What's the longest trip you've ever made?
My boyfriend, my cat, and I just spent five days driving across the country, from Alabama to Southern California and then up to the Seattle area. I was dreading it, but in actuality--it was a lot of fun! We saw a lot of beautiful scenes (New Mexico covered in snow?!) and were very fortunate in terms of weather. I think the variety made it bearable--I don't think I could take the hours and hours of monotony of air travel someplace overseas or something.
What's the longest trip you've ever taken? Was it fun or agony?
by
heyjoie
asked 5 months ago
Longest car trip I've ever taken was a car drive straight through from Orlando Florida to South Jersey- it was absolutely miserable. We were going to stop halfway but couldn't because there were no vacancies on Labor Day weekend. I'd have to say that somewhere around 8 hours is about the time when a car ride becomes painfully too long. If I broke my days into 8 hours of driving, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of adventure then a road trip to Alaska might not be out of the question.
Longest car trip was a two week drive from Lima, Peru to Lake Titicaca. Longest plane trip would be Houston to Paris. Nine hours, I think.
Longest car trip...Yuma, AZ to Quantico, VA. I think we made stops in Denver and/or St Louis for family, so I don't know if those count.
Plane: Probably LA to Tokyo. Maryland to Amsterdam was pretty long too, of course...
Oops. Forgot something, didn't I? Both of those trips were fun for completely different reasons. I didn't mind flying overseas. Beats a week or two on a boat.
Route 66 trip from Santa Monica to Chicago and back: 18 days on the road.
Flight from LAX to HKG (Hong Kong): 16 hours in the air.
From Connecticut to Badlands South Dakota...not too bad compared to the cross country trekkers...I have a friend that drove from Minnesota to Sao Paulo, Brazil once...now that's a road trip!!
I'm about to take a very long plane ride here in a couple weeks. Shanghai to Sao Paulo, Brazil; connecting in NYC. Nearly 24 hours in the air...aiyaiyai!
Distance wise, my drive from NY to Seattle, but I was in the zone (and a little dumb) and did it in 2.5 days. Great experience. Longest though was a trip to Las Vegas with fam and we stopped a lot and saw everything we could.
Road Trip: Took a month to go WA > WI > MO > TX > NM > CO > UT > WA
and all the states in between of course.
Road Trip: Two weeks: TX > AR > MS > AL > TN > IN > MO > TX
Air:
DFW > Tokyo
Hong Kong > DFW
Seattle > London
Seattle > Dublin
OXC > LAX. 19 hours, on United.
They screwed up, and "somehow" they were a flight member short, so they flew another one in. Which made everyone miss the next connecting flight, and we had to wait for the next available one. Which over booked the next flight, and somehow we got bumped when that flight was full, so then we took the next one. Which got over booked, etc etc. They dropped us off in Chicago- as the last flight. Three hour layover in Vegas. Finally in LA, they gave us "chits" supposedly good for a free flight- turns out they were "unauthorized" to do so, and these pieces of paper were useless.
My last United flight.
@gopvifootball, I know what you mean--we were keeping our days between 10 and 12 hours before stopping for the night. Although I stopped a lot for food, coffee, picture breaks, I definitely could feel the antsy-ness set in around hour 8 or 9. The last day was the WORST.
@dmaz, I can't imagine--pretty sure I'd just go out of my mind for that long on a plane! I hated just flying the trip from Alabama to Washington.
@gidgaf, I think that just might be the worst. Being stuck and unable to do anything about it--frustration doesn't even begin to describe it. I think I hear more horror stories about United than any other airline, too.
Also, wow, what a well-traveled group of Wooters here tonight!
Sometimes I dream iv traveled far! But then I wake up... Max for me was a 4hr plane and a 21hour drive.
Houston to Vegas. Right around 24 hours straight.
I've got a few long ones under my belt.
Longest I've made by myself was a road trip. I drove my Jeep Wrangler, packed with everything that I owned, from Interior of Alaska to Central Virginia. It took me 7 days and I logged nearly 85 hours on driving time including 1 day that was no less than 19.5 of straight driving with only getting out to stretch and filling up with gas to divide the time. I was able to stop in Edmonton and Fargo (I had friends with extra beds in both cities). I spent one night in my Jeep, which was an epic fail, it was -35* and I'm 6'4. The other nights where spent in hotels. There is so much more I could tell about that trip...
