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Road trips usually come with an itinerary, but this one also comes with a challenge! Someone created a personalized travel scavenger hunt for me. Now I’ll try completing it on my way to the All Fifty Club Conference in Philadelphia.
Looking at that map, it seems to be a small area, considering other trips I’ve taken. The red area includes 14 states, and I haven’t visited 13 of them since before 2023!
The challenges fit The Driveby Tourist pretty well. I need local food, local businesses, a souvenir, and more than a little ice cream. The fun will come from discovering where each challenge takes me.
Check this out. It's the All Fifty Club! If you are interested in learning more, follow the link.
Actually, that “someone” is my daughters and grandkids! They like to read about my trips, although they sometimes get tired of me droning on (and on) about my travels!
I leave Minnesota on September 10. That gives me plenty of cities and towns to explore before reaching Philadelphia. Or while on my way back home! Let the scavenger hunt begin! Although they gave me the challenge in this sequence, I’ll take the items as I find them. They won’t be in the order they decided I should do them!
🍦 First Stop: A Local Ice Cream Shop
Apparently, whoever created this scavenger hunt knows me pretty well. My first challenge involves ice cream! The goal is to skip the national chains and find a local ice cream shop. With hundreds of miles ahead of me, I should have plenty of opportunities. The bigger question might be what flavor to order.
Did you know that blogs are typically reader supported? So, buy me a hot chocolate! Or not!.
I found one today! Mr. G’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream and Soft Serve in Gettysburg gets the scavenger-hunt nod! This part of town has several ice cream choices, but Mr. G’s looked like exactly what I wanted—a true local ice cream shop. I went with Butter Pecan, and it was delicious! 🍦 I’m trying not to get quite as excited as I did about the pizza, but that may be difficult. Take a look at the pictures below. My family has been waiting for this update! Another scavenger-hunt challenge is officially checked off! ✅
☕ Find a Local Coffee Shop
Next, I need to find a local coffee shop and order something special. I enjoy finding independent businesses when I travel. They often provide a better feel for a community than places along the interstate. This challenge gives me another reason to leave the highway and explore.
That morning, I visited the Witch Trials Memorial and Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Then it was time for something completely different. I found Jaho, went inside, ordered my hot chocolate, and checked another item off the list. Sometimes a scavenger hunt is a pretty good excuse to find a place I might otherwise drive right past!
I’ve been checking these off throughout the trip. I’ve found local pizza, ice cream, Mexican food, a bakery, a souvenir, and now hot chocolate. I deliberately saved Ben & Jerry’s for Vermont, where I visited the Flavor Graveyard and paid my respects to the “dearly depinted.” My daughters and grandkids are waiting for the updates, so there’s a little family pressure involved here! But that’s part of the fun. The scavenger hunt has taken me beyond the National Parks and historic sites and into some great little local places. Who knew checking things off a list could be this much fun?
🌮 Track Down Local Mexican Food
Now we’re getting serious. Another challenge sends me searching for a local Mexican restaurant. I’m hoping for one of those places that locals know about, but travelers might easily miss. Those are exactly the places I enjoy finding.
Want to see a shop for my road trip photos? You can have them printed as wall art or puzzles. They also work on coffee mugs, t-shirts and more! So, take a look. Maybe you'll see something you will like!
Guess what! I found a local Mexican food place! Apparently, my Road Trip Scavenger Hunt is also turning into a food tour! This challenge called for finding a local Mexican restaurant. That sounds easy until you start eliminating the national and regional chains.
It took some searching, but I found El Diablo Burritos in Wilmington, Delaware. Like many small local restaurants, it sits in a strip mall. Those unassuming shopping centers often hide some pretty good locally owned places. You just have to look beyond the familiar names.
El Diablo is small, with seating for only about 30 people. You order at the counter, where they make everything while you wait. You can customize your meal before grabbing a table or taking it to go. I went with a burrito bowl loaded with plenty of toppings. It was amazing!
Another scavenger hunt challenge completed! This hunt keeps giving me reasons to explore places I probably wouldn’t discover otherwise. When the challenge involves finding good local food, I’m certainly not complaining!
🍕 Find a Local Pizza Place
Every road trip needs pizza, doesn’t it? Somewhere between Minnesota and Philadelphia, I’ll need to find a local pizza place. I’m especially interested in finding something unique to the community I’m visiting. Maybe someone along the way will point me to a favorite.
I found a local pizza! Sanso’s Pizzeria in Blairsville, PA. It’s what you’d expect: A small, unassuming place on the outside, just a few feet off the road. And it’s a 50 MPH road, not a street. Inside, it’s a go-up-to-the-counter, order place. I told them the story, and they said it’s been in business for years and has built a steady following with pizza and other Italian staples. The front desk person at the hotel told me about it. (By the way: The Pizza was fresh, savory, delicious, flavorful, and satisfying!) (I swallowed a thesaurus!) Here are a few pictures.
🍪 Visit a Local Bakery
Another challenge requires a visit to a local bakery for a treat. Cookies certainly qualify, but I’m keeping my options open. A great donut, pastry, pie, or regional specialty could easily win me over. This might require some serious research!
One thing I’m discovering about this Road Trip Scavenger Hunt is that I never know where it will take me. Today, it led me to Eli’s Bakery in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
One thing I’m discovering about this Road Trip Scavenger Hunt is that I never know where it will take me. Today, the Local Bakery challenge led me to Eli’s Bakery in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
Eli’s definitely fit the spirit of the hunt.
