If you’re planning a road trip this summer, you might want to consider hitting up a bunch of small towns along the way. 

Vaughn Bergen says he always enjoys finding hidden treasures in small communities. 

“Usually if we do road trips, we always try to hit the antique stores or museums on our way out.” 

He explains how they plan an interesting route when they travel to his hometown of Saskatoon. 

“We plan where we’re going and pick small towns and we look ahead if there’s an antique store there or is there an outdoor museum or something, and we’ll plan around that.” 

Bergen says interesting treasures can be found in the smallest of towns. 

Johanna White of Steinbach has taken a few road trips over the years and says the most memorable one was a spur-of-the-moment trip in 2002, visiting the Yukon and Alaska. 

“The prairies have their own beauty and the flatlands. Where I used to live had its beauty for the bush and lakes. And this had its own different beauty with mountains, and it was gorgeous. Such a fun trip.” 

White says she and her late husband, Blaise, took this trip before the internet became popular. That meant trip-planning was much more basic than it is today, with very little information.

There were so many different animals they encountered and took time to appreciate the wildlife and the scenery.

She suggests the best road trip experiences can happen when you have a great travel partner and no expectations. White notes they had initially planned to drive as far as the Yukon but along the way, someone convinced them to drive a little further into Alaska.

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Bruce Martin also enjoys hitting the road for some interesting adventures. 

One of his most memorable trips happened in 2019 as five couples hit the road for Detroit, Michigan. 

“There’s what they claim is the first paved mile in Detroit, and we went to Woodward Avenue, that's just a famous cruise. So many cars cruising on that strip that we actually got up at 4:30 in the morning so we could get parking spots to watch all the cars tour up and down.” 

Martin says they are planning another big trip this year, to Iola, Wisconsin for a huge swap meet. 

He says the town of 1200 residents can grow up to 125,000 people during this massive event. Martin claims he isn't looking to buy anything, just eager to experience such an event of this magnitude.

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