Scenic tour vacation?

[teacup princess]

I've long wanted to do kind of an old-style scenic tour vacation of our surrounding states with my kids. I live in Illinois and was thinking about heading to Indianapolis first to visit some relatives and maybe seeing the Children's museum or Speedway there. Then heading straight south to Kentucky, maybe meeting up with my parents who live nearby to visit Mammoth Cave or a similiar cave in Kentucky. Then heading to Tenesee or the Ozarks in Missouri to round up the trip. I need this to be a REALLY cheap (< $1000) vacation over Spring Break week. Am I crazy to want to attempt this with 3 kids under 8 y.o. or has anyone done anything like this? What kind of hotspots do you know of which are along this route? Do you think this can be done for under $1000 (we'd stay with relative 2 nights?) I have no idea how to start planning.

 

[skip323]

I have not done this however.....I have been pricing vacations in these areas (we are in Indiana). LOTS of great deals for hotels right now. I would go to two places: www.travelzoo.com Travelzoo has great hotel deals. Just click on hotels for midwest and for Kentucky. I would then go to www.tripadvisor.com On trip advisor you can put in the area you are interested in and get reviews on various tourist spots as well as hotels. Between these two sites I have been able to come up with great options for a cheap and fun spring break to the Louisville area or St. Louis area....I will probably do St. Louis. Have fun!

 

[Mas17]

Sounds like a lot of driving.

I will say - I'm from Indianapolis & our Childrens' Museum is one of THE BEST. You can literally spend an entire day there. There is so much to do, your kids sound like the perfect ages. We also have a very nice Zoo if your into that. You might also be able to take in a AA Indiana baseball game at Victory Field. One of the best minor league fields.
The Speedway tour would be cool too. I think you can drive or they will drive you around the track for a fee. Not sure. (we've driven around on "community day" during May & it was awesome) The museum is nice too.

There are plenty of things to do & see along your way.

Have fun & be safe!

 

[kjpotter]

There is alot to do in St. Louis for families. The zoo is free ($8 parking), the Art Museum is free, and you can always find something else to do also. If you have any questions about the area, PM me.

 

[minniebeth]

I'd stick with two destinations with seeing things in between if you want to keep your costs down. Indianapolis, like others have said is awesome and a lot to do there for your kids' ages. If you want more scenic things too, you can take a ride (very pretty) down to Nashville (Brown County) which is so nice, small shops, arts, restaurants. Just south of Indy.

Sounds like a neat trip!
Good luck planning!

 

[3boymthr]

I have done something similar but more extensive - with three kids but only 2 were under 8 - their ages were 4, 6 & 10. If you have plenty of car activities for them and plan plenty of activities out of the car you will be fine. In fact we're doing a similar trip this summer ourselves only from MA to IN (to visit DH's GMA and sister) and back. One thing we did and will do to make the trip more tolerable is plan our driving so that we drive in the morning for a couple of hours then stopping for our activity then driving another hour or two in the evening or afternoon before dinner maybe driving a little more and then check into the hotel for a swim and bed.

We hit Mammoth cave on that first trip. It's a great place to visit, but make sure to make reservations at least a week before you get there if you want to do more than the basic self guided cave tour. Given how far that probably is I would recommend making that the bottom leg of your trip and heading either east or west for a day then heading back. The best part about the first trip we took was the ability to stop as smell the roses - such as getting an ice-cream when we wanted or letting the kids play on a "new to them" playground, or touring a bunch of gift shops in a little tourist town on the shores of the Lake Michigan and not having to worry about not making our hotel if we made an unplanned pitstop.

If you can find the right hotels or camp you can definitely do this for under $1000. You can save money by getting hotels with free continental breakfast or picking up a danish at a grocery store, bringing a cooler and eating lunch of PB&J or lunchmeat.

ETA - one of the best planning tools I found was the AAA online triptik as it will tell you approximate drive times between locations, shows activities in the planned driving area. There are other similar online trip planning tools. If you google trip planning map you will find them but they are not all created equal so try multiple services. There are enough free ones that you shouldn't have to pay.

