Trip Motivation
After our Paris plans for Christmas week fell apart, we decided on a trip to Florida! Our last minute flights were purchased and then canceled but we had decided we wanted to do this trip so we drove it! Read our post here on fun activities in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
An Easy Flight if Available
If COVID wasn’t a pressing concern, a flight to Fort Lauderdale would usually be a no-brainer choice compared to driving. Flights are around 2 hours and, usually, relatively cheap ($150 round-trip or less). If you have a Southwest Companion Pass, this can be even cheaper. Several airlines besides Southwest offer nonstop options including Spirit and Jetblue. Unfortunately, our flight was canceled as we were packing for our trip, so we made the decision to drive even though we knew it would be a long drive. Potentially being forced to sit in the airport surrounded by people with other delay possibilities tipped us to driving. Ultimately Spirit sent an email that they had rescheduled us for the next morning, but we accepted a full refund and mostly enjoyed the long road trip.
Part 1: Nashville, TN to Orlando, FL (10 hours plus stops)
We broke up the drive there into several parts. For more on how we handle long road trips with kids, read more here. We packed white boards and pens, wiki stix and activity books. We also watched Encanto multiple times on this road trip to and from Florida. Highly recommend this movie!
We left our house at noon and arrived a little after midnight Eastern time. We stopped every 2 hours. One of our favorite stops we made was at Buc-ee’s, a huge gas station with options for snacks, drinks, brisket sandwiches, pastries, and large clean restrooms. We ate lunch on the road with to-go options from Hardees and Taco Bell. With Atlanta traffic and our numerous stops, we arrived at our hotel at 1am which was an inexpensive but pretty mediocre Clarion Inn near the highway we found using Hotwire.
Part 2: Orlando, FL to Ft Lauderdale, FL (3 hours plus stops)
The next morning, we hit the road at 8am and took the turnpike the rest of the way to our destination, arriving at the beach before noon. The turnpike has multiple stops along it with busy food courts, stores, restrooms, and gas stations. Do pay attention to the distance between stops though, in case you have littles with minimal bladder control (Looking at you, Eleanor). We did have one episode of bladder desperation where we were still 20 miles from the next exit and pulled over into the grass. Gotta do what you gotta do. Be safe when doing so. 🙂
Ft Lauderdale Activities
Read our post here on fun activities in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Part 3: Ft Lauderdale, FL to Atlanta, GA (9 hours plus traffic, a long stop in Orlando, and a few other stops)
On the way back, we broke up the drive by driving from Fort Lauderdale, FL back towards Orlando, FL. We faced a lot of traffic around the Ocala area. One tip for road trips is to always have google maps running to get suggestions for detours. We saved an hour by cutting off the turnpike early. We took a longer break at an outlet mall where we bought some new shoes, explored some toy stores, and ate lunch at a patio outside the food court. We also made another stop at Buc-ee’s, where we bought some kolaches and sandwiches for dinner.
Long driving days are hard. It helped to have the stops to break up our drive and also to delay the phone and movie time as long as our sanity would allow. If you wanted to break up the trip even further than we did, Orlando, Gainesville, Valdosta, and Macon are all city spots between Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta. These cities have parks and outdoor dining options. We also joked about another somewhat silly spot to stop for hot dogs and cheap gas. Our favorite spot: Costco!
We stopped for the night at an inexpensive Hyatt Place north of Atlanta. The hotel cost $99 a night and started our count on collecting Hyatt nights for elevated loyalty status. You could also stay here for 8,000 points. Hyatt Place is one of my favorite brands due to the space and pull-out sofa. We grabbed breakfast to go for the road. (My favorite thing to do is put cereal in a coffee cup and grab some fruit). You can earn Hyatt points from Hyatt stays, the Hyatt credit card and Chase points which can be transferred to Hyatt. Learn more about miles and hotel points here.
Part 4: Atlanta, GA to Nashville, TN (3.5 hours plus stops)
We rushed out after breakfast to beat some of the storms coming to Nashville. We made a quick stop at Love’s travel stop and watched another viewing of Encanto. We did it! This was a long time to be in a car but the kids did great and we enjoyed the vitamin D and sunshine South Florida had to offer.
Activities in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Read our post here on fun activities in Fort Lauderdale, FL
