Our Ultimate Road Trip Through Three States in the South

The ultimate road trip would have to my husband, our Jeep Grand Cherokee, a road map, a packed cooler and myself. Where would we go? Well, if we had a week all to ourselves and a budget of at least $2,000, we could travel through several states and visit a lot of attractions along the way. Road trips are one of my favorite things to do. When I was a kid my dad would pull out the map and let us close our eyes and point to a spot and we would travel there for vacation, with most of the trip in the van, but that is the fun part of it.

My husband and myself are nature lovers and very outdoor type people, so our ultimate road trip would have to involve all the natural beauty we can find. Last year we went on a road trip and it was so much fun, all the singing in the car, funny jokes we tell when we get board and the long peaceful nights we spent together under the stars, lets not for get that nothing tastes better in the morning than fresh brewed coffee on a campfire.

Our trip started off in Murray, Kentucky on a Friday afternoon we left before the weekend rush on the highways and set out on our 7-day 3-state tour of the south. Our first stop was Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. This is a famous cave that used to be used by pirates to lure passing ships in by using the cave as a Tavern, after they would dock in the cave the pirates would then plunder, rape and murder the travelers. The cave itself is 55-foot in length, 17 meters wide and is located right on the banks of the Ohio River. We visited the Entire Park and cave, and then we rented a campsite, set up camp and relaxed as the day fell into the night.

Next on our list was to travel to southern Illinois via Interstate 57 to visit the Garden Of The Gods, which is located in Shawnee National Forest. Garden of the Gods is 320 million years old and spreads across over 3,000 acres of wilderness. The big reason why this place gets so many visitors is due to the sediment rock in this area of the forest. The rock is over 4-miles deep and is fractured along the way to create some of the most interesting rock formations in the world. We got there at about 2 pm and had a 2.7-mile backpack hike into the backwoods to Pharaoh Campground, where we were to rough it for the night. The hike was a wondrous adventure through the most amazing forest and came to stop at a plateau that had 12 basis campsites. The facilities included a picnic table, fire pit, pit toilets and fresh drinking water and were only 5.00 per night. We rolled out our sleeping bags around the fire pit and slept under the stars. We liked this area so much we stayed another night before getting back on the road.

Our Next stop on the list was to travel via Western Kentucky Parkway to Mammoth Cave just outside Hopkinsville, KY. Mammoth Cave is the largest cave system in the world, this is a National Park and they work hard to preserve the cave system. The cave system is 367-miles of cave that has been explored to date. One of the early guides Stephen Bishop called the cave "grand, gloomy and peculiar place". The cave received its name "Mammoth" from the huge chambers and complex labyrinths that wind through the 367-miles. We camped here as well, but we did not sleep under the stars. After taking our tour of the cave, which cost 25.00 per person, a little high if you ask me, but well worth the money. We rented a campsite; here the campsites were much higher priced at 22.00 per night for a basic site with no running water and no picnic table at our site, but a communal table per three sites. We did have a fire pit and a grill, so we made the best of it and stayed here for 2 nights. The camping among the whispering pines was tranquility at its best, we were the only campers in or around our site and had a ball telling ghost stories, dancing, listening to music and just staying up until 2am chatting each other up.

Our last stop was to take us back through eastern KY, into Tennessee via Hwy 24 to Interstate 75 just outside of Chattanooga, TN. We stopped off in Chattanooga to register in our hotel room at the Marriott, which was one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. the cost of the adjoining room was a little pricey at 208.00 per night and we stayed the duration of our week trip here, which was 3 nights, so this was the most expensive part of our road trip at 650.00 just for lodging, but the comfort and luxury was nice after all the backwoods camping we did. After our first night in pure luxury, we went to visit one of the most famous waterfalls in the world called Ruby Falls, located at 1720 Lookout Mountain Scenic Highway Chattanooga, TN (423) 821-2544. As we started the tour we could only gasp at the remarkable beauty and formations for Ruby Falls, it was truly majestic. On the way to the waterfall we enjoyed several geological wonders, this is defiantly worth taking a trip to see, amazing! During our stay here we also got to see and do a lot in Chattanooga, like eat on the "Chattanooga Cho Cho", which is an old train they turned into a restaurant; the food was great, but the prices were not. A plate ranged from 30.00 to 50.00 per person.

Listed below is a trace on how much money this road trip took. My budget was 2,000.00 for a family of four to take this ultimate road trip full of adventure. The total cost for everything came to 1,820.00 leaving us with 220.00 under budget. All in all, this was a great family road trip.

Food- 300.00
Camping- 100.00
Lodging- 650.00
Gas- 270.00
Paid Attractions- 400.00
Entertainment- 100.00

References for this article came from my personal experience and from www.tripadvisor.com and www.travel.yahoo.com