Spontaneous Road Trip Preparations April 20-21

About a week before Easter, we realized Colin was going to have a day off for Good Friday.  With family in town and Colin traveling for a bachelor party, we didn't really have a chance to think about what we might do with a three day weekend until two days before the holiday.  We started the process by thinking of where we could go with just three days and three nights.  Colin has been slightly obsessed with Jacksonville, FL, so we decided that would be one of the destinations for our trip.  Since we both had to work a full day on Thursday, we thought about a destination between Raleigh and Jacksonville and immediately decided on Savannah, Georgia for the first leg of the trip.  We have both been to Charleston, SC and have both really wanted to make a trip to Savannah on numerous occasions, but never did.

There was obviously little time to plan, but on Wednesday evening, after checking hotel rates on Kayak, we decided to try and use the bidding feature on Priceline to find a better deal on a hotel in Savannah.  After selecting our preferences (3.5 stars, historic district or riverfront in Savannah) we bid $65 for the night and our bid was accepted!  The hotel we got, the Hilton Savannah de Soto, was priced at $150 for the same nights on Kayak!

As soon as we bid, Colin remembered an online forum where people share their bids.  For those of you that have never used Priceline, if your bid is not accepted, you can't just go and bid higher for 24 hours.  You can however, change details about the bid (like number of stars or exact location).  We thought we were lucky with our bid on the Savannah hotel, because a lower bid may not have been accepted.  Based on the forum posts, it didn't look like we could have gotten a better deal than we did.

We also went to the library on Wednesday and checked out some travel books on Savannah, Georgia, and Florida and I e-mailed a friend who was familiar with the Jacksonville area.  His recommendation was to go camping at Cumberland Island National Seashore, off the coast of southern Georgia.  I spent Wednesday evening and part of the day on Thursday trying to make reservations for the ferry and campground on the island.  I managed to get us on a ferry for Saturday morning to come back the same day because I was told the campground was full.  But, the woman told me to bring our camping stuff because sometimes there ended up being room on the day of the trip.

So, as soon as we got off of work on Thursday, we grabbed our city bags and camping bags, our travel books, cell phones, laptop and chargers and got in the car headed to Savannah.  We had lodging booked for the night and a ferry ride planned to Cumberland Island on Saturday - and that was all.

 Above: My clothes for a 3 day trip without concrete plans

Below: Colin's clothes for a 3 day trip without concrete plans

 Below: Water bottles, cell phones, cell phone car charger, mp3 players are the essentials for any long trip.  Only thing missing is our dinner and snacks.

Have you ever taken a spontaneous trip?
If so, how does it compare to other trips you've taken?

Stay tuned for details about how we made out!