Road Tripping 2024: Back to North Myrtle Beach, Courtesy of Google (Sort Of)

If Google Maps were a person instead of a pile of circuits and satellite waves, I would have booted it out of the car somewhere around Bumf**k, North Carolina, on a rural two-lane highway where the traffic ahead of me was in no hurry to get anywhere. This happened last week, on a long and otherwise happy family road trip that took us to Richmond, Virginia; North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and back home to northern New Jersey.

The trip spanned about 1,320 miles in total, or roughly 2,125 kilometers. I did all the driving, because that’s how I roll. On the first leg we drove to Richmond, stayed a couple nights, then motored along to N. Myrtle for three nights. The return leg took us back up through Virginia Beach for a night and then home. The weather was brilliant (mostly) – bright and sunny, the sky bluer than blue.

This was our first extended road trip since September 2017, when the family traveled by car from Charlotte to Boston (840 miles) and then back down with stops in Connecticut and New York City (another 840 miles). A few months after that trip we moved to London for 5.5 years, where we never traveled anywhere by car.

I blogged about a much shorter car vacation we recently took to Atlantic City. That trip was cute, and fun. But nothing like a real American road trip that takes many days and hundreds of miles to complete. Which brings us back to Google Maps….

In case you aren’t familiar: Google Maps is a GPS phone app you can link to the dashboard display screen in modern, high-tech cars (we have one of those). When you are driving anywhere, whether down the block or across the continent, you can plug in your destination and Google Maps will give you a display showing the best route, the distance, the time it will take to get there, and other neato things.

I had never used Google Maps before returning to America last summer. Being carless at the time, we bought a 2022 Nissan Altima with only 6,000 miles on it for the bargain price of about $26,000 (trust me, that is a GREAT price). The car came equipped with the digital display screen where we could link up with the Google GPS system.

It took some getting used to, but we eventually got the hang of using satellite technology to navigate around. One result is that we no longer use maps, which we once used all the time. Another result is that we don’t really learn our way around that well because we now depend so heavily on Google Maps.

So, the car trip….

One thing I did not know about Google Maps is that it doesn’t differentiate between short trips and long ones. You plug in the destination and it suggests the best route based on current traffic conditions and such. So, you could be driving 500 miles, and it gives you a route that gets you from point A to point B in the most efficient fashion.

But this is not ideal, and I will tell you why. On long trips, you are willing to sacrifice 15 or 20 minutes of extra driving time just to ensure a more relaxing experience. This usually means you prefer to take the interstate highways because you can drive forever and ever and not worry about making a series of turns or navigating a whole bunch of different roads.

In truth, you only need three or four roads to get from northern New Jersey to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, even though the total distance is about 700 miles. You take the Garden State Parkway to the New Jersey Turnpike, which becomes Interstate 95 at the Delaware border. I-95 takes you all the way to south Florida if you want to go that far. In South Carolina, you get off the 95 around Dillon, hit a highway heading east, and badda bing! – you are in North Myrtle Beach about an hour later.

But Google Maps doesn’t look at it that way. The system leads you on a series of small highways, city streets, rural routes, etc., because it thinks all you want to do is get there the fastest. You end up idling at stoplights, on two-lane highways, behind slow drivers on city streets or country byways.

Google thinks all you want to do is save time. But that’s not all you want on long drives. You want to avoid headaches as well.

On our drive south, Google led us through the heart of Washington Damn D.C. – right through dense, urban traffic. On our drive back north we were led into the darkest, loneliest recesses of eastern North Carolina, the middle of nowhere, because Google could not differentiate between a long car trip and a short one. As far as it was concerned we were driving to the grocery store – for 350 miles. I wanted to bash its circuits in every time its voice told me to take another turn and go this way and that.

It is so tiring – tiring tiring tiring – having to navigate a crapload of roads when you are putting in five or six hours at a time behind the wheel. All you want to do is point the car forward and let it do the work. You don’t want to think about making another turn 7 miles down the road, over and over.

