It’s been six years since I last updated our map here, and comparing that older image with this one, you’d be hard-pressed to find what new roads we’ve added. East of the 100th meridian, which is right about the exact middle of the U.S., has been poorly traveled by Caroline and I, and while we’d like to rectify those omissions, getting out into those places is a seriously laborious task. To reach the middle, we need to drive 1,000 miles into America requiring about 15 hours before things get underway. Of course, we could fly to somewhere, such as Dallas, Texas, for nearly $1,000, rent a car for about $1,000 for two weeks, or drive our own car and spend about $75 on gas for each direction, though we’d lose a lot of time. The idea of exploring areas on the map we’ve not seen in the South feels like a bit of a roll of the dice should we decide to commit more than $5,000 to wander places not known as having brilliant natural or historical destinations, aside from Civil War sites. If we opt for the northeast, we’d be inclined to hit some old favorites that would distract us from visiting the unknown, which has always been a large part of the joy we find in traveling.

While prices for airfare, car rentals, and hotels have tripled in the past 15 years, incomes have not. At this point, the question becomes whether it is better to throw that $5,000 and $5,000 more to spend three weeks in Europe instead of two weeks on American roads, where we may or may not find significance along the way. For $5,000, we can fly into Mexico City, Mexico, and have a luxurious adventure exploring ancient history and amazing food throughout the region while still coming home with $1,000 in our pocket. We also feel that we are excluding ourselves from many of the National Parks in America as more of them become overcrowded and require reservations. Just consider the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico west of the Florida Keys: its campsites are sold out through March 2025. Travel no longer feels as easy as it once did.