I went on a big family vacation last week to Panama City Beach, and my mom rode down and back with me. Over the last few years, I’ve begun avoiding interstate travel as much as possible and taking back roads. This strategy adds to the travel time (often not by much), but it makes for a much more rewarding drive. This trip was no exception.
We tried to base this route on a route that my niece’s former softball hitting coach (and now boss) takes, in which he drives into Middle Georgia and cuts southwest. Because we stopped at Buc-ee’s first, that changed our route somewhat, and we had to improvise. Getting to and from PCB, our only interstate travel was getting to Buc-ee’s.
Side note: This might sound heretical from a dyed-in-the-wool Southern boy, but Buc-ee’s is losing a bit of luster to me. The food prices keep going up, and even gas wasn’t as cheap as I expected it to be there last week. Your mileage may vary.
Once we started finding our way, with help from Apple Maps, we turned onto some state and county highways and got the benefit of seeing beautiful Southern countryside. Spacious farms dotted the landscape. Gorgeous old houses and barns caught our eye. At one point, we got a laugh out of watching a farm irrigation sprinkler that had gone rogue and was spraying cars in the lane going in the other direction.
Flashback: The Kindness of Strangers: A Different Kind of Adventure in the Mountains
In Southwest Georgia, I noticed that we were getting ready to drive through the town of Bluffton, and I wondered if we were going to drive by White Oak Pastures, a regenerative farm that I’ve written about here and that I’ve wanted to visit. The farm has a general store and restaurant, but we passed it more quickly than I expected. So I decided that if we went by it on our way home, I wanted to stop in.
It didn’t take us long to realize one of the rare drawbacks to taking back roads: no fast-food options and almost no places to stop for gas. Since we were nearing lunchtime and my truck was nearing empty (unlike my bladder), we needed to find a place to stop.
We had a snack bag in the truck, but we wanted something of more substance. We finally found a good gas station at a decent price on a state highway outside of Dothan, Ala., and we stopped for sausage dogs at a Circle K in Chipley, Fla. (Hey, don’t knock it; the sausages were pretty tasty, even if the buns weren’t great.)
On the way down, the back roads added about 45 minutes to our travel time, not counting stops, so we were definitely game to do it again on the way home. Once again, Apple Maps led the way like our Sacajawea. For the most part, the route home followed the route down to the beach, but since we selected a different destination — rather than starting out on back roads from Buc-ee’s — we didn’t spend any time on interstates at all.
We stopped by the general store at White Oak Pastures, but we weren’t hungry, so we didn’t eat at the restaurant. Instead, I got a peanut butter sourdough brownie. I’m going to try to plan a day to go down there this fall to experience it for myself.
My mom wanted some peaches, so we found Dickey Farms in the cute little town of Musella, Ga. As a storm threatened around us, we picked up peaches and peach pies to snack our way home. Our last stop after filling up the truck was the famous Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson, Ga., which I wrote about in my book Neon Crosses, where we picked up some pulled pork for supper. With more stops and less interstate, our trip home took considerably longer, but it was more relaxed.
I was nowhere near as tired when I got home as I would have been had I driven interstates. I’m more tense when I’m surrounded by tractor-trailers and faster drivers. The scenery on interstates is less rewarding as well. The open back roads and sometimes spontaneous stops give me a sense of freedom that feels good. And that’s not just me talking. Multiple studies confirm that back roads are less stressful compared to interstate travel in general.
Look, I know that I can’t avoid the interstates for the rest of my life. But if I have a choice, give me back roads and far more interesting travel any day. I believe that it’s better for my well-being, and it makes for a more fun trip.
