How Road Trippers Keep Busy During Winter

Photo courtesy Yellowstone National Park on Facebook

I speak from experience here when I say that the winter months can be a long boring time for us road trippers. It’s hard to get out and explore when the roads are unsafe to drive on due to winter snow conditions, and many of the fun attractions are closed for the winter season. Here’s how we cope during winter months:

Plan for summer

Big road trips often take time to plan. I spend a lot of time online, and am always discovering new attractions or places to explore. My travel bucket list keeps growing and growing. I often use the winter months to dream up crazy road trip adventures, plan where we’re going, how long we’ll need to get around, and how much money we should budget for our summer road trips.

Head south

Last week I blogged about a popular winter road trip route: the southern pacific road trip route. This is a great road trip that takes you from California to Florida (or Florida to California depending on your starting point), and is perfect for the winter season as many of the southern states are still warm and sunny. This is a popular route for those wanting to keep in the road trip spirit, but are looking to escape all the snow.

Go Snowshoeing/Skiing

The snow covered mountains are a great place to go exploring during winter months. Although I don’t ski, I did take up snowshoeing for the first time last year. What a fun experience. We’ve only just started getting our winter snow on the local mountains near Whistler, and I can’t wait to get out and snowshoe some of the local trails again this year. It’s kind of a great way to feed that adventure/travel bug that many of us travelers get.

Explore a National Park

There are many parks around the country that offer winter activities, Yellowstone being one of them. As of right now, you have to park your car at the gate and ride into the park on a snowcoach, which looks like fun! I`ve only been to Yellowstone during the summer time, but they`re quite active on their Facebook page about the winter activities offered around the park during winter.

Fly somewhere warm

Like many travelers, we tend to go away somewhere warm and tropical every winter to get away from the dark and stormy days. Last year, we spent a few weeks road tripping around Costa Rica. This year, we chose to spend a bit of time exploring Thailand. It really does help make the winter months feel shorter. Combine that with spending a lot of free time planning spring/summer road trips, and we’re generally entertained for the winter months.

What`s your favorite winter activity?