East Coast Loop Complete
East Coast loop is complete! 5,934 miles through 18 states. Over the course of two months I moved slowly up the Atlantic coast while working remotely from AirBnBs in Richmond, VA, Hoboken, NJ, Boston, MA, and Bangor, ME. From there I went up into Canada and explored a bit of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and had 2 weeks off work to make the 3,144 mile trek back to St. Louis, MO.
On that return leg I meandered inland on absolutely nothing but backroads, hardly a single mile of highway touched, and wow what a blast! Weaving through all the small towns up in New England and further south through Appalachia is pretty darn neat. So much history everywhere you look, and guaranteed something interesting to see around every turn. Hard to imagine ever wanting to take the interstate.
I absolutely love the quaint countryside of places like Vermont, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The abundance of beautiful old homes scattered among the rolling hills is even cooler than I had imagined. The entire western border of Virginia through the mountains is another major highlight for me and definitely a region I'll want to go back to explore more.
Out there wandering around on the most backroadiest of backroads I can find is exactly why I choose to take this car out for these road trips. It's just so perfectly at home on those types of roads, and it doesn't take much to make you feel like you're out on your own little rally. As far as fun driving roads go, Kentucky was actually a pretty incredible surprise at the tail end of the journey. I was behind on mileage and feeling nervous about the distance I had left ahead of me in the time available, but damn 400 miles over 2 days cutting through the state on the crazy twisty spaghetti backroads ended up being probably my favorite 2 days of pure driving of the entire trip. Their speed limit is 55 on even the gnarliest of roads, so definitely found myself pushing the car more than I typically tend to 😅
All in all it was a ton of fun taking the car all the way over to the Atlantic, and am very grateful to have had the opportunity to make it happen! 🙌
As for what's next, I'll soon be making my way back to the Pacific. 🤙