I've also driven with from central VA to Salem, OR before, drove 8 hours the first day, 11 the second day and then 24 hours straight...there was nothing exciting about that trip. Nebraska sucks to drive through.
And as far as flights...I've flown from San Fran to Hong Kong and from Beijing to San Fran. Plenty far, both flights.
@dmaz: THAT is some extensive air and ground time...WOW!
oops, I forgot...
The longest trip, I wouldn't trade the experience and the things I saw along the way for the world, one of my top three experiences in life.
The cross country trip, I should have flown home, I just didn't want my best friend to have to do it alone.
The flights...I didn't like it...I think it's a control issue.
Connecticut to Wyoming.
Longest trip.... now that depends on how you define it. Keep in mind that the 1st 2 of these were made as a kid on family vacations; there were 5 of us kids.
Longest road trip (miles-wise): round-trip Iowa to California (travel time: 3 days each way, not including the week spent in California). We traveled through every state that borders Colorado w/o ever crossing into Colorado. I've still never been to/through Colorado. We visited the Great Salt Lake, San Francisco, Sequoia Nat'l Forest, Lake Hume, and the Grand Canyon all on this trip.
Longest time to go shortest distance: 21 1/2 hours (actual driving time) to go what should have taken 8 1/2 hours. Most of the time was spent going 100 miles on ice in Florida.
Longest flight: DSM>ORD>ICN (Seoul Incheon) and back again. This one I just did in September. Chicago to Seoul was 16+ hours in the air. Return flight was slightly shorter because of tailwinds. Also, technically we arrived back in Des Moines ~2 hours after we left Seoul. O_o
I went from Massachusetts to California and California to Virginia by car. I've gone from Florida to Illinois and Illinois to California. The miles were long but the trips weren't. Maybe 5 days total. Longest flight was DC to Honolulu. Holy crap was that a long time in an airplane. Yeesh.
I've done a few long drives. I'm personally good for about 10-11 hours. I did Omaha NE to Raton NM a couple years back, and Omaha to Sandusky OH more recently. Both pale in comparison to my longest drive:
Washington DC to Omaha NE in a little over one day. Started driving around 8am and kept driving until I couldn't take it anymore somewhere in Iowa. The next day I only had 3 hours of driving left.
Longest road trip I've ever taken was four weeks Atlanta to California (southern route) and back again (northern route) in the summer of 1996. Over 8,000 miles. I don't remember how many states other than we hit every state that bordered Arkansas but didn't actually get into Arkansas. Mostly it was to get away from the Olympics and the rest of the world coming to Atlanta.
Longest solo road trip I've ever taken was this Christmas. DFW -> Murphy, NC -> Atlanta and back to DFW. I was a little worried about driving that far by myself, but it went really well.
Longest one way air travel was southern tip of India -> DFW. Took us 47.5 hours door to door including 10+ hour layover in Mumbai. That was a crazy trip. Worst part was that the only flight the whole trip that was ontime was our last flight Newark -> DFW. But we missed it due to long lines in customs.
Longest car trip I ever made was from Mid-Michigan to San Francisco which was actually quite fun. We stopped at a ton of places and just took our time enjoying the scenery. The farthest trip via plane I took was to Hawaii, 9 hours on a huge plane with lots of people. 10 seats across each aisle. Ugghh, after 9 hours it was a little ripe in the cabin.............
Longest car trip? North Carolina to Northern Florida, an 11-hour drive. What I thought was a badly sprained ankle was in fact a broken leg.
Oh, you meant objectively instead of subjectively? Never mind.
@msklzannie: "Most of the time was spent going 100 miles on ice in Florida."
December 1989?
Driving
January 1978 - Boston to Miami in 24.5 hours straight thru' during an east coast storm, Blizzard in the northern states turning to heavy rain in the mid-Atlantic states all the way down into central Florida... Return trip in June took 21.5 hours...
June 1982 - Reno to Boston 72 hours total of which 54 was road time including getting a blow-out fixed...
Flights
April 2000 Boston to Tasmania via LAX and Melbourne... Not to bad, Door to door transit time was around 30 hours with minimal sleep.. After customs they managed to send each piece of my luggage to a different part of the country...
