Now that I’ve wrapped up my “Hit the Road Hungry” road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, I wanted to share more details about the car service I used and recap the highlights of the trip.

Hitting the road with Hit The Road: How it works
To arrange the car that I drove to Los Angeles, I worked with a Toronto-based company, Hit The Road, that pairs people who want to take road trips with people who need their cars moved.

Their trips fall into two categories: travel between Canada and the United States and travel within Canada.

They frequently match drivers with “snowbirds”—Canadians who winter in the southern or western United States. Many “snowbirds” need their cars transported between major Canadian cities and destinations like Florida, Arizona, or southern California. Many of these trips are southbound in the fall or early winter and northbound in March, April, and May.

Hit The Road also offers cross-Canada trips: Toronto-Vancouver, Halifax-Calgary, Montreal-Edmonton, or other long-distance journeys. Most of these cross-Canada trips are in the spring, summer, or fall.

Trips can crop up at other times, too. For my trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles in April, I drove a car for a family who was relocating from British Columbia to California. You can check the list of available cars (and where they’re going) on the Hit the Road website, which is updated regularly.

What it costs
Hit the Road pays drivers a stipend to cover gas and some of your travel costs. While the stipend varies depending on the car, destination, and other factors, for a five-day Vancouver-to-Los-Angeles trip like mine, the standard stipend is about $500, or roughly $100 per day.

You won’t be staying at the Ritz, but if you consider accommodation options like AirBnB, couchsurfing, hostels, budget hotels, camping, or bunking with friends along the way, the stipend should cover the majority of your expenses.

Because all trips are one-way, you also need to budget for airfare, train tickets, or bus travel for your return trip if you’re heading back to your starting point. Still, you’re saving money on transportation, since you’re not paying for round-trip travel.

HitTheRoad.ca has a detailed FAQ for prospective drivers that explains how to apply and how to arrange a trip.

What I liked about driving with Hit The Road

• The price is right: You essentially get a free one-way road trip.


• The process is straightforward: Once you agree on a trip, Hit The Road handles the paperwork (which, in my case, included documents for bringing the car across the U.S.-Canadian border).


• It was fun! And there was lots of good eating along the way.

A couple of cautions

• Your trip has a time limit: Because the car owners (understandably) need their vehicles as soon as possible, you need to keep your road trip to a fairly tight schedule. While five days was enough time for me to make it from Vancouver to Los Angeles by myself without feeling like I had to spend 12 hours a day behind the wheel, it would have been nice to have more time to stop and explore along the way.


• Dealing with the car owner can have its downsides: Hit The Road makes the arrangements, but the driver needs to work out the details of picking up and dropping off the car directly with the owner. In my case, once I delivered the car, the owner balked at giving me a ride to the nearby metro station (which was part of the Hit The Road deal). Although she eventually agreed, the delay meant that I missed my train onward to my next stop and spent three extra hours in LA’s Union Station. A big deal? No. An inconvenience? Yes.

“Hit the Road Hungry” Road Trip Highlights

Would I do a Hit The Road trip again? Definitely. Overall, my trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles was awesome!

Here’s a recap of some of my adventures:

Most unexpected treat: Wine cupcakes, Los Olivos, CA

Best place to spend a sunny afternoon: La Bicyclette, Carmel, CA

Most deliciousness on two wheels: Bites By Bike foodie cycle tour, Portland, OR

Most fun farmers’ market: Thursday night Farmers’ Market, San Luis Obispo, CA

Most interesting discovery: Cold-brewed coffee, Portland, OR

Worst karma: An encounter with the California Highway Patrol at a Buddhist monastery, Ukiah, CA

Best meal overall: Pok Pok, Portland, OR

It took me five days to drive the 2500 kilometers (1500 miles) from Vancouver to Los Angeles. I flew the same distance home in less than three hours.

Of course, we don’t always have time to meander along the coast, searching for tacos, biscuits and gravy, or a Buddhist vegetarian lunch.

But wouldn’t it be nice if we did?

