Travel tip: Don’t rule out a journey that doesn’t come full circle.
I needed to plan a trip to St. Augustine, Florida, and I had the flexibility to be creative. None of the flight / car options looked too budget-friendly when flying to Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, or even Atlanta. Maybe it’s because I waited too long – typically I like locking in flights months in advance. For this trip, it was only about a week.
The rental car was surprisingly a big blocker. For a six day trip, a rental car from any airport was going to run over $500. Typically a rental car runs me about $50/day, so I had a little sticker shock and played around with my options.
Switching to one way flights and focusing around car rentals, I found my winner. CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA.
You may be looking at a map and seeing that on a good day, Charlotte to St. Augustine is 6.5 hours, which hardly counts as the same neck of the woods. However, that 6.5 hours goes past some amazing places. South Carolina has some of the buzziest escape rooms in the country. Flying into Charlotte puts Asheville into play, with the famous Biltmore mansion. Heading east and south gives us places like Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Savannah. Clearly, we wouldn’t be bored.
I mentioned earlier looking at one way flights, and that opened up a fun possibility- continuing past St. Augustine and heading even further south. Miami had good flights home. However, if we’re going that far, I figured we might as well go all the way. Our trip would end in Fort Myers in southern Florida, nearly 11 hours direct driving from our starting point. And I promise we wouldn’t be driving in anywhere near a straight line!
The additional leg of the trip opens up other great places like the attractions of Orlando or the museums of Cape Canaveral.
It took a while exploring flight and car options, but I’m thrilled with this itinerary. It may not sound like a “relaxing” trip to everyone, but there are so many amazing things to see. Some of the best trips are ones where you stop at detours and find unexpected treasures, and I highly, highly recommend trying a road trip with a spontaneous route if you have the flexibility!
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