We decided that Ari and I would drive out to Palo Alto so that she could have her car and bike with her during her two year west coast adventure. The cross country trip would give us a chance to spend some quality time together, enjoy our country’s landscape and tick off a few states and cities on our “been to” lists. There was one (big) caveat: I was still recovering from major surgery and I wanted to make sure that the trip would not hurt that process. I consulted with my doctor and he recommended that we not push it, take our time, and break each day’s drives into 2 - 3 hour segments and use the breaks to walk around. The decision to make the drive had come in early/mid August. We knew she had to be in Stanford on 9/12 so that she could move into her dorm apartment and begin the process of integrating into her new community. Our goal was to arrive in Palo Alto on 9/11.

For my initial planning, I referenced Google maps and began plotting the route. The most difficult part of the process was figuring out where to stop every couple of hours. As I was struggling with the logistics it dawned on me, “this may be the perfect opportunity to use AI,” so I did.

I turned to ChatGPT and entered the following prompt: ”Help me plan a trip from Northern VA to Palo Alto, CA. I only want to drive for a maximum of 8-9 hours a day, and I want to stop in places where there is something to do.”

Chat GPT returned a pretty interesting itinerary. I continued to tweak my prompt asking for stops every two hours, including hikes and regional landmarks, eliminating cities and places we knew we did not want to drive through. We ultimately ended with the following route:

The more I prompted ChatGPT, the more it learned what my preferences were, and the more it adjusted the places to stop at to match our interests. Ultimately, the route included six overnight stops, 7 “cool” hikes, and a myriad of other places where we could stop for lunch along the way. We also wanted “some” flexibility along the way and ended up skipping at least one out of the way spot that would have added nearly two hours to our drive through KS and opted instead for a visit to Carmel, IN instead of Indianapolis.

Overall it was a great adventure and after having gone through it I would only change a couple of things, including skipping Reno, NV and staying at either Truckee, CA, or Lake Tahoe. Had we had one more day we would have definitely headed south along the lake and then continued west along 50 to Sacramento. Alas, hindsight is 20/20.

Below is our day to day itinerary, along with a selection of photos that highlighted each day. I also brought along my Retina IIIc film camera to document a few stops along the way in film.