the beat goes on

“When Life gives you lemons, make lemon rice!” – Waseem

Following Waseem’s open heart surgery, and the two heartbreaking miscarriages we had last year, we decided to not dwell on the lows and instead, take life by the wheel – literally!

Our audacious plan? A 20,000 km road trip across North America, from Toronto to Vancouver, cross the border into the United States and continue our journey from Seattle to New York, covering 24 cities, spending a week in each.

The best part? we have never done anything like this before. Our past travel experiences though delightful, did little to prepare us for what we wanted to do. Evidently, neither were we professional travel bloggers nor retirees on vacation. We had full-time jobs, bills to pay, and a dream to chase.

Kab, Kahaan, Kaise?!

First, let’s talk money. We rented out our home in Toronto so that we didn’t have to worry about paying mortgage for an empty house in addition to the travel expenses.

Budgeting became our new fixation – from groceries to Airbnb stays, we decided to fix a budget and stick to it. Eating out? Limited extravagance. Luxurious hotels and fancy tours? Not for us. Our mantra was “frugal but fabulous.”

And oh boy, the planning! We created a spreadsheet that became our travel planner. It detailed everything – from our dream destinations to kilometers for each drive, the pit stops on the way, gas stations with the cheapest fuel prices, Airbnb bookings, and even the nearest grocery store for those all-important biriyani ingredients!

Forget Instagram, charting routes and bookmarking places on Google maps became our favourite pastime. To say that we were excited was an understatement, we were obsessed.

The Simple Plan:

Travel to a new destination on Saturdays, explore the place on Sundays, resume regular work 9am to 6 pm during the week and pack up everything by Friday. Rinse and repeat.

We marked cities that we were keen to explore and mapped distances. We figured we could cover distances of 500-800 km on drive days and if required, marked places enroute should we needed a stopover.

Route:

🇨🇦 : Toronto ➡️ Owen Sound ➡️ Sault. Ste Marie ➡️ Thunder Bay ➡️ Winnipeg ➡️ Saskatoon ➡️ Edmonton ➡️ Calgary ➡️ Banff & Jasper ➡️ Kelowna ➡️ Kamloops ➡️ Vancouver

🇺🇸 : Portland ➡️ Sacramento ➡️ Los Angeles ➡️ Las Vegas ➡️ Flagstaff ➡️ Albuquerque ➡️ Amarillo ➡️ Dallas ➡️ New Orleans ➡️ Jacksonville ➡️ Washington ➡️ Philadelphia ➡️ New Jersey ➡️ New York ➡️ Rhode Island

And back to Toronto !

The Airbnb Hunts

Finding the perfect place to stay in each city was one of our biggest priorities. Our must-haves included fast Wi-Fi for our remote work, a kitchen to whip up home made feasts, free parking, and privacy. That said, we were open to adjusting within reason in places that were too expensive, (looking at you, west coast) even if it meant staying the week in a private room in someone else’s home as long as it was safe, convenient and comfortable.

We scoured Airbnb listings for places that were located in safe neighborhoods and reasonably close to places we wanted to visit during our time in the city. We wrote to hosts introducing ourselves, dates of travel and at times, attempted to negotiate discounts if it proved to be beyond our budget.

What we packed… and didn’t

6 months on the road meant we could need anything and everything. Work and personal laptops, passports, ID docs, licenses were transferred from table tops and folders into our suitcases and backpacks. One of the best purchases we made before departing was the Discovery Pass that granted us free admission to all national parks and historic sites in Canada for a whole year!

We packed clothes (everything from summer clothes to sweatshirts and sweaters) for all kinds of weather except extreme Canadian winters. Canadian summers are hot during the day but pleasantly cool at nights. We hoped to get back home before it started snowing, so our parkas and snow boots were left behind in favour of rain jackets and sport shoes.

Our kitchen cabinets were emptied and we filled plastic containers with grocery items we use regularly, from rice to quinoa, lentils to tea sachets, saucepans and spatulas, onions and potatoes – everything found a place in the two carton boxes we dedicated to kitchen items. Waseem had a genius idea to solve our dilemma of how we should be packing the different Indian masala powders that were quintessential to desi cooking. Instead of taking them in their individual packets and containers, a magic masala was made with the perfect amount of red chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric and garam masala. This proved to not just save space but also worked so well for any Indian recipe we made on the road that we are now seriously considering continuing this formula even after we end the road trip.

My work laptop’s companion, my monitor was wrapped in copious amounts of bubble wrap and housed in a gigantic bag with a big green cushion protecting its screen as it travelled from city to city. It even had a dedicated seat in the car with a neck cushion holding it in place.

Grocery lists

Our weekly shopping list hardly varied and we resisted impulse purchases. We bought salad, fruits, veggies, yogurt, eggs, milk, chicken and bread at local grocery stores, and these together with everything we packed from home was more than enough to prepare food for the whole week and meal prep for the weekend. On Fridays, we made extra so that we were never hungry when on the road the next day, and did not have to resort to fast food. Hell, we even made our own (cold) coffee for the long drives. Sorry, Tim Hortons!

Caring for our car

This trip was not only a first for us, but also our car. A dependable Nissan Rogue which has served us well the past three years. We planned to have it serviced every 6-8,000 km and to take rest stops every few hours during long drives. We planned to give the wheels enough rest during the week so that come Saturday, the car is ready for another day of travel.

I think that’s about everything that went into planning for our cross country road trip. Feel free to comment below if there’s anything in particular you want to know about.

And now that you know what went into the prep, join us as we spill the beans on our escapades and misadventures, and the biriyani recipes we perfected on the road.

Because when life serves you a handful of lemons, you squeeze them into your travel water bottle and embark on an unforgettable journey. Or, like Waseem says, make Lemon Rice (a staple in our road trip menu)!

Stay tuned for tales from the open road, where Excel spreadsheets and a love for biriyani led the way!