*Subject to Change: The Road Trip We Didn’t Know We Needed
- Scott Linwell
- Aug 15
- 9 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Holy sh*t, we’re back. Did all of that just happen?
Did I really just come off an incredible eight week road trip ending the most inspirational, exciting, joyous eight months I could have imagined? Best of my life? Can I fall back asleep and relive the whole thing? I know I want to.
But we are home, in Charlotte, reality is setting in now, and it’s a great reality. One bolstered by a mountain of memories that I’m only beginning to unpack. Quick flashes of great bites, amazing views, unexpected turns.
We’ve had a lot of conversation since our return, as we are prone to do. Sorting out what we loved, what we were surprised with, what stood out among the myriad of experiences. Favorite bite? If you could go back to just one place where would that be? The most interesting place we stayed?
We’ve always rehashed these types of memories together, relishing everything we’ve had the privilege to visit and see and taste, but there is so much to savor now. The catalogue is deep. And it was all back-to-back-to-back.
We are settling in with a seemingly endless array of mental souvenirs, all so completely diverse. We did the parks, the festivals, the concerts we expected and planned, but we also stumbled upon so much more, having left our schedule intentionally open for detours. Bull riding in Oklahoma, dirt track racing in Cortez, California, 4-wheeling across the Utah desert through recent washouts. We decided our trip was like our life in general, always *subject to change.
How the Hell Did We Get Here?
Last year, after winning What’s in the Box?, we started planning what we half-jokingly, and then very seriously, began calling our “adventure of a lifetime.”
Our prizes were heavily centered around travel and events, and we’d won cash as well. Suddenly, we had something incredibly rare in front of us: not just the ability to go places, but the ability to give ourselves the time to experience them.
That distinction turned out to matter a lot. Taking our time. Taking the scenic route.
There were a few months between taping the show and it actually airing, giving us this bizarre little window to settle into our new reality and figure out what we wanted to do with it. And, until this aired, it was a huge secret, so we dove inward with ourselves and our planning. Just us. And Lottie.
We bought a big printed desktop calendar, laid it out on the kitchen table, and began filling in dates. As we were filling those in, we realized what was taking shape. Consistent trips with just a week, sometimes two, in between. From January through July and dipping into August.
These 8 months were going to be ridiculous and over the top. Like nothing we’ve experienced before. The equivalent of our lifetime of travels, over again, but in a very condensed period. Our dreams of traveling, really traveling, coming true.
New York City. Los Angeles. D.C., London. Paris. A Mediterranean cruise with stops in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. Trips stacked on trips, experiences stacked on experiences. And all in places that fulfilled our passions for
design, fashion, food, and history.
And then, following all of that, there was going to be the road trip.
The Trip That Kept Growing
Originally, the road trip wasn't supposed to be two months, but it grew and grew and took on a life of its own. We won tickets to Bonnaroo, a big weekend music festival in Tennessee, and to Coachella in California. Coachella will be next year, 2027, in the spring, but we’d be going to Tennessee this summer.
We realized we’d be able to bring Lottie on this trip, since we were driving, so we decided to add some time after the festival to travel a bit more. Then a bit more, and a bit more, realizing how exciting the prospect was. If we were already out and about driving, and we had a lot of Ticketmaster credits and cash from the game show, and we actually had the time…
The idea evolved. We’d drive across the United States, hitting the big annual festivals we’d won tickets to — Bonnaroo and Beyond Wonderland - then adding in iconic venues like The Sphere and as many National and State Parks as we could reasonably squeeze in. Along the way we'd check our destinations and stops for any other events.
We’d sleep everywhere from our tent to yurts and glamping domes, higher-end resorts, and roadside motels. We’d take interstates when we needed to make time crossing the country, but back roads the rest of the time.
That last part became important. At some point along the way, about two weeks in, the urge to slow down hit us. So we did. And that was possible because, intentionally, we hadn’t planned everything.
We had anchor points. The starter was Bonnaroo in Tennessee in mid-June. Then Beyond Wonderland in Washington State at the end of that month. San Francisco for July 4th. And eventually, sometime around the end of July or beginning of August, we needed to make our way back home to Charlotte.
Everything in between? Just like the roads we’d find ourselves on, wide open.
