Road tested: Family travel adventures in the USA

The wide natural entrance to Mammoth Cave hints at what awaits visitors inside—cool temperatures and giant dome rooms. Mammoth Cave gets its name from the sheer scale of its vast subterranean chambers.

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Posted July 14, 2026 | By Staci Biondini, Special to the ‘Ocala Gazette’ / Photos courtesy Biondini family

When the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and we were all confined to our homes, I, like so many others, coped by dreaming of getting away—anywhere but here. Little did I know those daydreams would grow into a passion that borders on obsession.

What began as a summer 2021 trip to escape life as a working mom turned homeschool teacher for a third grader and fourth grader has become a quest to experience all these United States have to offer.

Over the past five years, my family of four has visited 24 national parks and traveled through 38 states. Along the way, I’ve learned plenty of lessons, tips, budget hacks and travel dos and don’ts that I’m excited to share so you can make the most of your own adventures. But first, here’s how it all began.

In early 2021, we were still arguing about masks and vaccines, and air travel felt risky. As a child of the ’80s, I’d always dreamed of a Griswold-style family vacation, so a classic American road trip seemed like the perfect solution.

Craving connection after so much time in isolation, I planned a circle trip to Chicago to visit family. Our route would take us through nine states, with stops every few days in cities like Nashville, Lexington, Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis. As I searched the internet for affordable things to do along the way, I realized our route passed three national parks: Mammoth Cave, Indiana Dunes and Gateway Arch.

Like many Southerners, I’d visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park several times, but my national park experience ended there. Coming from a long line of homebodies who rarely ventured past the Southeast, I turned to social media and YouTube to learn more about these three parks and was amazed by the wealth of information I found.

Lesson 1: Social media and YouTube are excellent planning resources.

Mammoth Cave National Park in southwestern Kentucky seemed intimidating. The park offers 13 ranger-led tours that require advance reservations, along with areas visitors can explore independently.

After much debate, I chose the two-hour Historic Tour, which covers two miles, 300 feet underground and includes 540 stairs. Considering that three-quarters of our family is claustrophobic and my husband was recovering from Achilles tendon surgery, we started the tour with more than a little apprehension.

Although the cave has an elevator (though, at the time of publication, it is out of service), our tour entered through the Natural Entrance. As we walked down the hill toward the massive opening, a cool breeze drifted out of the cave, carrying away some of our anxiety. Inside, the temperature remains a constant 55 degrees year-round—a welcome relief for these Floridians on a July afternoon. Maybe this was actually going to be fun.

About 20 minutes into the tour, we reached a large chamber where the ranger turned off every light so we could experience total darkness. I’d never experienced anything like it. In everyday life, it’s impossible to escape every trace of ambient light. Not inside a cave. It was exhilarating! When the lights came back on, everyone was either grinning or standing with mouths agape.

Further down the cave, we reached Fat Man’s Misery, a keyhole-shaped passage about 100 feet long and less than 5-and-a-half-feet tall. My daughters and I couldn’t stop laughing as our 6-foot-3 man of the house carefully wiggled his way through. Thankfully, he was a good sport.

Lesson 2: Step outside your comfort zone.

A few days later, we arrived at Indiana Dunes National Park, about an hour east of Chicago. Designated the nation’s 61st national park in 2019, it offers dunes, forests, beaches, historic homes and an old farm homestead. But we had one mission: swim in Lake Michigan.

At about 65 degrees, the water was far colder than even the springs back home in Ocala. It took me a while to fully submerge and, naturally, the moment I surfaced, I spotted an enormous black storm cloud rolling toward us from Chicago. Families on the beach scrambled to pack up.

We sprinted for the car but didn’t make it before the bottom fell out. We were soaked! Laughing, we changed clothes inside our rental minivan, which the family affectionately named “Big Booty Judy” before we’d even crossed the Florida-Georgia line—a very Griswold thing to do—and headed off in search of lunch.

We stumbled upon an old train car serving Chicago-style Vienna Beef hot dogs. I dashed through the rain to place our order and discovered the walls covered in University of Florida memorabilia. When I mentioned I was a Gator, the owner proudly told me his son had played on the two national championship football teams alongside Tim Tebow.

To this day, our family still talks about those rain-soaked hot dogs and the unexpected Gator connection.

Lesson 3: Be flexible. Sometimes the best vacation memories come from the things you never planned.

After several wonderful days reconnecting with family in Chicago, we headed west on Route 66 toward Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis.

Completed in 1965 to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States, the Gateway Arch was redesignated from a national monument to a national park in 2018. The designation remains controversial because the site is much smaller than what many people picture when they think of a national park and is more comparable to places like the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

I learned after we visited that we could have taken a tram to the top of the arch for a panoramic view of the surrounding area, and I wish we had done it. When planning this stop, I was so focused on taking a steamboat ride on the Mississippi River that I didn’t research the park at all. But I do highly recommend taking a boat tour so you can get some amazing photos of the Gateway Arch.

Lesson 4: Read the park’s website before you visit.

One of the things I’ve come to love about the National Park System is that no two visits are ever the same. With 63 national parks and more than 430 National Park Service sites across the country, you could return to the same place again and again and always discover something new. It’s a bit like visiting the beach—every tide reveals something different.

Each member of our family experiences the parks in a unique way. I love spotting wildlife and plants we don’t see in Central Florida. My husband enjoys reading every exhibit in the visitor centers. My youngest daughter, now 14, tracks every park we’ve visited with a map and collection of pins proudly displayed in her bedroom. My oldest, now 15, loves photography and happily documents our adventures, even if she sometimes tolerates the parks more for the rest of us than for herself.

What we all share is a love of getting out of the house and discovering someplace new together.

If national parks aren’t currently on your travel radar, I encourage you to start with one of Florida’s 10 National Park Service sites or look for parks near your next vacation destination. They aren’t our sole purpose on every trip—on this trip we also went to the Grand Ole Opry, several museums and the Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was shot—but they are always a highlight.

A little research on the internet, social media and YouTube—combined with flexibility and a willingness to step outside your comfort zone—can turn an ordinary trip into an unforgettable adventure.