TravelEssary

Planning Your Pit Stops

• Jeremy and Misty Essary • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Where are the Essary family, and two were exploring America, one destination at a time. 

On this episode of travel Essary, I'm going to share all of the tips and tricks that I have. For planning, your pit stops. Let's chat.  

Welcome and thank you for joining me today. It is just me today. Jeremy will not be here with us. He is busy tending to other things and. Really, he has no part in planning. Our pit stops. He prefers that. I do all of that and I enjoy doing it. So it works out for us. He likes to be, um, kept in suspense, I guess.  📍 

Our road trip, pit stops are our favorite parts of our trips. We really enjoy them. Although  most of the time I'm planning them out of necessity. Um, they're really fun. Stops for us as well. So let's dive into this. If it's something. That you don't normally do, or you've been wanting to add more into your road trips then I think you were going to like this episode.  So the first thing that I take into consideration when planning our family's pit stops, when we are on road trips. Is I have to decide how long in between each stop do I want? 

So normally it's two to three hours for us.  More. So whenever , we just had the teenagers, but now that we have the baby. It's more like every hour and a half and sometimes sooner.  So, , we recently just took a trip this weekend. And I try to make a stop every hour to hour and a half. One because we really weren't in a hurry. 

 And two, because it just makes it so much easier on our one-year-old.  And getting him out of his car seat. And if we wear him out in between stops and we let him stretch his legs and he gets a good 15, 20 minutes of playtime. And then a lot of times he will take naps.  While we're traveling. 

So that's always nice.  So, whatever timeframe works for your family. Whether it's an hour, three hours.  That's what you want to take into consideration.  So for me right now for our family, it's about every hour and a half. 

So, what I do is I get on  Google maps, and I see, okay. If we take this. Route to our destination, where am I going to be? Every hour and a half or around that area?  And give or take 10, 15 minutes. Where am I going to be? And then I look for specific spots.  In that area. So  a lot of the places we like to do pit stops that are usually free or very close to free.  There are places where the little one can run around and we can get a breath of fresh air. 

They have bathrooms and access to like drinks and snacks. Should we want them?  So we love to. Scope out bakeries along our route, at least at one of the places we're going to stop at. Maybe not every stop. If we're doing a. Eight hour road trip. I'm not going to stop every hour and a half and go to a bakery. 

But you know, once that day would be really nice. And we love bakeries in our families. So I look for. Bakeries, whether they're small bakeries or super popular bakeries.  We just went, um, through Llano on our way to Austin this weekend. And we found this cute, tiny little bakery that we just absolutely fell in love with. 

It was so charming. Called Chrissy's homestyle bakery. And that's the kind of pit stops that we really like. There was nowhere to sit inside. It was very, very small inside. You walked in and the counters right there.  But outside, there were some city in places. 

So we sat outside and we ate our snacks and we let the baby run around and play. And it was just a great 15, 20 minute stopover.

So bakeries. R a good place. Now bakeries obviously are not free. If you get something to eat. If you're looking for more of the free things, then a library is a great choice. We have stopped at libraries before.  You can go to the bathroom. A lot of times they'll have coffee or a water available for free. , it's a great place. The teenagers like to actually get out and read books and, You know, walk around the little one. 

It gives him somewhere to walk around and play, and most libraries have a kid section. So it's, it's a great area for him to. Run around while the teenagers are able to do something that they like doing. 

  Another free option is a city park, a local park in that area.  This is something. We have done many, many times with our children from the time they were small, all the way up to teenagers. Because even though they don't really play on playground equipment or anything as a teenager, it's still a great place to get out and stretch your legs. 

