On The Road Again

I’m back on the road again. I have left New York City while hauling 150.000 kilograms of luggage and I’m not really sure how that happened. I didn’t have time to shop in New York and I mostly bought camera equipment. But somehow my bags have grown considerably. I have to navigate them through busy Monday morning traffic, while pissing off New York cabbies. They keep coming by, wanting to drive us. That’s New York for you. When you need a cab, you won’t get one. When you don’t want one, they come from all directions. No, I’d rather walk and take the subway, than pay at least $30 to stand in traffic. Besides, two tall girls, three suitcases and two handbags each, won’t fit in most cabs anyway.

Roller skate or small tank

Destination: Newark Airport to pick up the rental car for our New England road trip. My travel companion is my sister Wendy and she comes in quite handy right from the start. We didn’t plan much for this trip. Just a rental car, navigation and a map. The rest we’ll figure out on the way. When booking the rental car I declared with some authority we don’t need to pay extra for a bigger car. I’ve never seen a small, three door rental car in the US and even the economy size cars are quite big. As it turns out, I was wrong. Small cars do exist in the US, judging by the small blue roller skate of a car looking straight at us. While I’m trying to calculate a way to fit our luggage in this tiny car, my sister flashes her pearly white smile and asks the rental car guy “to pick us a nice one”. Lo and behold, this actually works! He brings us to a brand new car that can best be compared to lieutenant Grubers little tank from Alo Alo. Now we don’t have to fear of being squished between enormous SUV’s and trucks on the highway. All the while sliding elegantly out of the car, because this baby is high! The luggage fits perfectly and we are on our way.

The Hamptons

After crossing the Bronx and busy New York traffic, our first stop are The Hamptons. It’s off season now, but during the summer this is a very luxurious vacation spot for the rich and famous. The lavish vacation homes with pools and beach access are now silent witnesses to the end of summer. In West Hampton Beach we find a nice Bed & Breakfast and truly enjoy the quiet outside. No traffic. Just crickets and nothing. We’re still in New York (state), only a 90 minute drive from the city, but this is a completely different place.

Travel in style

Next we drive to Orient Point and take a ferry to New London, Connecticut. A very welcome and relaxed way of traveling, because it shaves about three hours of driving time from our schedule. Not getting seasick is also a bonus.

Besides music (must have), navigation (really useful) and a roadmap (stay tuned for an ode to the roadmap) there is one other necessity during a road trip: hotel booking apps for last minute hoteldeals. Hotel Tonight is our favorite and it offers the NYLO Hotel in Warwick (near Providence, Rhode Island). The hotel is an old textile factory along the banks of the Pawtuxet River. The rooms look like industrial lofts (the kind you would pay insane amounts for in the city) and it has a modern vibe. Compared to the old and frumpy motels we will encounter in the less populated area’s of our trip, this is a breath of fresh air. Plus, the Hotel Tonight app is really fun to browse through. Instead of the regular summations of the hotel facilities, you get descriptions of swanky bathrooms, plush coziness, killer views and wine lists so long, they need a table of contents. And it’s not just pretty words. The hotels advertised by Hotel Tonight are really what they say they are and are offered at a sharper rate. Hotel Tonight is expanding and also offers hotel deals in Europe and the Netherlands. A real good asset on the way and allows us to travel in style.

Cape Cod

After crossing the Massachusetts state line we set sail to Cape Cod. This peninsula is famous for four things: lighthouses, pilgrims, summer vacations and the Kennedy’s. Cape Cod was among the first places settled by the English in America and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port was President Kennedy’s summer vacation house. Next year (2017) they will celebrate the 100th birthday of this iconic president with a lot of bells and whistles. We actually skip most of these tourist attractions and meet up with friends from Austria. This confuses the hell out of the waiters in the local restaurants. “So, you are from Vienna en you are from The Netherlands? And you met up here on Cape Cod…” Yes, we did. Our international bunch takes a tour through the dunes of Provincetown in the most Northeastern point of Cape Cod. We see the sun set from the beach and get company from the seals who peak up from the surf. It doesn’t get much better than this.