About WanderFood Wednesday
Every Wednesday, you can share a photo or post about own food adventures as part of the WanderFood Wednesday blog carnival. Here’s how:

1. Post a food photo on your site.


2. Add a brief description about the photo—or a longer food-focused post—and include a link to WanderFood Wednesday.


3. Add your blog name and post title to the “Mr. Linky” form below, with a link directly to your post (not to your main blog). That’s it!

Tasty Travels!

Carolyn

The New York Times has been there. Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Gourmet (may she rest in peace) have been there, too. And they all tossed around accolades like “Best Thai Restaurant in the United States.”

So with just one evening for dinner in Portland (on the first day of my “Hit the Road Hungry” road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles), I figured that even if I was a little late to the party, I had to make a pilgrimage there as well.

“There” is Pok Pok, Portland’s highly praised Thai restaurant tucked away in the city’s southeast district. Fancy, it isn’t—the restaurant looks like a Chiang Mai night market stall writ large, with outdoor (and indoor) tables and a giant charcoal grill.

The whole Pok Pok experience is very sensual, starting with the fizzy “drinking vinegars,” their signature non-alcoholic drink. The tamarind variety I chose wasn’t as sour as I expected—more like a tangy, gently fruity seltzer. It provided a cooling counterpart to the spicy dishes to come.

At Pok Pok, you eat (mostly) with your hands, scooping little balls of sticky rice out of their cute wicker baskets. With the bartender’s guidance, I opted for the fiery wild mushroom salad and the charcoal-grilled “boar collar.” Accompanying the pork was a plate of fresh raw mustard greens, buried in ice—to keep them fresh, the waiter explained, recommending that you alternate bites of crisp greens with chili-fired meat. Both dishes were the perfect Thai mix of spicy, sour, and ever-so-slightly sweet.

If I came back to Pok Pok again—and I would in a heartbeat—I’d try to bring friends. Most dishes are designed to share, and as a solo diner, despite the excellent ordering suggestions that the bartender provided, it was difficult to create a fully balanced meal, with the proper Thai combinations of meat and vegetables, sweet and sour, bitter and hot. And of course, with more people, you can sample a lot more dishes.

Save me a bar stool, Pok Pok! I’ve got a car to deliver now, but one of these days, I’ll need to get my hands back on your sticky rice.

About the “Hit the Road Hungry” Road Trip
I’m doing a solo road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, working with a company called Hit The Road that pairs people who want to take road trips with people who need their cars moved. I’m delivering a forest green 1998 Honda Civic for its owners who are moving from British Columbia to southern California, and I’m eating my way down the west coast.

The previous posts in this series are When Plans for Pie Go Awry and Taco Craving. I hope you’ll follow along as I “Hit the Road Hungry!”

About WanderFood Wednesday
Every Wednesday, you can share a photo or post about own food adventures as part of the WanderFood Wednesday blog carnival. Here’s how:

1. Post a food photo on your site.


2. Add a brief description about the photo—or a longer food-focused post—and include a link to WanderFood Wednesday.


3. Add your blog name and post title to the “Mr. Linky” form below, with a link directly to your post (not to your main blog). That’s it!

If you go…
Pok Pok, at 3226 S.E. Division St., Portland, Oregon, 503-232-1387, is open daily 11:30am-10pm.

Tasty Travels!

Carolyn

Not a hot dog person myself, I still think these are tempting.

This is pretty typical of the well-appointed food stalls you’ll find along Bangkok’s sidewalks. Meander the city day or night, and there will be a food vendor offering up some tasty item or two. I’m told that many apartments in Bangkok don’t even have kitchens, so that leaves most office workers picking up their meals on their way to work.

And most look this great as if they are created with some TLC. Take THAT New York hot dog vendors

Please join WanderFood Wednesday! Here’s all you do:

1) Add a food-related post to your site (it can be a recipe, food photo or any other foodie find)
2) Include a link to WanderFood Wednesday so your readers can enjoy other food posts
3) For the best click-through results, add your name OR your blog name and the title of that day’s post to the Mr. Linky form below
4) Include a link directly to your food post (not your main blog)

If you’re a newbie, see more about WanderFood Wednesday here.

Life’s Short, Eat Well!