Hit the Road

Historic Hotels of America's Driving Journeys

By Margaret Foster

The Boar's Head Inn, Charlottesville, Va.

When I was a kid in the early 1980s, my father used to pack my sister and me into our gigantic maroon station wagon with cracked vinyl seats and drive for what seemed like hours to an impossibly boring destination?a farm, a museum, Niagara Falls. He inflicted what was to us the worst sort of torture on these trips when he would stop at a roadside marker, read it aloud, enunciating every word, and quiz us about it later.

All of which is a long way of explaining why, although I?ve driven through Charlottesville, Va., many times, I?ve never stopped to investigate its history. That all changed this summer, however, when I took a Historic Driving Journey, one of the National Trust?s newest travel ventures. Understanding the urge of travelers to discover new roads and old stories, the Trust teamed up with a Charlottesville-based travel company called Traveling America to offer road trips with history. During the self-guided trips, guests stay in one of the Trust?s 185 Historic Hotels of America and explore the area in their own cars.

"Driving Journeys: A Series of Break Away Leisure Experiences" launched in July 2001 with 12 destinations and 60 itineraries; this year, the program has 517 trips, each with a different theme. For example, travelers to California?s central coast stay in the 1942 Paso Robles Inn and can visit either San Simeon, on the "Mr. Hearst?s Castle" tour, or five Spanish-era landmarks via "Missions Y Mas." In Santa Fe, vacationers can choose the "Inspired Arts Mosaic" tour or see another aspect of the city?s history on the "Native Americans in Santa Fe" package.

Traveling America reserves the room, arranges meals and entrance fees, and provides driving directions for the three- to five-day trips. "We?re the only ones doing this," says Mary Billingsley, speaking for Historic Hotels of America. Established 13 years ago, the program recognizes hotels at least 50 years old that are either listed in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places or that have local historical significance. Its growing roster of members includes Georgia?s elite Jekyll Island Club Hotel, the Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport, Maine, and the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.

In return for an initiation fee and annual dues from member hotels, the Trust markets them as a group. Reservations generated from the Historic Hotels of America Web site or 800 number (800-678-8946) support the Trust. Each year, the Historic Hotels of America program contributes a percentage of its earnings to the Trust; in the past four years, the program has been so successful that it has increased its contribution by 15 percent each year.

This October, the Web site Travelocity added Historic Driving Journeys to its online options. "Historic travel is a category of content that they didn?t have yet," Billingsley says. Last year, the American Automobile Association began selling the tours in 500 of its offices. The Trust receives five percent of the revenue from each Driving Journey. "This program has great potential," Billingsley says. "We?ve spent the first year building the product."

A few days after I had signed up online for the trip to Charlottesville, I received a packet in the mail from Traveling America. Inside, I found a three-night, four-day itinerary with vouchers for breakfasts and dinners plus admission to Monticello and other sites, brochures about local attractions, driving directions, and the number of a 24-hour hotline in case of trouble. The following Friday, I found myself sitting on my balcony at the Boar?s Head Inn, an estate-like hotel just west of Charlottesville with a spa and golf course, sipping coffee and reading my itinerary for the weekend. I chose the "Meet the Presidents" tour ($339), but I could have taken the "African-American Perspective of Jefferson Country" tour ($339), the "Arts and Antiques" hunt ($289), or the vineyard trip ($359). (The prices are per person, double occupancy.) With a little hustling and a steely liver, you can see five wineries in three days.

Bob Forbes of Traveling America picked me up at my hotel the next morning to show me around town. His wife, Maree, founded Traveling America four years ago and later convinced the Trust that her company could help arrange historic driving tours, an idea that the Trust had considered for years. Bob drove me to Jefferson?s Monticello and to Ash Lawn, the home of Jefferson?s neighbor, James Monroe. As we left on the 20-minute drive to James Madison?s Montpelier, a National Trust Historic Site, he pointed out a spot for lunch: the c. 1784 Michie Tavern, which displayed a slightly unappetizing sign reading "Food of Yesteryear Served."

But the beauty of these driving tours is that you really don?t need Bob. Like a guidebook and a travel agent combined, the portfolios address most of the details of a potentially confusing road trip, including meals. My portfolio listed 15 Charlottesville restaurants, from a steak house to a Brazilian bistro. The Hudson River Valley itinerary suggests that visitors to Eleanor Roosevelt?s Val-Kill stop for lunch at the Culinary Institute of America before an afternoon at the Roosevelts? house in Hyde Park, N.Y. Bob has road-tested most of Traveling America?s itineraries to ensure they?re relaxing, not hectic. "Whenever possible, we put people on the back roads," he told me.

Families can choose from 10 kid-friendly destinations like Hershey, Pa., and Tampa. Although Traveling America has 11 tours of big cities, from New York to San Francisco, people tend to seek out country escapes, says Maree Forbes, the company?s president. "Small historic towns are what?s selling," she says. Charleston, S.C., is the company?s most popular destination, and Charlottesville and New York?s Hudson River Valley follow.

As Bob and I cruised past Greek-revival mansions, white fences, and rows of cedars, I began to think we had driven clear into another country, even another era: 16th-century Italy, perhaps. Thomas Jefferson must have thought so, too. In 1774, he persuaded an Italian winemaker to establish a vineyard next door to Monticello. In the past 30 years, I read in my portfolio, other vineyards have taken root in the region?s red earth. I regretted that I had zoomed past these wineries many times on my way to hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Something about the long stretch of asphalt, the drone of the engine, and the way the scenery flashed past made me remember my family?s vacations. Those little discoveries along the road make the world seem bigger, full of possibility. My father, who appeared to learn as much from the journey as from the destination, must have figured that out a long time ago.

On the way back from Montpelier, where we saw the estate that Madison called "a squirrel?s jump from heaven," Bob and I stopped at Barboursville Vineyards, a winery that an Italian family tends. We gazed at the ruins of a mansion Jefferson had designed for his friend, Gov. James Barbour. This time, I read the historical markers. I bought a bottle of 1999 Cabernet Franc, which I intend to share, along with a lecture on Virginia history, with my father.

To find out more about Historic Driving Journeys, visit Traveling America.

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