About Us

Hi there!  I am Kris, known by my Bestie as Ki (pronounced just like key).

Thank you for making our website a stop on your road trip planning adventure.  Please allow us to welcome you to our site and give you a brief summary of why we’re here!

MY TRAVELS

I’ve always enjoyed travelling.  When I turned 17 and joined the Air Force, I hoped I would travel to many new places and see the world.  I remember asking for orders to somewhere new at my first base and when asked where I wanted to go, I said, “Anywhere overseas!”.  I was ready for adventure.

I got my wish… well… kinda.  My orders came just a few months later and they were to Panama.  Panama was across the Gulf of Mexico from where I was at the time, not exactly overseas, but I’ll take it!  From there, I travelled to Wyoming, then Florida, and Texas.  Didn’t really see the world but Wyoming was new to me, as was Panama.

It was after I left the service that I really started travelling.  This is where I learned that I absolutely love road trips!  Sure, flying is okay.  The main benefit of flying is that you get there faster.  But when I travel, I want to see interesting things.  You just can’t do that from an airplane at 30,000 feet.

I took a few road trips throughout the years and I found that I really enjoyed those more than flying.  So when I started planning vacations, I planned road trips.  As a single parent, though, road trips can be difficult in that there’s only one driver.  And as a disabled veteran, I need to stop and stretch throughout the trip or I get stiff and sore.

I planned a trip to Washington DC for my son and I several years ago because he is a history buff and he wanted to see our nation’s capital.  I figured if we’re going to take a road trip, I’m going to get the most bang for our buck with the time that we have, so I planned 20 places for us to stop at during this trip.  We had the time of our lives!  It was, by far, the best trip I had ever taken.  From that point on, road tripping became a common goal.

MY BESTIE

Hi I’m Beck. The Bestie.

My travel experience is tiny comparatively speaking. I grew up poor. The only time we traveled was when we were moving. Which happened once in my memory. We moved from Alabama to Florida in 1982 and we stayed here.

The first vacation style trip I went on was a band trip in high school. We went to Gatlinburg Tennessee where I saw mountains for the first time in my life. As I stood in the Great Smokey Mountains and took in the view I knew I wanted to experience as much of this world as I possibly could. But it wasn’t to be.

The first real vacation I took in my life was when my child was 7 years old. We spent a week in St. Augustine Florida. And then another travel drought. Later in my life we visited family in Alabama and Georgia but I wouldn’t actually call that a vacation.

I actually caught the travel bug in 2015 with a road trip to New Orleans with Ki. Scary highway flat tire aside, it was such an enjoyable trip that I really wanted to do it again. I have since got on my first airplane to travel across an ocean to visit Iceland. I have downed some motion sickness pills and gotten on a cruise. But nothing beats sitting in the passenger seat, singing loud and off key to whatever music is on the radio and chatting with my bestie.

Even trips that don’t go as planned can be a blasty blast with the right company. I tend to treat every trip I take as a once in a lifetime experience. I want to go and soak up the history, culture, ghost stories, and air of every single place I visit. From the simple road side stop to the pricey themed experience I am down for all of it.

Where Ki is the planner, I am the chaotic company that packs last minute expecting there to be a store nearby if I forgot something. I get the giggles petting a concrete pig, dive into glee at ruins, get lost in cemeteries and generally enjoy things freely. And I can do that, because my bestie plans. That’s me. Chaos to her clever. I look forward to many adventures in the future.

WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR TRAVELS?

Closed Permanently

Have you ever planned to go somewhere only to show up and find out that it’s closed?  Or that it has been shutdown?  Or that it moved?

It can be terribly frustrating when you’ve spent a ton of time planning the trip of a lifetime only to show up and not be able to see what you wanted.  We’ve been there.

Just a few months ago, I was working on plans for a Key West trip and found several places that had been shut down due to Hurricane Michael.  Some were being fixed, some were closed permanently, but I would have showed up to those places and been terribly disappointed had I not done the research that I was doing at the time.  Unfortunately, that research takes a lot of time to do.

But since I’m doing it anyway, I am providing my research results to you, my friend, because… sharing is caring!

A little disclaimer though, we love historical places and weird places.  That’s most of what you’ll see on this site.  If you don’t like weird or creepy, please just click on through to the next, my feelings will not be hurt.  Hopefully you’ll be able to find everything you need to know about the places you’re thinking about stopping at.

ROAD TRIP STOPS GOAL

The Three of Us

Our goal for this site is to share the different places we’ve been, why we went there, and whether you should stop there or not.  If we can save you some time and trouble researching or prevent you from wasting precious time on your trip, then we are happy with the work we put into this.

Now, don’t get me wrong, who are we to decide whether or not you should stop and see something?  We are simply making recommendations with enough information for you to make an informed decision on your own.  We’re not the boss of you, right?  We won’t pretend to be.  By all means, do as you will.

In the meantime, if you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and we will be more than happy to help you out.

All the best,

Kris M. (Ki) & (Bestie) Beck
Founders of Road Trip Stops

Written by Kris M.