Not only that – you also don’t want to be stuck in a part of the world you have no familiarity with. If your GPS suddenly breaks down, you have no idea where you are and no idea how to get where you need to be. And because you don’t have a backup map, you are suddenly dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Not only that – when you are on small rural roads there are no rest stops or eateries along the way. If you need to wee-wee, or grab a bite, you are shite outta luck.

Well, I learned my lesson. On the final leg of the trip, from Virginia Beach back to North Jersey, I found the I-95 freeway, turned off Google Maps, and drove straight north to home.

Oh, and I’m also gonna buy an old-school road atlas…..

*****

All in all, though, it was a great trip. Great to be back behind the wheel for long stretches. Great to see the wide-open spaces in a land so big it would take years or decades to experience everything. I’m an old hand at this, having driven cross-country on several occasions over the decades, from East Coast to West and back again.

It was great not to have to stand in an airport queue, or keep up with boarding passes, or haul luggage from one terminal to the next, or get stuck in a cramped passenger cabin many thousands of feet in the air.

There were times, I will admit, when we were stuck in traffic and I thought to myself that if we had flown we would already be there. But then I remembered the Hell that is air travel these days, and immediately chilled out.

Driving isn’t always the most efficient way to travel, but it is often the most satisfying experience.

Anyway…..

Here are some brief takes on the cities we hit.

Richmond

Richmond, I am convinced, is one of the most underappreciated cities in the USA. It’s a lovely, mid-sized burg with a rich history and culture, very good food, nice architecture, cobblestone downtown streets, some of the coolest neighborhoods you will ever visit, and a laid-back vibe that is like a breath of fresh air. It’s also affordable and not too crowded.

We stayed downtown, near the government and financial districts, which are very walkable (if hilly) and oddly quiet when we visited. We found a nice bar/restaurant to hang out in. We had some good meals. We walked along a canal. It was hot, though. Man, it was hot. One of the country’s worst heat waves in years.

The real star of the show was Carytown, a hipstery neighborhood not too far from downtown where you’ll find an eclectic mix of shops, cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, watering holes, and the like. This is what I imagined Portland, Oregon, would be like when we visited there a few years ago. Portland was a disappointment; Carytown was a revelation.

Richmond is one of those cities where you get a rich urban experience without the noise or crowds. Others that come to mind are Asheville (NC), Portland (Maine), Portsmouth (NH), Savannah (Georgia) and Santa Barbara (Calif.).

North Myrtle Beach

Before we moved to London, this was our favorite family vacation spot. Now that we have moved back to the States, it is still our favorite family vacation spot. The beaches are beautiful and wide, the ocean is warm, the breezes are cool, and we always rent a fabulous high-rise condo overlooking the sea (not cheap, but not outrageously expensive, either).

Our daughters have wanted to visit North Myrtle since we last traveled there in 2017. This trip only served to remind them how much they loved it the first time. Sure, the main boulevard gets crowded, and it’s not always easy finding a dinner spot on crowded weekends. But there is plenty to do for the whole family (swimming, shopping, arcade games, watersports, amusement parks) and prices are cheap compared to where we live and have lived.

Personally, North Myrtle is my favorite beach. Not that I’ve been to a ton, but I have been to beaches in the Bahamas, Hawaii, southern California, Florida, Mississippi, Spain, England, and the northeastern United States. Myrtle has the right combination of climate, ocean temperature, space, seashells, and waves.

Virginia Beach

A better version of Atlantic City, with a boardwalk along the beach and many restaurants and shops. The beach itself is not as nice as North Myrtle – not by a long shot – and the waves are small in comparison. But there is a cool King Neptune statue by the Virginia Beach boardwalk (pictured), and it has better restaurants and more to do along the beach itself.

Note: The photos were taken by the fam. Here’s a couple more from North Myrtle…