Shoutout to Jen at AAA
Jen with my 25 personalized TripTik books and Maps for each state and province.
Setting up a long trip like the OttWheels Adventure is a daunting task. I can’t thank Jen at AAA in Avon Connecticut for the amazing support and attention to detail that she provided towards this trip.
I went to AAA in Avon a month ago to see if there was any travel advise they could provide for doing a large Canada / USA trip. I was luckily able to get an appointment yesterday with Jen. I wasn’t sure what to expect or what they could do for me. I thought I would get 15-30 minutes of some slightly useful travel suggestions. I left after 3 1/2 hours of being walked through the most detailed itinerary that I could image, and it was all personalized to my trip.
Itinerary
I had sent Jen my 10 page itinerary with the following ideas:
Travel: Try to avoid interstate highways.
Capitals: Visit each state capital and photograph the capital building and sites.
Photography: Goal is to get deeper into my landscape, night sky, and wildlife photography.
Exercise: Side goal is to do a couple of hikes a week and / or mountain bike nice trails.
Camping: I’m trying to be creative about camping and showering. Hopefully the camp sites I use have nice facilities. If I’m desperate for a shower, I plan to use my Planet Fitness Black membership. This allows me to use any of the 2200 facilities in Canada and United States.
Flexibility: The itinerary isn’t fixed. I’ll shift as I learn what works, the weather impacts travel and as time permits.
Downtime: I’ll take time to find libraries, coffee houses and other places that I can relax, blog, work on photographs and read.
TripTiks
TripTiks are a service provided by AAA to its members. These are personalized books that outline your trip itinerary.
Jen’s colleague shared with me that Jen spent the better part of three days preparing the TripTiks for my trip. There were 25 sections to the trip and each was broken down into detailed legs. This will make daily planning a breeze. The details include the routes as well as road warnings (Summer traffic, construction, dangers, etc.). Jen shared that this was by far the longest TripTik she has worked on in her 22 years with AAA.
In the book, there is a QR code in the bottom right of the overview map which allows you to go to the AAA TripTik page online and work with your personal maps directly. Jen actually sent me a link to each of the TripTik maps which I stored in a Chrome folder for easy access.
Once you have these links, you can explore the route in more detail. The following image shows one of my routes from Ohio back to Connecticut. In the top left corner, you can select additional map feedback (I’ve selected Camping sites). This gives me a chance to plan my camping locations ahead of time. Clicking on the Details icon for the site, a popup appears providing contact information and other details. This is implemented with Google Maps, so you’re able to zoom in and get even more details.
I’m trying to figure out how to bring this information over to my ottwheels trip map. Any ideas would be appreciated.
