Then and now: road trips

When I first came to Japan thanks to the University I attended and the home stay family I lived with, I got to do some road trips early on in my Japan journey. Then when I was working, even just as an intern, I got to go on some road trips with work and / or co-workers. Similarly, I had some road trips with friends I came to Japan with or that I made here. When I met husband too, we occasionally went on road trips also.

Then I had kids! Road trips were put on hold. We did do a few mini road trips when they were small, but its only in the last couple of years we have been able to plan larger road trips. One reason for that is three of four of my children used to get car sick. Now it's only one of them, and she has greatly improved in the last couple of years. We still have to execute several of our plans, but I am very excited about the prospect of once again exploring Japan via road trip in the future. 

Because I am from a small country, I had only a handful of experiences of road trips (in other countries) before Japan. I also get travel sick in cars, so it wasn't something I expected to love! But thanks to my experiences in Japan, I have become a huge fan of road trips. In my humble opinion, Japan is one of the best countries in the world for road trips, and people often don’t realize how varied, relatively inexpensive, and easy the experience can be.