…One way ticket yeah! And I do hereby apologize to the Beatles!

Not everyone can get the time (or afford) to take off a week for a little relaxation.

Nor can one always afford the three day weekend away of which profiling a different one used to be a mainstay in the New York Times Travel and Leisure Section on a weekly basis. While pretty inexpensive all things considered, they also relied on cheap airfare since they were hops to other cities and weren’t all that cheap in the end… (though the one to Paris, France… sigh)

Me? Once in a while I like to do something different (odd?) and spend little money doing it.

Quite a number of years ago… late 80’s…. a series of books sadly out of print but a precursor to some other fair were published by Joan Lundquist Scalpone called Mini Day Trips.

Each of them (more than 16 books) had 150 Free or Very Low Cost trips and while specific to the Sunshine State offered some interesting things to do… from Ferry Boat Rides to Ghost Towns to Rooftop Vistas for viewing.

Since then one of the local TV stations (Channel 13) reporters wrote a series of books to go with a segment on one of the shows called “One Tank Trips”. Since he was based in Orlando they are all the things you can go and do on one tank of gas there and back. His ride was a Chrysler PT Cruiser.

However since I ride a motorcycle I’ve become a fan of something I recently found called “Mad Maps.”

Founded and owned by a woman, they have maps for every part of the US that detail specific rides usually in backcountry or very scenic areas from day rides to two week long excursions.

While they are mainly geared towards the cycle crowd they are still fine for the car or RV tourist and if you want to take several days the Bicycle group.

I picked up the one for Florida… it has 25 detailed rides and has small blurbs about good places to eat and things to see on each ride and more can be found on the websites blog… and all the rides were worked out by volunteer locals. I especially like that the maps appear to be printed on a thick form of Tyvek and are both water resistant and pretty tear proof.

Most of the rides are around 200-250 miles in length. Those further out from my “base” of Orlando could be classed as two or three dayers since you would want to ride to the area, spend the night, do the ride, and spend another night before coming home.

Considering I ride a bike, minimal gas, say $30 on the high side, (heck it’s less than $50 for gas round trip to Key West – a 900 mile ride) and staying two nights in a small out of the way motel in a small town ($60) and factoring in even $60 for meals assuming I eat in (or they have) a real nice restaurant for other than the Mickey D Dollar Menu for breakfast and the local diner or a Subway $5 Foot Long for lunch, we’re looking at maybe $150 for a three day getaway… plus maybe $20 for photo developing if I’ve remembered to take my camera and find a lot of good pics to take.

So what do you do to get away for a couple of days to recharge?

Are you, or do you like to do, the “day tripper” routine?

Has anyone ever done a series of books or articles for your state or city on things to do in a day?

If you are a day tripper how do you keep the costs down?

Photo credit: stock.xchng.