My dad, king of the road trip, used to drive us to Florida every year from Pennsylvania and when Walt Disney World opened in 1971 that was our destination. We’d make it to Florida in two legs, stopping for the night at a motel somewhere around the Carolinas’ border. My sisters and I always wanted to stay at Pedro’s South of the Border because we loved his billboards (“Pedro’s weather forecast  - Chili today, hot tamale”) but we never did. It was probably too expensive.

We’d stop at Atkinson’s, a roadside diner for their delicious 5 for a dollar hot dogs for our lunches and at all the important tourist attractions, alligator farms, Stuckey’s for a pecan log roll, fireworks stands and stuff like that. Dad was not a dad that minded stopping to stretch legs and have a free orange juice at the Florida welcome center or look at some arrowheads on a plaque at a rest stop. He was great.

We’d always go to the beach before or after Walt Disney World and we loved St. Augustine Beach. They used to have great mom and pop motels and I think they still have a few. St. Augustine, (our country’s oldest city, founded by Spain 42 years before the colony at Jamestown) is a pretty little town with a cool old fort, the Fountain of Youth (Ponce de Leon thought he found it here) and lots of historical sites like “the oldest jail” and “the oldest school”. There’s a wax museum, a “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”, and lots of those cheesy orange stands that sell the best souvenirs like coconut monkey heads and inappropriate post cards.

Anyway, the primary destination was Disney World, although in those days there was only the Magic Kingdom and E-Tickets, so we’d stay just the one day. And forget about staying on-site. I used to think that people who could afford to stay at the Contemporary must have been millionaires or something. We stayed at one of the (usually pepto bismol pink) motels in the middle of the orange groves that used to be a half hour or so out of Orlando and it always had a name like “The Flamingo” or “The Florida Motel”.

When my own daughter was 22 and I realized that even having been at WDW dozens of times, she’d never driven there. She’d flown right over the south and missed out on the road trip experience. So the summer before she moved from Ohio to NYC, I convinced her that she needed to drive with me to Florida.

We drove 5 or 6 hours the first day and stopped at the Fairfield Inn and Suites at Wytheville, Virginia, at one of those exits on I 77 with all the chain hotels. Not very interesting, but easy, and besides we found out that the Wohlfhart Haus Dinner Theater was doing “West Side Story” and knew that we just had to go. To be honest, we thought it would be terrible and we would enjoy mocking it, but it ended up being pretty good. The meal was probably the worst of our entire trip, but we had a good time because the singers and dancers were surprisingly talented.

The next day we got up and drove to Charleston, South Carolina and met my sister, who lives in Spartanburg, at the Charleston Place a beautiful, kind of expensive hotel right in the heart of the historic downtown. I’d never been to Charleston and I can see why people like it so much - it’s so pretty and there is history everywhere. We had dinner at a very cool restaurant, Magnolia’s near Waterfront Park, that ended up being great for us (we’re vegetarians) because the chef made a special, very interesting meatless meal just for us.  After dinner, we did a ghost tour that was both spooky and educational.

We got up the next morning, said goodbye to my sister, and headed for Savannah, old fashioned elegant, lovely and one of my new favorite cities.  It has all these gorgeous shady piazzas (or gardens, as they called them). And if you like pirate lore, this is the town for you.

We stayed at the historic Ballastone Inn, conveniently located and beautifully decorated with antiques and different themes in every room.  And hey all you Girl Scouts and ex-Girl Scouts - it’s right next to Juliette Gordon Low’s birthplace.  

And of course I had to take my daughter to St. Augustine for a night. It’s more built up, for sure, than when I was there with my dad, but it still has a kind of simple, not so touristy feel that most other beach towns have. We played on the beach, had dinner at Mango Mango’s and then poked around the old city and the Castillo for a while the next day before completing our pilgrimage to Disney World.

My daughter, who has never been much for long periods of time in the car says she enjoyed the trip and I think she did - I know that I loved it. She got her first post college job and moved to Manhattan, so we may never have the chance to do it again.