What caught my attention immediately was that this wasn’t the typical bakery I expected. Eli’s is a Mexican bakery, and simply looking around became part of the experience. Baked goods were everywhere, but the decorated cakes really stood out. Different designs, colors, and styles filled the displays.
Of course, looking wasn’t enough. I needed something to eat! I decided on what I’ll loosely call breakfast—a chocolate croissant. It had a soft, pudding-like filling inside that made it different from the usual chocolate croissant.
And it was great!
That’s becoming one of my favorite things about this scavenger hunt. It gives me another reason to stop somewhere I might otherwise pass by. Road trips aren’t always about famous attractions or carefully planned destinations. Sometimes the memorable discoveries happen when you walk through an unfamiliar door and see what you find.
Today, that door led to Eli’s Bakery, a chocolate croissant, and another completed challenge.
Local Bakery: Check!
Not a bad way to start the day!
👕 Purchase a T-Shirt
Not every challenge involves eating. I also need to purchase a T-shirt somewhere along the journey. I want something that represents a place I actually visit. A town, attraction, restaurant, museum, or unusual roadside stop could provide the winning shirt. The more unusual, the better.
Hey, I found one! When I visited the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I spotted the perfect scavenger-hunt find: a T-shirt commemorating Rocky’s 50th anniversary.
How could I pass that up? I was standing on the steps Rocky made famous during the movie’s 50th anniversary year, and there it was, waiting for me. Sometimes the scavenger hunt makes me work for an item. This one practically jumped off the rack and yelled, “Yo, Stan!”
Another scavenger-hunt challenge checked off—and this one comes with a pretty good Philadelphia story!
🍨 And Finally… More Ice Cream!
Apparently one ice cream challenge wasn’t enough. This time, the scavenger hunt specifically calls for Ben & Jerry’s. That’s particularly appropriate because this trip takes me through Vermont. Ben & Jerry’s got its start there, so completing this challenge in Vermont would seem fitting. I’ll consider that one a mission. By the way, Ben & Jerry’s created a ‘flavor graveyard’ of flavors they no longer produce! Here’s a link to a post that includes the Flavor Graveyard!
The Scavenger Hunt — Mission Accomplished!
To recap, before I left on this trip, my daughters and grandkids gave me another assignment. Apparently, visiting 13 states, attending the All Fifty Club Conference, and chasing National Park sites wasn’t enough. They created a road-trip scavenger hunt for me!
And I’ve been working my way through it ever since. I found local pizza at Sanso’s Pizzeria in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. Butter pecan ice cream at Mr. G’s in Gettysburg took care of another item. I found a little independent Mexican restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware. Eli’s Bakery in Norristown, Pennsylvania, handled the local bakery challenge. That one came with a chocolate croissant filled with a pudding-like center. No complaints from me!
The scavenger hunt also sent me on a souvenir hunt. I found that at the Rocky Steps in Philadelphia. A T-shirt celebrating Rocky’s 50th anniversary seemed like a pretty good choice.
Then came hot chocolate. I was in Salem, Massachusetts, after visiting the Salem Witch Trials Memorial and Salem Maritime National Historic Site. I found Jaho Artisan Coffee and stopped for a hot chocolate. Another box checked! That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed about this scavenger hunt. It keeps sending me into places I probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise.
That left one final item: Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
I knew exactly where I wanted to complete that one. I saved it until I reached Vermont and could visit Ben & Jerry’s itself.
I had visited the Flavor Graveyard before, but how could I resist another trip? I walked among the tombstones of the dearly depinted, those unfortunate flavors that have scooped their last scoop. Some had long lives. Others apparently weren’t long for this world—or at least the freezer aisle.
And, yes, I found my ice cream!
With that, I checked off the final item. Scavenger hunt complete!
Thanks so much to my daughters and grandkids for sending me on this little quest. What started as a list of things to find became part of this trip’s story. It took me into little restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, ice cream shops, and a few places I never would have planned.
That’s what makes a road trip fun. You can plan the route and choose the destinations. Sometimes, though, it’s those little unplanned stops along the way that you remember.
And isn’t that a lot like life?
🚗 Let the Hunt Begin! (That’s what I said when I headed out for my first day, a 700-mile trip.)
What I like most about this scavenger hunt isn’t checking seven things off a list. Each challenge gives me another excuse to explore. A bakery might introduce me to a small town I would otherwise drive through. A pizza recommendation might lead to a conversation with a local. That T-shirt could come from an attraction I haven’t even discovered yet. That’s what The Driveby Tourist is all about.
…and that wraps up the Hunt!
I’ve shared my finds above as I completed the scavenger hunt. I asked: If you know a great place along my route that could check one of these boxes, send me your suggestion! I didn’t get suggestions so I was free to have fun!
September 10 came and went. It was time to hit the road—and start hunting! 🚗 So, I did!!!
Classic Rock Recollection
“Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne
Lookin’ out at the road rushin’ under my wheels
Lookin’ back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In ’65 I was seventeen and runnin’ up 101
I don’t know where I’m runnin’ now, I’m just runnin’ on
Written by: Jackson Browne
(Runnin’ on Empty because I need food to fill up!)