It's a great place to get out if you stop by a fast food place or somewhere and get out and eat and enjoy the.  The outdoors and the fresh air for a little bit. But we. Again, on our trip this weekend to Austin, we stopped. Um, I think it was B cave. Bee cave, Texas 

we stopped at their sculpture park. They're going to be cave, Texas. And it was such a unique little stop. It was.  So neat. . It's right. Across from their police station there.  And they had of course, , little trail that you could walk around and look at all of the structures, all of the sculptures. That were created from different, , groups throughout the community. And some of them were very weird and some of them were very cute, but, , our favorite one was 

a life size chess. Board out there.

And Justin and Jeremy are huge chess players. So me and Ariel.  We found benches close by and we just kind of sat down and played with Jasper while Jasper was running around next to us. And Jeremy and Justin played a few games of chess and of course, Jasper. Would run up and try to play too, because the pieces. We're about as big as he were, that they were moving around. 

The pieces were so big and so he would try to move them, but he couldn't even pick them up because they were literally the size of our one-year-old. They were massive.  So that was a really fun pitstop. It really surprised us. , we weren't sure, you know, we're, we're never really sure what we're getting into when we do make these pit stops and. There have been a few, not, not the best experiences, but they were still opportunities for us to get out of the car. 

But for the most part, we're pleasantly surprised because we're getting out of the car. And we don't really know what to expect.  And the sculpture, the beat cave sculpture park was just, it was so much fun. I will put a link to that down in the show notes. If you're ever in the Austin area, um, bee cave, isn't that far from Austin.  It's a really. Unique little stop. 

So.

City parks are a great. Pit stop to take.   Now we actually don't stop at historical markers very often because a lot of the time they're in the middle.  Of a highway. They're just, you're in between two towns and it's just like, boom, there's this historical marker with a little plaque on it. 

That may say a little something, and then you're done. It's not really a great opportunity to stretch your legs, but if you find one in town, which isn't as common, or at least it's harder for me to find them. Whenever I'm doing my Google searches, but if you find one in town,  they don't have a lot more opportunities to get out and stretch your legs. Along those historical markers. But the museums are an amazing choice. And a lot of towns will have free museums, historical museums about their town, or it'll be a very small charge. I think we've spent max  $3 a person to enter, which was great for a little pit stop. 

And of course you have access to bathrooms and stuff as well. So we like train museums and. Little historical museums about that town or that area.  We like museums about.  Pretty much anything, because really we're just happy that we're getting out of the car. So we're, we're okay with whatever it is.  Were an inquisitive family. 

We like learning new things. That's something that we find enjoyable.  So a pit stop can be anything that your family may enjoy. So our favorites are bakeries, , . Libraries city parks. Museums and occasionally some sort of historical marker if it's like a historical house or building or trail or something like that. Now another great way to find these stops is there's  a website called road trippers.com.  They have an app that you can download, but road trippers.com.   And you can put in your route, you can plan your route. And it'll help you find all of these really cool spots along the way. 

Another one that I like to use. 

I've used many times throughout. , our traveling is roadside america.com. And what you do is you put in the state that , your road trip is in, or that your pit stop is going to be in. And then you look 

close to the towns that you're going to be stopping it. And roadside america.com has more of your unique pit stops.  It would, might be something like the world's largest hat or, you know, The state's largest rocking chair. It'll be very unique type stops.  The kind of stops that you're not going to see. Probably at a library or a city park or something like that. 

It's, you're very, 

Off the beaten path type stops. And we really liked those two. So roadside america.com will give you.  Just the weird, the oddities, the roadside attractions that.  You may or may not ever hear of, unless you actually go to roadside america.com. There's so many stops that we have found on that, that I never knew existed. 

Even locally, like within the few hours of where we live in central Texas, I have found things I'm like, oh my gosh, I did not know that was there.   We usually don't do restaurant stops during our pit stops. Usually our restaurant stops are completely and totally by themselves. 

We don't include that in our pit stop because we want to keep our pit stops 15 to 30 minutes. Max and restaurants tend to take way more than that. So I will plan that. , More. So according to our normal eating times, I don't plan that with our pit stops because our kids have pretty. Um, specific times of the day that they're used to eating and Justin are 17 year old. 

