Our next tour is getting very close now – Adrienne has been busy putting the finishing touches to our detailed sightseeing list and it looks like we will have a great assortment of sights and plenty of entertainment along the way !
In the meantime for the curious followers, here’s a look at more detail of our upcoming tour itinerary for our “South Central USA” Tour.
The planned route …..
During our travel planning and research, we have found an interesting tour planning website which we have utilised to some extent for this trip – called Travellerspoint. (link will open in a new window)
It is quite extensive in terms of its capabilities – a real “one stop shop” for organising and recording a trip if you wanted to. You can map your trip, do accommodation booking, link in other web sites or articles, join travel forums – to name a few – and you could even create a blog and photo archive – all within the one application. And it can be used to cover your travels throughout the whole world, not just the USA.
We have mainly used the mapping and linking capabilities. The mapping function – from which the screen shot above has been taken – allows more flexibility than Google Maps – certainly for the detailed “overall picture” – as there seems to be more ability to add unlimited stop points, as well as being able to indicate your mode of transport between stops (car, train, plane etc.)
The linking function is great as you add a toolbar button to your web browser toolbar, called “Add to Travel Plan”, and when you are on a website looking at something you find you want to associate with your trip, you just click on that toolbar button and it will open the Travellerspoint website (login to your free account required) so you can add it as a reference note at the relevant point within your travel plan.
Adrienne has used it to research our accommodation bookings/options and we have many sightseeing links for each section of the drive tagged as well.
Our map certainly looks to have us “travelling far and wide”, however for this trip I have clearly mis-calculated as we will only be doing just over 4,300 miles according to the map itinerary mileage calculator on Travellerspoint. That’s more than 1,000 miles less than our last trip ! I think I’ll just have to investigate some side-trips along the way ! But as you can see, we still spread out west and east a fair way – covering 3 time zones of the US over the tour as a whole.
As our tour name suggests, we are mainly in the “Central” time zone but we get into the “Mountain” time zone heading west into New Mexico and then into the “Eastern” time zone when we get across to Indiana and part of Kentucky. It doesn’t effect us too much but in Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, the “border” for the time zone change actually splits across the state rather than along a state border.
Lots and lots of new territory to explore as you can see !
Perhaps not the noteable “stand out” sights on this tour that we have had on previous trips – the big names like Yosemite, Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone etc – however we have done a lot of research nonetheless and come up with an interesting selection of sights and activities to look forward to along our route ………..
Overall, after jetting into Dallas, Texas (TX), (the grassy knoll) – and a new “starting point” for us as Los Angeles has always been our 1st destination on our past tours – we head straight off and our itinerary will be –
- Abilene, TX – 1 night
- Carlsbad, New Mexico (NM) – 1 night
- Truth or Consequences, NM – 1 night
- Albuquerque, NM – 1 night (but do we turn left ?!)
- Santa Fe, NM – 2 nights
- Amarillo, TX – 1 night
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (OK) – 1 night (sweeping across a few plains)
- Dodge City, Kansas (KS) – 2 nights
- Manhattan, KS – 1 night (no place like home ?)
- Hannibal, Missouri (MO) – 1 night (Huck & Tom)
- St Louis, MO – 2 nights (clang clang clang !)
- Springfield, Illinois (IL) – 1 night ( Honest Abe…..D’Oh !!)
- Indianapolis, Indiana (IN) – 1 night (vroom vroom)
- Lexington, Kentucky (KY) – 2 nights (and they’re off ! – well a bit north at Louisville anyway)
- Nashville, Tennessee (TN) – 2 nights (what kind of music do you usually have here ?)
- Memphis, TN – 1 night (thank you very much !)
- Hot Springs, Arkansas (AR) – 1 night (just past those Blondes in Little Rock)
- Eureka Springs, AR – 1 night
- Poteau, OK – 1 night
- Dallas, TX – 2 nights (via Paris, Texas)
And along the way we will take in a few more of the wonderful National Parks we have come to look forward to so much on our tours – a re-visit to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, plus 3 new ones – Guadalupe Mountains in Texas (actually not far from Carlsbad Caverns), Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Hot Springs in Arkansas.
So stay tuned – not long to go now before we hit the road !
