Our Crazy Worldschool Year

The Summer Road Trip Review

For those of you who didn’t know, our family actually had a different major adventure planned for 2026 before our decision to worldschool. That’s right, a good, old-fashioned family road trip!

In retrospect, going on a rather aggressively-paced five-week road trip just after uprooting the family and moving out of our home (after months of nonstop projects, packing, unpacking, organizing, etc) wasn’t the best strategy. However, many of our state and national park reservations were already made in January and February, so we figured, “what the heck?” Afterwards I asked myself “what the heck” were we thinking, but alas…

The Big Picture (With a couple Pictures)

We left Maine in early July to visit family and friends in New York State for a week or so. From there, we drove to Niagara Falls, then south into Shenandoah National Park before hitting Gollum’s personal favorites of Luray Caverns and Mammoth Cave, with a visit to an old college friend of Dad’s sandwiched in between.

From Mammoth, we drove west through Branson, Missouri, to meet up with Route 66 in Galena, Kansas. We rode the mother road (and the interstate, but don’t tell the good folk of Radiator Springs) through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, seeing Petrified Forest, El Morro, and countless Route 66 kitsch along the way.

We left Route 66 to drive north to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks before a desert sprint to Glendale, California. After four nights visiting family in Glendale (as well as Santa Monica, shopping malls, and lots of laundry), we drove north to Big Sur, then to the northern California redwoods for a couple days, before spending a night at Crater Lake in Oregon.

This is where things got complicated, because an overly-weighed down van meant that we blew through two rear tires in the middle of nowhere in Idaho at the end of a 10-hour drive day. It was getting dark, and AAA was remarkably unhelpful, but we made it thanks to many helpful local people in Idaho. And the silver lining was Twin Falls, Idaho, ended up being one of the highlights of our trip.

After a set of new tires, and a few updates to our return itinerary to maximize efficiency and eliminate unnecessary driving (and a repack of the van to better redistribute weight), we finally left Idaho for Yellowstone. We spent the better part of four days there and saw almost all that the park has to offer, including an elk visiting our campsite while we played games at the table.

From Yellowstone we regrouped and washed ourselves in Billings, Montana, before a pretty aggressively-paced drive back to New York’s Hudson Valley, with stops at Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The return journey was a much more direct operation, but we made it and here we are (temporarily, at least).

Perspectives

Each of us had our own road trip story, including highlights and lowlights, so let’s each say our peace about this hare-brained expedition.

Dad

I planned the road trip (and the worldschool adventure), so I felt a lot of pressure to make sure everyone was having a good time. It became clear quickly that so many hours on the road together in the van and nonstop transitions precluded “having a good time.” Then we shredded through two van tires in the Idaho wilderness, and I basically threw up my hands and said “it is what it is,” a sentiment I probably should have come to far earlier in the trip.

My highlights were definitely Zion, Yellowstone, and Northern California. Zion was simply heavenly, everywhere you looked being the most beautiful sight you’d ever seen. In Yellowstone, we were able to do a lot of exploring in the mornings and evenings to avoid crowds, and we saw more geysers, hot springs, and mud pots than I can count. Finally, the redwoods were otherworldly, while the Mendocino area of Northern California was a place I could see myself settling down in.

My least favorite thing about the trip was the unrelenting pace. It’s always been pretty exhausting just to drive the 6 hours from Maine to New York for family visits, so I’m not sure why I thought five Groundhog Day-esque weeks of 6-10+ hour drives would be pleasant. Not surprisingly, our best times were in places we did less driving and had more multi-night stays. I’m very glad we made the choice to practice a different sort of intentional “slow travel” during our upcoming worldschool year.

My favorite picture is two views of the same rock formation taken from our campsite at Zion. It was hot as hell during the day, but the views from our campsite were heavenly, especially at sunrise and sunset.

