A vacation looked very different when boomers were growing up. Road trips could begin without a hotel reservation, kids piled into station wagons without screens to entertain them, and getting lost meant unfolding a paper map or asking a stranger for directions. AAA still offers printed maps and its TripTik route-planning service, a reminder of how travelers once navigated long trips without GPS. Some of these old vacation habits sound wonderfully spontaneous now, while others are hard to imagine families accepting today.
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| For some road-tripping families, finding a room was part of the trip rather than something completed weeks beforehand. Parents could drive until everyone had had enough, then start watching for roadside motels advertising “VACANCY”. The obvious drawback appeared when those signs said “NO VACANCY” instead. |
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| Long before a pleasant voice announced “recalculating”, someone in the passenger seat had to figure out where the family was going. Fold-out highway maps, road atlases, handwritten directions, and AAA TripTiks guided generations of motorists. |
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| For plenty of children, the “way-back” of a station wagon doubled as a playroom, nap space, and observation deck. Kids might stretch out with pillows, move between seats, or ride in rear-facing cargo-area seats. Federal safety requirements and state laws were dramatically different then. |
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| There was no location sharing, “Find My” feature, or quick text from the interstate. Once a family pulled out of the driveway, relatives might hear nothing until someone reached a motel, restaurant, or pay phone. Being unreachable wasn’t necessarily considered an emergency; it was simply what leaving home meant. |
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| Getting lost once involved talking to people. A driver might pull into a gas station and ask the attendant which road led back to the highway, or stop at a diner for directions to the nearest motel. |
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| Imagine driving for hours without screens for the kids. There was always the radio, assuming everyone agreed on the station. Otherwise, young passengers had comic books, coloring books, travel games, toys, the scenery, and each other. “I Spy” and the license-plate game could consume remarkable stretches of highway. |
