Road trip advice

(not sure if this the correct sub forum for this question)

Hey folks, I’m in Toronto Ontario Canada and I would like to ask you for some road trip suggestions.
Edit: I wish to travel into the U.S for the road trip.

I’m off for 7 days at the end of May and I’d like to go for a drive.

I’d like to steer clear of any major cities or anywhere where there are lots of people.


I’ll probably be travelling with a RTT so ideally I’d love to camp anywhere I can. I love to visit parks, I love crown land camping, exploring off the beaten path and seeing or doing cool and interesting things.

The journey itself is more important that any actual destination.

As silly as it sounds, my wife and love going on adventures.

I’d appreciate any thoughts you all may have.


Thanking you all in advance.

 

I don’t know your area, but when we look at doing some road trip travels, we like to create some hard points like furtherest distance from home, or certain things within a circle of distance, and pin them on a map and then we would see how many of those pens would connect logistically then the journey falls between those hard points.
Example: we left central California and our hard point were national parks all the way to the Canadian border and we kind of winged it with everything in between. That’s Kind of how we do things but that’s just my two cents. Not sure if that helps at all. Either way enjoy your road trip!!

 

That’s kinda our philosophy too. We usually wing it planning to camp in parks along the way. I just don’t really know which are the good parks on the other side of the border. I’m going to have to get a map.

 

Which direction are you headed? upper michigan to Badlands/black hills would be an aggressive drive to do in 7 days, but it would be some epic scenery. Otherwise, I'd drop the idea of Badlands and just do a loop around lake superior.

 

Badlands look amazing but maybe a little too much for a week.

 

Thinking Mount Washington
Bar Harbour
Upstate New York
Vermont
Anywhere I don’t find a lot of people and anywhere I can camp or hike

 

I don't have much experience in NE (by car, at least), but its a bucket list of mine to road trip. One of these days I'm going to pull the camper in that direction

 

For a seven day trip, I would second the Lake Superior area, but picking one side. I'm from MI, and transplanted to VA for work a few years ago. If you wanted to, you could easily spend a week in the U.P. of Michigan. There are several waterfalls and hikes to get to them, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Tahquamenon Falls (upper and lower). It's the right time of year to get there as the spring run off will have them flowing pretty well and you'll be well ahead of the black flies and mosquitoes. And school will be in, so the tourism won't be kicking in yet.

You could also drop down to Sleeping Bear Dunes in the Lower Peninsula for a day.

One thought, instead of circling Lake Superior, just do one side. If you went Toronto around to Duluth via the northern Canada route, you have 30 hours of driving. That's a solid two day trip just getting there. Going to Sault Ste. Marie is 8 hours from Toronto, which would give you more time to explore and shorter days on the road. We did this on our last trip, limited our driving time to about eight hours. It was much more enjoyable to have time in the morning to sit for breakfast and dinner was better not behind the wheel.

One word of caution - watch the weather. the UP can still get some major snow storms that time of year. They aren't real common, but it can happen. Prepare for it and you should be ok.

If you decide to go that route, hit up the Michigan Tacoma's group. Good group of guys and lots of knowledge. And maybe some local contacts if you run into trouble.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/michigan-tacomas.26380/

 

My thoughts went immediately to the U.P. of Michigan -- I haven't been, but it's on the list. May would be a bit early in the year for the UP, for me anyway. To avoid people, you'll likely need to be in a National Forest that has good dispersed camping. Upstate NY and Vermont look like pretty good choices as well, just do some research on the public lands and have some options ready.

 

That area in May will be full of people just an FYI. NEK, Mt Wash, white Mtn not exactly a well kept secret. I say head west from Ontario not east into NEK

 

Michigan's tourism season, largely except for the ski area's and the weekend warriors, doesn't really start until school is out. The only one he should have to work around, and I would strongly advise it, is Memorial Day Weekend. "Up North" Michigan generally opens that weekend.

 

You can end up spending a lot of time in the Adirondacks in NY. Moose River Plains in the late spring to late fall can provide an overlanding like experience. There are some good trails in Green Mountain NF in Vermont as well especially north of Killington.