Where to Celebrate Our Country’s 250th Birthday by Taking a Road Trip? 

Our great nation will be celebrating its 250th Anniversary this year. There is one way to celebrate this country and its wonderful landscapes…Take a road trip! 

There are many destinations to cover. Many places and attractions to see. There are 48,890 miles of Interstate Highway to explore, plus many more miles on U.S. and state highways across the country. You can add all of the byways, parkways, and county roads to discover, too! 

General Motors is a proud sponsor of the app Explore250. Available through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store – the latter can be downloaded directly onto your GMC Infotainment System. This app can guide you to all of the great destinations worth discovering. Those destinations can be sent to your mapping software, including Google Maps on your GMC touchscreen, or through Google Assistant or your voice recognition software.  

There are a few experiences you might want to check out while you’re taking your road trip in your GMC. Here are a few suggestions: 

Interstate 90 through Montana: Directly from the Puget Sound and over the Cascade Mountains, Interstate 90 is your link across most of the U.S.A. Once you get into Montana, there are 552.46 miles of nonstop Interstate ahead. It will take you some 370.42 miles out of downtown Seattle to get there. Once you are there, you have the Rocky Mountains to scale and long stretches of plains to cross before reaching the South Dakota state line.  

Pacific Coast Highway: There are actually five stretches of coastal highways to explore in the Golden State. You start in Leggett, and as you split from U.S. Highway 101, you continue southward into the forest full of redwood trees. This section is actually more challenging with the curves just several feet above the shoreline. Once over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, you catch the highway again for more scenic vistas. It gets better once you drive past the Monterey Peninsula and into Big Sur, heading towards Santa Barbara. The last stretch gets you past the finest beaches of Southern California onward through to San Clemente. In all, there are 656 miles to explore, just 673 miles south of downtown Seattle. 

Route 66: Once the main thoroughfare between Los Angeles and Chicago, the highway remains a major dream drive. From Santa Monica Pier in Southern California, you follow the signs of “Old Route 66” through the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. All 2,448 miles of what John Steinbeck called the “Mother Road” or the “Main Street of America.” Some of it will be Interstate 40, but some stretches follow the original route across these states. There are many sights and attractions worth checking out along the way – too many to name, but worth discovering.  

U.S. Highway 2 in the U.P.: Once you’re in the Midwest, swing on up to the southern shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin to catch this stretch of highway that will meet the upper shores of Lake Michigan across what the U.P. – that stands for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You are treated to continuous woods and friendly people. It ends where it meets Interstate 75 in the town of Ignace. In all, there are 305 miles of this stretch of highway. However, U.S. Highway 2 actually starts in Everett. You can explore the entire 2,115 miles across the northern part of this country, if you desire.  

These are just a few suggestions. There’s a lot more of this country to explore. We can’t think of any better way to do so than behind the wheel of your GMC.  

You can start your journey from your favorite dealership in the Puget Sound: Valley GMC. Bring in your current GMC for an inspection and maintenance before you go. Or you can find the right road trip vehicle from our inventory. Contact us to get your Great American Road Trip started before the celebrations begin.