Getting ready for a last minute summer road trip this year? Ryan O'Reilly, author of the travel novel, Snapshot and To Nourish and Consume shares some tips to ensure a great mancation road trip!

Now is the season for road tripping. That glorious season when doors fling open, car engines start and people disappear into the backwater of the country. At the moment, a couple of friends and I are embarked on one such adventure. As I write this, I am seated at a picnic table somewhere on the side of highway 16 in South Dakota.

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Not all mancations have to be about growing out the beard and roughing it. Sometimes you want to go to the other extreme - find a great hotel in a world-class city like Chicago, New York, or Las Vegas and live like a king! In this case, it is essential that you look and feel great with a perfect shave.Afterall, that armani suit, suite at Aria, and rented exotic car deserve a man that looks like they belong together!

These tips from Diane Wood, Master Barber for King of Shaves should help you on your way to that goal.

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One of our favorite sites, Art of Manliness has posted a fantastic piece detailing How to Cross the Ocean on a Freighter.

This is something that I have thought about in the past, and heard about on different TV shows and such but had dismissed as something that was just myth.  Apparently it isn't and it looks like it could be a really cheap way to have a cool mancation.

This great article outlines a bunch of the different myths and missconceptions about traveling the seas by freighter, including the fact that it isn't actually cheaper than flying somewhere. I guess that isn't so bad though since this would be your mancation, not just the transportation :)

 

The following is a guest article from Trisha Miller, a friend of Man Tripping, a travel writer and founder of Travel Writers Exchange. She explores one of the potential obstacle to even the best planned mancation - your wife, girlfriend, or significant other. Most importantly, this is an article with advice that you can share with your significant other on why mancations are actually a good thing for relationships.

However, a mancation shouldn't be about geting away from your wife or girlfriend, it should be about taking time to unwind, de-stress, and celebrate those things that make us guys manly. Especialy those things that our significant others might not embrace the same way we do - sweating, smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, and telling rude stories around a campfire, or boasting about how you ALMOST made it to the green, but the sea gull was in they way.

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Last week I set off to visit South Carolina with my wife Heather of Chick Vacations. Our plan was to camp the first night in Southern Kentucky at the Cumberland Falls State Park. Unfortunately we ended up leaving Chicago late and so we didn't arrive there till well after 11 p.m. and in the pouring rain to boot. Upon arriving we decided to just try and sleep in the car and get up early the next morning and head on down to Charleston.

That lasted about 30 min until we were almost asleep and someone walked into the car on the way to the bathroom. That obviously woke us up and at this point the rain had abated a bit so we decided to set the tent up. Unfortunately the rain started pouring as we got the tent almost setup. At this point were extremely tired and all we wanted to do was wake up in the morning so we could continue our journey. Unfortunately that's not what happened as about an hour later (after we were ALMOST asleep) the tent collapsed in a gust of wind and we were totally soaked, so we decided to head to a hotel for the rest of the night.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I was half delirious soaking wet and probably looked like I was just a bum off the street. So when I asked the front desk lady if they would cut me a deal because of the late hour she thought I was asking if I could rent the hotel "by the hour".

Ultimately we had a good night sleep and woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to drive the remaining 8 hours to Charleston.

The point of this whole story is that no matter what trip your are on, you shouldn't worry about stuff, just roll with whatever comes your way and enjoy life. Trust me, it would have been very easy to yell and scream or get pissed off, but in the end we both had a great time and it is an adventure we will remember for a long time to come.