If he does not eat. Within those times, it makes them very sick.  So he has to eat.  During his times, let it's time to eat.  And then our youngest two are very accustomed to eating at certain times. So I plan our restaurant stops. Our eating stops very specifically around what time it is and not where we're going to be. So I may plan a pit stop every hour and a half. And it may be 11 o'clock that we have taken a pit stop, but by noon, we're stopping again for the kids to eat wherever that may be.  And which leads me to. One of my first tips when it comes to planning your pit stops. Is plan your pit stops into your time schedule. And then schedule your time at each pitch stop so that it doesn't mess up the rest of your itinerary. 

 I usually, depending on when we're going to be stopping again,  I will plan my pit stops for about 15 minutes. And it's just so we can get out and shut our legs and go the bathroom. Whatever we need to do. So I will plan on for 15 minutes. So I put that extra 15 minutes into our road trip, time into our  overall total time.  And then I do that with every single pit stop. 

And I do that with our eating stops and everything too, mostly. So I know where we're going to be. At what times? Because again, I like to plan around naps and I like to plan around our eating times because that's what works best. For our children.

And it makes road trips go very smoothly for our family. 

We just spent. Two days going back and forth to Austin and we didn't have any issues. And the baby  didn't get very fussy. The teenagers were in good moods. Like it was a really good trip. , I like to think it's because

I am very carefully planning. Our road trips and our pit stops. So.  The next thing I want to say is.  That you want to be sure wherever you're going, wherever you have added as your pit stop. That they're going to be open whenever you get there. I don't know how many times. That we have planned. Mostly restaurant stops. And we get there and the place is closed, even though Google maps says they're open. So as far as a pit stop, it's not.  As big of a deal because you can always just choose something else real quick. 

A pit stops. Literally you can pull off at a gas station or

uh, city park, you know, whatever you need to do. You can make that adjustment, but with the restaurants, it is a lot harder. 

And so I almost.  Always, if it's something we really, really, really want to go to, like I'm super pumped about, and it's something we've never been to before almost always call the number.  That pulls up whenever you Google search it. I call that number and make sure that they're going to be open because we have been disappointed on road trips. 

So many times whenever we were traveling. And mostly it was Darren 20, 20, 20, 21, I guess. Cause you know, Ours looked very different for , every store, every restaurant during that time. But when we were doing road trips, then. , I want to say like 40% of the places that we stopped at were closed, even though Google said they were open. 

So I learned my lesson from that. And now whenever it's something we really want to go to, whether it's a pit stop or a restaurant. I make sure that they're open. Now, if it's a roadside attraction, they're going to be open. It's not a big deal. City parks, you know, Unless it's midnight or something, they're going to be open. But, , bakeries, museums, those are the ones that you might want to double check and make sure that they're open. 

Don't just say, Hey, I'm going to stop there. And then you find out they're not even open on Mondays and that may be the day you're going through. And it's a good way to throw off your itinerary real fast. So. Double-check that they are open.  And double-check prices of anything you may go to like museums . And make sure you have cash on hand. 

We have found that a lot of the smaller towns. A lot of their museums, they only take cash. So if you don't have any cash on you, that could be a problem. So make sure you plan for how much a stop may be and  make sure you have the cash for that. , if it only takes cash. 

 And then.   My last big piece of advice when it comes to planning your pit stop is to take full advantage of each pit. Stop.  There is nothing that bothers my husband more. Then whenever we have just left somewhere. And one of the children or myself, 10 minutes down the road, say I need to go to the bathroom. 

And he's like, you're, you're kidding. Like, we were just stopped. It irritates him to know and understandably it irritates him. And so make sure everyone in your car is taking full advantage of each pit. Stop. So make your kids. If they're little, make them go to the bathroom.  We have teenagers and they can pretty much decide on their own if they need to go to the bathroom or not. But when they were little, I would make them get out and be like, no, you're going to the bathroom because we don't plan on stopping again and for another hour, hour and a half. And so you're going to go to the bathroom.  We take full advantage of changing, wet diapers and refilling. , Sippy cups whenever we're at a pit stop.  If we have less than half a tank of gas and gas is decently priced in that area. 

