After much deliberation, weather checking, and mind changing, I’ve finally decided where the kids and I are going for Spring Break 2013. We are hitting the Georgia Coastline for a little fun in the sun. We are going to do a driving tour down the coast from Savannah, GA to Jacksonville, FL.

Why the Georgia Coastline?

Because I’ve never been there even though I’m a Georgia native. It’s really ashamed because everyone says I should go to see it. I’ve heard of Jekyll Island my entire life but never got there. So I’m correcting this and going next week.

It will be a 4-day excursion to several points along the coast.

Initially, I wanted to go to Universal Studios in Orlando, FL because I’ve never been there, but I didn’t want to drive down and it’s not exactly original. Next I thought about hopping a plane to a new destination, but I didn’t find flights or prices that I liked. I thought about going to Chattanooga, TN to visit the Chattanooga Choo-choo hotel and Lookout Mountain, but the weather forecast called for rain all week. That would not make a very good Spring break. So I went to Weather.com to check out the regional weather and found out that the Georgia Coastline is supposed to be really nice during our break. Excellent!

Planning the Trip

I needed to decide exactly were we would go along the coast and what we would see. I went to the exploregeorgia.com website to find information about the Georgia coast and things to do there. It was pretty general with a few suggestions and Georgia Coast itineraries but it was mostly for adults. Not exactly want I was looking for. I found a website that had pretty extensive detail about the Georgia Coastline that gave me a good idea about what could work for our needs.

I went to the AAA website to plan my trip. I was able to chart my course to see how long it will take to go from Atlanta to Savannah to Jacksonville. It’s 5-hour trip driving non-stop but we will make several stops to see the islands off the coast, go to the beach, and check out a few museums and historic places.

The AAA TripTik app is a great travel planning tool that lets me plot out points of interests and add to my itinerary. Here is a sample of that it looks like below.

Planning my trip from start to finish using AAA TripTik

It looks like a lot going on but it’s about choosing what I wanted shown on the map. Then I hovered over the map to see what points of interest I wanted. The pop-up bubble showed a summary, details, and reviews from Trip Advisor (which I thought was really cool. Next I clicked Add to Itinerary to include it in my trip.

Finally I saved my trip. Below is a summary of my itinerary with all the stops I plan to make. I used the AAA mobile app to see my trip and get the directions on my phone.

To get the TripTik on my mobile phone I had to enter the ID. Here is a visual of the mobile phone view of my itinerary:

Then I downloaded my trip…

I can now see my trip on my phone and follow the directions….Success!!!

We are almost set now that the trip planning is done. Now I have to decide what hotels we will stay in. The choice is between a standard chain hotel or a quaint bed and breakfast.

I’ll let you know what I come up with in the next post.

Where are you planning to go for Spring Break 2013? Do you think you will use any trip planning tools? Have you used any in the past?

Samantha Gregory

Samantha A. Gregory is an author, consultant, and speaker. She’s a single-mom lifestyle, money, and parenting expert featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Essence Magazine, HuffPost, ABC News, and Mint.com.

Samantha founded the award-winning RichSingleMomma.com™, the first online magazine featuring personal finance, parenting, and personal development content and courses for single moms.

She aims to inspire women who are ready to thrive and not just survive in their single motherhood journey. Connect with her on Instagram @richsinglemomma.