · 3 pebbls
Austin
Arrived at the airport. Picked up our car. 3 nights here to kickstart the trip.
Authentic Texan BBQ 😋
Short road trip to Driftwood for family-style BBQ at the famous Salt Lick. 👅 Divine brisket. Can’t tell if nap afterwards was jet lag or meat coma. Probably both.
LOVED AUSTIN!
Danced at a Honkytonk. Checked out the Capitol. Bought some cowboy boots. Looked at some art. Caught up with an old colleague. Saw some great comedy. A wonderful 3 days in Austin, such a cool city!
NASA
Ft. The Saturn V (which was amazing), Space X Falcon 9, Space Shuttle, and an hour or two of queueing.
New Orleans
One night in New Orleans for some smooth, smoky jazz 🎷
Oak Alley Plantation
New Orleans To Tupelo, Mississippi
Random overnight stop in Tupelo before heading to Nashville. The one thing to see in Tupelo? Elvis’ childhood home! Stay tuned.
Lovely People, Creole Cuisine And Jazz
Incredibly unique city. Loved it! Especially Frenchmen Street - amazing jazz spilling out of every bar, with people dancing to busking bands on the street. So cool.
Birthplace Of Elvis
Elvis’ childhood home. Lovely museum. Everyone in there was a replica of my Auntie Caroline who loved Elvis with all her heart ❤️
Tupelo -> Lynchburg -> Nashville
Lynchburg for Jack Daniel’s distillery and overnight stay on a local farm. Nashville tomorrow. Stopping off at small town Columbia and ‘mini Nashville’ Franklin along the way.
Jack Daniel’s distillery
Ft. James in variously sized chairs, and a hen party. Felt like a douche asking for a spitoon at the tasting.
Mulberry Lavender Farm
Stayed overnight at a farm that once belonged to Jack Daniel’s brother. Very old-timey interiors (a little bit creepy at night). Cats, sheep, horses, mules, peacocks, territorial geese and one majestic turkey wandering the grounds.
Nashville -> Great Smoky Mountains
Leaving the pouring rain in Nashville to start a scenic drive through the mountains. First stop, a B&B somewhere near Pigeon Forge.
Music Music Music In Nashville
Dinner on Printer’s Alley with some live jazz, Honky Tonk Highway, Country Music Hall of Fame, and a tour of Studio B. Such an alive city, with live music in almost every restaurant/bar you walk past.
Sevierville B&B
Peaceful, rustic night’s stay at a B&B overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains 🧘🏻♀️🧘🏻♂️ lots of bright red Northern Cardinals and little blue birds flitting around. Apparently black bears but we haven’t seen any (yet).
Blue Ridge Parkway
Scenic drive over the Great Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, all the way to Washington D.C! First stop: a log cabin on the border of Virginia and North Carolina.
8.5 Hour Drive Today 😮💨
Arrived at our teeny log cabin in the middle of nowhere (somewhere called Galax, Virginia) after an epic drive by James.
Sunshine!
Nice to wake up to some sunshine! Slept surprisingly well despite possums/birds/ghouls stomping on the ceiling of the cabin. Another long drive today to a nice-looking town called Staunton. Currently navigating through fallen trees from a recent hurricane.
Beautiful Drive, Beautiful Destination
Washington D.C To New York
Via an enormous crab feast in Annapolis, a rustic B&B, and dinner with a friend in Philadelphia.
D.C Highlights
Armstrong’s actual spacesuit, gandering around the monuments, and the impressionist section of the National Art Gallery (tons of Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas)
Idyllic B&B
🐶🐶
Now off for lunch in Delaware, on to Philadelphia for dinner, and up to Manhattan tonight.
Friends In South Philly
A few hours in Philadelphia with my friend John and his partner Dan. Took us to a bar with a great view of the city followed by a famous Philly cheesesteak for dinner 😋 to order we had to say ‘American whit’ (I.e. American cheese with onions). Dutty but one of the best things I’ve ever eaten!
New York To Salem
Whizzing to Providence this morning to see the USS Massachusetts, then around to Cape Cod for lunch, then back up to Boston for two nights. Ending in Salem on Sunday for a witch and ghost tour 👻
Provincetown, Cape Cod
The Truro/Brighton of the US. Strong LGBT community. Excellent mermaid porn street art. Lobster rolls of dreams. And a funky bird statuette that I genuinely might order for myself.