Mom

Where to begin…. There were a lot of ups and a lot of downs, with the highs being really high and the lows being pretty low. Overall it was a great experience and I feel that we learned a lot about our family’s needs.

• Zion – Zion was simply magical. Everywhere you looked it was breathtaking, like nothing I’d ever seen before. The heat was brutal and it definitely took a toll on all of us (especially the kids). We quickly realized that getting moving and exploring as early as we could was great, but the heat limited our ability to do as much exploring and hiking as we had hoped. 
• The Redwoods, especially Jed Smith State Park – I can’t speak highly enough about this campground and state park! It was beautiful and there was a shallow river that was crystal clear to swim in.  Across the river was the large preserve of huge redwoods. Walking through made me think of dinosaurs and imaging them roaming among those trees. 
• Yellowstone – Yellowstone was probably the most “kid friendly” experience, which was really nice. There were a lot of short easy boardwalks that provided us with a lot of colorful hot springs, mud pots, and erupting geysers. Going out in the evenings here was my absolute favorite between the cooler temperature, fewer people, and the setting of the sun.  We also spent the most time here and were able truly able to see so many different spots. 

Overall, anytime we had more than one night in a place (especially when camping) it was best for all. Having the ability to settle into a place made for happy campers all around. Riding in the car for too many hours, day after day, was hard on everyone and caused many fights among the kids. 

My favorite picture was taken at Grand Prismatic Spring during our first evening in Yellowstone. Note the haze from the wildfire smoke in the sky, which followed us for much of the trip.

Older Brother

So when my dad told us we were going on a road trip I was thinking, “Wow 6 hours a day in the car is going to be ‘the definition of family bonding’ cus every 10 minutes someone would need a rest stop and then dad would have his head explode with stress.” And guess what happened – exactly that. >: ( 

My favorite place was California because I played video games with my Uncle Josh and went on almost every ride at Santa Monica Pier (I missed like 3 of them cus they were for little kids). I also liked Yellowstone National Park and we saw a LOT of geysers go off. We even saw Old Faithful go off twice in one day! 

Now my least favorite was Zion. It was really cool but it was like hell there. I remember the high was once 105 degrees fahrenheit. 😡🥵  I dumped water all over myself once every hour. 

The most unique place was Mammoth Cave. So when people think of Mammoth Cave they think of really big walls and it’s just big. Everything is big, yeeaah no in reality in some spots I was almost crawling. 

The most boring moment of the trip was when we had shredded the back two tires. I was smart enough to pull out my Nintendo Switch 😀.

My favorite picture is from Pops, a giant soda store on Route 66. They had bottled soda from around the world, and their soda was good.

Sister

I thought it was a lot of long, boring car rides, but it was also fun to get out and explore. And fun to listen to Harry Potter audiobooks in the car. We saw a lot of animals and they were really cool because we got pretty close (too close?).

I really liked Luray Caverns (Virginia) and Mammoth Cave (Kentucky). I loved the mall in Glendale and visiting the Santa Monica Pier (California). I also really liked some of the Airbnbs we stayed at, especially the one in Twin Falls (Idaho) that had a foosball table and a pack of VERY friendly stray kittens.

Things I didn’t like… It was kind of scary when we got a flat tire in Idaho. Zion was hard because it was so *%#$ hot, but it was also fun because of the lizards. Now I want a lizard.

My favorite pictures are these two that I took at Crater Lake. One is the sky and one is the lake – can you tell which is which?

Younger Brother

It was pretty good, but too much driving. 

I really liked seeing all of the animals and posting pictures of Gollum in different places. I also liked going to Quebec City with Mom and Dad at the end. I loved the aquarium, the skatepark, and all the old cannons in Quebec.

I hated all the time in the car, but at least we are safe. (*side note – Younger Brother does best with structure and routine, and doesn’t transition easily on the best of days, so the lack of structure and sheer volume and scale of transitions were challenging at times.)

My favorite picture is of Gollum on the edge of the Grand Canyon