 

[ohlas]

Go to the different states vistor site you plan on visiting... Im sure they have aton of great ideas, how nice it sounds like fun as long as you dont drive to much without stopping dont forget to stop to look at some silly things.. or let the kids each pick something they want to do ...have fun i love road trips

 

[teacup princess]

Thanks for the tips. We definately plan to hopefully eat a continental breakfast at a hotel, stop at a grocery store to buy sandwich stuff, ect for lunch (eating in the car always makes travel time easier for the kids), then eat out a modest priced dinner somewhere. That will help keep costs low. Thanks for the tip on Mammoth Cave. I just assumed you bought tour tickets after you got there. I'll definately check out online prices of our destinations, maybe there's a discount.

Keep the ideas coming!

 

[debbiecarr98]

These are some of the best vacations we have taken. I have relied on Hotwire for hotels, and have really lucked out with great deals on decent places to stay, if you can figure out where you will be when, although even last minute, we have gotten some great deals. The caves look awesome!

 

[kayla87]

If you want more scenic things too, you can take a ride (very pretty) down to Nashville (Brown County) which is so nice, small shops, arts, restaurants. Just south of Indy.

I haven't walked around Nashville before, but I can definitely second that! Brown County State Park is just outside of the town, and we love to drive through the park and hike around one of the lakes. With three small kids you may not want to hike too far into a trail, but the park is worth a stop in my opinion. $7 for an out of state car. http://www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/2988.htm

While in Indianapolis, I'd consider a walk along our canal downtown. Parking is free at White River State Park (as long as there isn't an event going on, like a baseball game), and walking along the canal is totally free! I think it's pretty gorgeous, don't know how exciting it would be for kids though. http://www.in.gov/whiteriver/index.html

I enjoy a nice relaxing time in the Arts Garden, connected to Circle Center Mall. On one side you can see the Indiana Repertory Theatre, on the other the new Conrad hotel. (One time we saw John Madden when we were walking past the Conrad!) Might be boring for kids unless they like watching traffic, but it's free If you're at the mall already, you can take the skywalk to get close to the circle, or it's a short walk to the circle. Visit indydt.com for all the downtown info you need.

 

[kayla87]

Okay, so I know some of my downtown Indy suggestions weren't the best for kids, so I kept thinking...

I don't know what area of Illinois you live, but if you'd be using interstate 70 to get to Indianapolis, I'd suggest using highways 36 or 40 instead. They're more scenic without you doing anything differently than driving a little slower. 36 goes through Rockville and Danville, 40 goes through Brazil, so you'll see some good old historic downtown facades with either.

I was going to suggest the historic Roller Mill in Mansfield (also next to a covered bridge) but I see it's closed for the season. You might want to check out Parke county as a little diversion if you take highway 36...there are covered bridges, Turkey Run State Park...I personally haven't done these things, but they are pretty popular.

 

[v.t.]

We have taken many a driving trip with 3 small kids. It is a lot of fun if you have plenty of snacks, games, etc. We also rent books on tape from our library. Did you know that the Harry Potter books last between 9 & 14 hours!!!!! At most rest stops and welcome centers they have coupon books to make hotel deals cheaper, some welcome centers also have coloring books, crayons and stickers if you ask. We also always take a ball of some sort to play catch at the rest stops to give the kids a little playing time.
Our very favorite place to stop in IL is the Lincoln Log Cabin in Lerna. Our kids ask to go back every time! I believe it is free. The St. Louis Zoo is great, but food and drinks are very expensive. The arch is an experience and worth the price, IMHO. Have a great trip!

 

[teacup princess]

Hi, me again. Here is my tentative plan. Does this seem like too much for a week?

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/3-v22xUY3rCr5AXMkzCRd8

Day 1& 2 - Indianapolis, visit relatives and do children's museum
Day 2 - Louisville, Ky - take riverboat cruise
Day 3 - Mammoth Caves
Day 4 & 5 - Visit relatives
Day 6 -Drive to St Louis, pitstop in Sikeston, MO for lunch at Lamberts for their famous, thrown rolls
Day 7 - St Louis

This is a total of 18 hours of drive time, with no more than 4.5 hours of driving in a day.