Witchy Things In Salem
Watched a recreation of a 1692 witch trial followed by a creepy tour through the dungeons, where women (and men, and children) were held in horrific conditions and tortured for months at a time, until they confessed to being a witch, at which point they could go to trial but were 100% of the time found guilty and hanged, since they had already confessed to being a witch. Great 🙄. Then we checked out an ouija board museum (as Salem is where the ouija originated). Particularly liked the ‘bowieja board’. Loving all the occult-y shops around the place. Lots of witchy types around having a great time. Going on a haunted walking tour in the rain tonight and wondering whether or not to visit the Satanic temple next to our hotel 😆
Ghouls
Some ghouls spotted at various windows on our haunted night tour of Salem. Can you see them? Def not just reflections in the glass… 👻
Maine
Driving up to Stephen King land (Bangor) for lunch, staying in a cabin in the woods near Portland tonight, then going lobstering in the morning 🦞
Stephen King’s Home & The Pet Semetary
Mount Hope Cemetery - where Stephen King would pick out character names from the tombstones, and get inspired to write Pet Semetary (scenes from the original film were shot here too). Lovely, peaceful place. Strange that it inspired such a disturbing book.
Night In The Woods
Man make fire. Fire good.
Lobster-eating
Bought two lobsters at boat price, and took them to a place called Lobster Pot to be steamed 😢 So delicious though.
Westwards!
Driving to upstate NY today (Saratoga Springs), Niagara Falls tomorrow, then pushing on direct to Chicago in a big drive on Thursday.
Niagara Falls
Walked onto the Canada side for the best view.
Made It To Chicago
After an insane and not-so-glamorous 9-hour drive across Ohio and Indiana.
Chicago To Yellowstone
LOVED CHICAGO! Now to a small town called Galena, Illinois, then on to Iowa for the night. Reaching the Badlands tomorrow, then on to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone.
What A City
Chicago is a wonderful place. Went to the Art Institute (there was a Frida Kahlo exhibition on 😍), saw the Bean, got taken out for dinner by my old friend David, and tried deep dish pizza. A grand ol’ time.
Hard To Say Goodbye
Winnie, the lab at the ranch we stayed at in the Badlands, would not let us leave. Such a cool stay - proper cowboy land. James completed his own cowboy look with a hat.
Delta 09 Nuclear Missile Silo
The plains of South Dakota are full of underground nuclear missiles, with missileers stationed ready to turn the key at any moment if necessary. Terrifying. We looked down on this decommissioned one (that could easily have been fired at the SU during the Cold War) near the Badlands.
Grand Teton and Utah
Two nights in Jackon, Wyoming (a fancy ski town), before heading to Salt Lake City and down to Moab, Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon.
Salt Lake City
Highlight of Salt Lake City was the North American otter in the aquarium. And this ugly fish. And the drive out through the mountains.
Canyonlands
Did a boiling hike in the Canyonlands near Moab. Not quite the Grand Canyon (that’s tomorrow), but pretty dang grand nonetheless.
Rather Grand After All
Mind-boggling sunset over the Grand Canyon. As with every single viewpoint we’ve been to this year, it was complete with someone shouting in French non-stop.
Zion And Las Vegas
Heading from the Grand Canyon, Arizona through three time zones to Zion National Park. It’s Memorial Day Weekend so have a feeling it’s going to be crazy busy. Couple of nights there, then down to Las Vegas.
Zion National Park
More like a theme park. Memorial Day weekend was NOT the right time to come! Spent most of the day queuing for buses/standing in lines on the trails, awful. Such a shame because it is a STUNNING place. Just zero crowd control.
Leaving Vegas Richer 💸
James won a bit of $ last night, so driving out of Las Vegas victorious. Fun and very sober few days in Vegas. James got spanked for not finishing his burger at the ‘Heart Attack Grill’, went to see a (tame) kinky show, went to The Sphere experience (incredible), and managed to have two delicious Sichuan meals as well as a meal in ‘Venice’ at the Venetian. James also went to shoot some guns while I spent an afternoon sleeping 😴
Hoover Dam
40+ degrees. Too dam hot.
California, Here We Come
A few days chilling in Joshua Tree, then to San Diego, then up to LA to see brother Tim.
Boujis Joshua Tree Airbnb
Beautiful drive via Route 66 to Joshua Tree, California. Our Airbnb is super cool - I took the photo from the egg chair hanging in the middle of the lounge 🥚😎