road trip | lost in exploration 2023
an 11-day road trip starting in Indianapolis, visiting 10 cities in five states
the who + why:
After following a few people living the van-life on Instagram, I started thinking about where I’ve wanted to visit. The gist: life is short, live it up now instead of constantly saying “Would love to go there, but that’ll never happen.” Over the years, I’ve enjoyed watching Fixer Upper and Joanna Gaines’ work and thought it would be really fun to see it all in person. I knew my boyfriend wouldn’t be interested in going down to Waco, so I decided to ask one of my best friends, Tabs (Tabitha), because she loves to travel and knew she’d be down for the adventure! But rather than simply flying down just for Waco/Magnolia, I thought, why not make it a whole journey instead of a destination. So, that’s what we did.
Jen (left), Tabs (right)
In June of 2022, we sat down to discuss the details, and noticed when mapping it out there are two main routes you can go. We said yes to both: taking one way down and the other way back. Each route is ~16.5 hours, but with stopping in 10 cities over 11 days, and staying overnight in six of them, it definitely helped to break up the driving quite a bit!
Also, of course we had to have a name for our road trip, and Tabs came up with quite the list of options in which I liked Lost in Exploration the most.
the where:
Indianapolis, IN (home) > Nashville, TN > Memphis, TN > Little Rock, AR > Dallas, TX > Waco, TX > Austin, TX > Fort Worth, TX > Oklahoma City, OK > Tulsa, OK > Saint Louis, MO > Indianapolis, IN (home)
the when:
We originally planned our trip for early November 2022, but my boyfriend and I had the privilege and opportunity to visit the Azores in Portugal at the end of October and could not pass it up. I broke the news to Tabs that we’d have to reschedule. It was not ideal as we already reserved the Airbnbs, but thankfully, we were able to cancel or switch dates for all of them.
Fast forward to January 2023, we sat down to replan it all, which we both enjoyed (especially as Ds on the DiSC) and even thankful to have the extra time to research and plan. Since we were making our way to Texas, summertime was out, and we didn’t want to wait until fall again, so springtime it was! We checked our calendars and set the dates: 4/21 - 5/1. A time that would hopefully be warmer but not hot.
We chose to stay overnight in 6/10 cities: Memphis, Dallas, Waco, Austin, Oklahoma City, and Saint Louis. Memphis, Waco, and Austin we stayed at least two nights in order to explore more. Check out the separate blog posts (links below) to find out what we did in each city! *Currently working through them and will continue to add buttons as they’re completed!
the what:
Sometime in 2022, I started a note in my phone to keep track of different places that were suggested by people: mostly people I follow on Instagram who live in the cities we were visiting. For some cities, like Memphis, the list was looooong. For other cities like Little Rock, Fort Worth, and Tulsa, we did a little more research. But for the entire trip, we created a shared Google Sheets workbook so we could keep all of the information in one place to reference throughout the trip. It started with the timeline and lead to pages for budget, Airbnb info, activities, itinerary, weather outlook (for packing), and miscellaneous lists. (Side note: I’m sure there’s an app you can use for planning, but we had fun making our own.)
There was a must-stop for each city: donuts. I love donuts and thought it would be fun to check out local donut shops and try doughy goodness in other cities. Yes, I do have favorites and a ranking. No, we did not necessarily finish each and every donut. That would’ve been a lot, even for me. Along with donuts, the trip also consisted of checking out at least one local coffee shop in each city, or at least in the cities we spent the night. We supported local the majority of the trip, which included restaurants, coffee/donut shops, small businesses) and never stopped at a Starbucks!
This trip was a great mixture of pre-planning and research as well as improvising and spontenaity. There were a handful of times we planned on one thing but decided to do something else based on weather, moods, environment, etc. We enjoyed every bit of it, and I hope you’ll enjoy taking a look back with me!
Start with Nashville and end with St. Louis! Follow me on the Gram to find out where else I’m exploring! :)