We go ahead and fill up on gas  while our momentum has slowed down and we're already in an area. Where there are gas stations to stop at.  If we're hungry, we'll grab snacks and drinks. Sometimes I very specifically plan pit stops just to grab snacks and drinks,  like a bakery.  Or a smoke shop that sells like jerky and things like that.  And then we're going to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the car, whether it's, , take out trash from that morning's breakfast. Or clean up messes that baby has made, or, you know, everyone's going to get out and just rearrange themselves in the car , you know, my teenagers may be switching seats  whatever we need to do to get comfortable and make our next hour and a half long trip comfortable. We're pretty big advocators on taking pit stops. I know there are people that like to just drive on through, and honestly, if it was just me and my husband, we would probably still be those people because we were that in the beginning, I think because both of our fathers were that way. 

We're no stopping until we get there. Like make sure everything's done because we got a five-hour trip and we're not stopping.  But as we've had children, We have. Learn one it's better for everyone's sanity. If we take these pit stops, if we embrace the life of slow travel and two, we have found some really amazing and unique opportunities and moments to spend with our kids. While we take these pit stops.

 And the more we make these stops, the more that we enjoy making these stops. I think our kids are getting to where they really enjoy the pit stops to. , this last weekend. They kept asking how much longer to  our next stop. Where are we stopping? 

What's our next stop. We were getting into the car from a pit stop and they're like, well, how much longer to our next stop? And we literally took a.  Three hour and 45 minute trip is, which would have been for us if we would have driven non-stop and turned it into an eight hour. Day. 

Because we stopped so frequently, we of course got out and ate. 

We did some shopping.  It was very enjoyable. What we discovered. Little places here and there a longer way. And it's just something our family really, really, really enjoys if. You've never planned pit stops for your next journey. I challenged you to do that. And see if it's something that maybe you would enjoy too, even if you don't have kids do it for yourself and see if it's something that you may like, you may decide. I'm never doing that again. 

I just want to get from point a to B and I don't want to have any.  Any stops in between, or you may decide, okay, this is, this is kind of fun. It's fun. Discovering new things. It's fun.

Getting out and experiencing new places and meeting new people. . We always get to run into someone when we're taking our pit stops and we'll get to have a fun little conversation with them. Sometimes they'll suggest other places in their town for us to stop at. And we'll either put that on the itinerary for next time or we'll go and do it real quick. 

Before we get back on the road. , it gives us an opportunity to.

Make fun, sweet little memories with our children and.  Again, it just, it really, really, really makes her road trips so much smoother. We don't have kids in the backseat saying, are we there yet? We don't have people whining that they need to go to the bathroom because we've taken full advantage of all of our stops. 

We don't have hungry kids or thirsty kids because. They have.  More than enough. Every time we stop, we allow them to get something or you plan for things. , their legs are being stretched. They're not being cramped up.  And they're getting to experience new things too. And finding little joys here and there . From the places around them. 

So. Plan your pit stops. It's. A very vital part of our road trip.  Vacations. And I bet that you're going to love it so much. That it's something that you're going to want to continue to do. 

 Next week, we are going to start a little mini series about. Traveling to Disney world. And all things, Disney world, our experiences there.  We want to share. All of our information with you.  We're going to break down each of the parks and what they have to offer. 

We're going to give some little known facts about Disney world that most people, if you've never visited, you don't know about it. 

  📍 We're going to do five episodes on Disney world and our fifth episode, we're actually going to share how we're able to afford. Going to Disney world.  And what that looks like. So join us next week.

And we're going to be talking about all things. Magic kingdom.  

  Let's go home na na na. Let's go home na na na