Traveling By Car Offers Food Choices And Travel Blogger Prefers Picnics
When traveling by car, you basically have two choices when it comes to eating: you can pull into a restaurant or you can have a picnic.
Given the choice of the two, I’ll take the picnic nearly every time.
Perhaps its because I’m from the South and picnics were a far less expensive option to eat while driving on vacation than feeding a family at a restaurant. (Plus, thankfully, we were were never much of a “McDonald’s family.”)
It’a also because I fondly remember picnics in Cade’s Cove in the Smoky Mountains and other places along the water in East Tennessee as a child whenever relatives would come to visit us.
So with these thoughts and memories, here’s my 5 reasons picnics are better than restaurants when traveling my car:
1.) You Are Outdoors
That’s one thing you are guaranteed to get with a picnic. And sometimes in prime locations: on a river bank, up against the ocean’s waves or in the middle of a sunny park. You don’t always have those options with a restaurant.
2.) You Don’t Have To Wait For A Table (Or Longer To Sit Outside)
With a picnic, unless you’re in a popular place, you can just plop down and start eating. Well, unless my mom is involved; she has to spread out towels and blankets to cover the top and seats of the picnic table, go to the car half a dozen times to keep getting things, etc. Dad and I always just wanted to open up the sandwiches and start eating. Anyway, with a restaurant you generally have to wait to see someone to be seated, and sometimes wait a while to actually be seated at a table.
3.) You Don’t Have To Wait For Your Food
After you’re seated at a restaurant, you of course must wait on the server to hand you a menu, then to order, then of course 15-20 minutes to get your food. At a picnic, you start eating immediately (the setting of the picnic table notwithstanding, of course). Plus you can have seconds of there’s anything left over at a picnic! Unless it’s pork-and-beans, which at one Cade’s Cove picnic my mom guarded like a mama black bear protecting her cubs. I think dad and I got one forkfull, haha! (Mom later explained she was waiting to see what others were bringing to the table.)
4.) You Get To Eat What You Want To Eat
When I picnic, I generally have a basic turkey and cheese sandwich, along with some crackers, which is pretty much all I really want to eat for lunch. But try and find a basic turkey and cheese on a menu at a restaurant. It’s almost impossible and any alternative sandwich costs something like 15 bucks. How many times do you sit and stare at a restaurant menu trying to decide what to order when nothing really looks appealing to you? I know I’ve done it several times. Sometimes, I’m pleasantly surprised by the meal but more often than not, I leave disappointed and unsatisfied. That never happens when I have a picnic. You can choose anything you want, prepare it exactly how you want, and enjoy it wherever you want – what could be better? Imagine sipping a lovely glass of strawberry wine while you eat your favorite snack foods in a park or on the beach, and you’ll see if really couldn’t get better.
5.) You Don’t Have To Pay The Bill When You Leave
This is a nice feeling; when you’re done with a picnic, you simply pick up your stuff, throw a few things in the trash and get outta there; obviously you can’t do that in a restaurant. If you do, somebody will grab you by the arm and sternly lead you to the cashier.
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