April 2004 Boston to Christchurch NZ Via LAX, Korea, and the North Island of NZ... Freakin' Nightmare trip... Lay-overs at each stop, door to door transit time was over 54 hours with little or no sleep... Didn't have to worry about Jet Lag as would sleep any chance I got... Return trip was just as bad but I was better prepared and going home is less stressful than the trip away..
@stupimlico Whoa, that drive from Alaska to Virginia sounds like such an adventure; I bet you saw some amazing things!! I don't think I'd be brave enough to sleep in my car any day of the year, though. I was afraid of us getting stuck if hotels were full due to holiday travelers, but we had good luck finding pet-friendly hotels with vacancies.
@msklzannie Oh, those childhood trips with family were something else, weren't they? I only had one brother, but I remember making the 9 hour drive to Disney World sharing the back of a regular-sized sedan wasn't always great fun. And your description of driving on ice somewhere was my nightmare. I specifically didn't want to drive I-40 for that reason, but we did anyway. But ice was the main reason we would always stop for the night by around 9pm; I could've driven more, but being from Alabama, I entirely lack ice- and snow-driving skills.
@magic cave Ha! That sounds like the equivalent of about 1,100 hours of driving to me. Now I feel bad for complaining about my knee during my trip--I have a manual, and my leg was bothering me the first day after we'd been stuck in a lot of construction areas in Alabama and Mississippi.
@hobbitss How do people drive in blizzard conditions?! Just the thought of driving in any kind of snow terrifies me! I guess it just requires experience, like anything else.
@heyjoie: After living in upstate NY for most of my life, I am convinced that no one can drive in snow. Last winter in Rochester, we had a late season snow storm, and there were 105 accidents on one high way. But I kind of blame the city for that, since nothing closes or shuts down in the snow, so everyone is forced out and about. I think "good" snow driving is a myth.
Here in Seattle I hear the city just completely shuts down for snow, and you know...I'm pretty OK with that.
I drove from Ft. Bragg, NC to Redding, CA.
Wasn't my longest, but 18 hours from Pensacola to Key West is pretty interesting - 18 hours in the same state.
@hobbitss: That 1978 blizzard is one of my all time favorite memories. No school for a week and my brother built the absolute, best, most-incredibly awesome snow fort for us that I had ever seen. The snow came within an inch of the top of our 6 foot fence.
@magic cave: I don't remember the year exactly, but 1989 is in the right range, and it was for Christmas. The nightmare trip was sometime after 1986 and before 1993. My dad swore that that would be the last time he ever drove to Florida for Christmas. We've driven down a couple of times since but have only flown if it's at Christmas.
@heyjoie: Thankfully it was my dad who was driving. (I was far too young at the time to drive.) And even though I now have experience driving in/on snow and ice, I'm glad I haven't had to experience anything quite like that again. My dad's main problem was that no one else knew how to drive on ice so traffic was at a standstill. He finally gave up and did what he said he wasn't going to do: drive on the median to get around traffic.
ETA: The ice began pretty much at the FL border. Since we were so close to my grandma's, Dad just wanted to get there. Also, most of the exit ramps were closed due to ice. We had to keep going until we got out of it.
@msklzannie: Christmas 1989 was on a Monday, and the week before (on Tuesday or Wednesday, I think) parts of North Florida had 1.5" of snow, which pretty well shut the area down. The snow lasted only a day or two, but it was quite cold for December, and as I recall the iciness ran well down toward the Cape Kennedy area.
@caver2130: I used to run a political action organization in Florida, and my national group used to complain that we didn't do enough "lobbying days" for our members. I kept having to point out that driving from South Florida to the state capital in Tallahassee was about the same length of time as driving from Washington, D.C. to Indianapolis, Indiana.
Lots of folks have difficulty believing how big this state really is.
@meh3884: Okay, that's a tremendous comfort to know things close here for snow! It's kind of a big joke in Alabama that anytime there's even a rumor of flurries in the forecast, everyone empties the grocery stores of bread and milk. :) I didn't really know what the reaction to snowy weather was here in Seattle. Although I must say, I hope I see some!
The longest trip I ever made was a circle US trip a year ago. I stayed on the road for three months before heading back to gloomy New Jersey. I've been itching to do it again ever since I got back.
I lose. lol. But 4 hour plane ride to Texas. And 10 hour car ride to New Hampshire.
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