We knew, generally, what we wanted to do. But neither of us had ever taken a trip like this, not together and not before we met. Pretending we knew exactly how we'd want to travel for two months made no sense, but we were willing to go, prepare for everything we could think of, and figure out what we really liked as we traveled. We'd learn on the fly. Tent or hotel? Back roads or interstate? One night here or two? Or maybe three?
The first couple of weeks became a personal education in how we liked to travel. We learned from ourselves. Experimental. A trial period. Not how a travel guide said we should do it. How we actually enjoyed it. That distinction would become one of the recurring lessons of the entire journey. Everything is *subject to change.
And Then There Was Lottie
There was another very important member of this adventure to consider: Lottie.
Our earlier trips had all been somewhat sporadic: a long weekend here, a week in Europe, ten days on a cruise. We'd be flying for all of those, which meant bringing our beloved pup simply wasn't an option. And we always miss her like crazy when we travel. And these “shorter” trips added up, to over a month we’d be gone.
With this much travel ahead of us we realized we'd be away from her for longer stretches than ever before. So when we started thinking about the festivals we'd won tickets to, another idea emerged:
What if we built a trip where she could join us?
And just like that, the road trip was born. The festival prize also included $25,000 in Ticketmaster vouchers or credits, which opened another door entirely. What if, while driving around the country, we used those credits to find events along the way? What if smaller concerts and shows became another ingredient in the journey? A treasure hunt of sorts.
Drive. Explore. Camp. Hike. Find a city. See a show. Wake up somewhere new.
We could supplement it with some of the grand-prize money and turn this strange, wonderful thing that had happened to us into an opportunity we knew we would likely never have again. The kind of journey many of us can take when we are younger, with less ties, less mortgages, less responsibility.
That part wasn't lost on us. None of this was normal. None of this was something in our story that could have happened at our ages with everything going on in our lives. Without winning a game show, we simply wouldn't have been able to do it. Not even part of it. So we decided to lean all the way in.
One Month Became Two
What started as a week became a month, then one became two. What started as a trip built around festivals and venues became a journey to see as much as we possibly could.
And what started as an adventure, I think, also became something else. We wanted to soak up the rare gift of extended time off. To stop rushing from one experience to the next and actually immerse ourselves in the journey. Every part of this was the trip, it wasn’t destination to destination. We explored everything around us and everything within us. Turns out we really needed this.
There was another reason for that, one I don't think we completely understood when we left. We'd had a difficult stretch leading up to all of this. Personal and family loss. Financial difficulties. A natural disaster. Between the two of us, things were great. Better than great, actually. But around us, and inside us, there was a lot we hadn't fully dealt with. Just as we’d begin dealing with one source of grief & mourning, another would show up at our doorstep. We’d been through enough that, somewhere along the way, surviving & coping had taken precedence over processing.
Winning What’s in the Box? felt like the first crack of light. Having an unimaginable event like this fall into our laps, giving us the spark we’d been looking for, couldn’t have come at a better time. And we were ready to dive fully in.
One of the things we’ve always been pretty good at, something we talk about and are conscientious about, is recognizing when the door of opportunity opens. We’ve experienced enough to know that it is most often just for a short period, you walk through or you don’t.
I don’t think I saw anything more in this trip than an extension of our adventures. The festivals, the parks, the roadside stops, and the concerts. Two months of fun with my favorite two beings.
But it ended up being so much more. As we approached Charlotte, after three days on I-40 crossing back to the East Coast, I realized something had happened that I’d been anticipating for quite some time.
We closed a chapter and opened a new one. At that moment. I felt it. The moment we passed back into North Carolina, recognizable territory in one sense and a new world through new eyes in another.
I knew we were moving in a “new chapter” direction for a couple of years at least now. We’ve been adjusting, selling businesses, and making decisions based on this. We’ve reinvented ourselves a couple times over the years, and we find it both freeing and exhilarating, even if with a dose of apprehension and caution.
We believe if you only have one life to live, that doesn’t mean you can only be one person during that lifetime. Everything is *subject to change, and if you don't change the world will still change around you. So we choose to choose our change.
I’d assumed our chapters had changed last year when we won, just after a few months of digging out from the hurricane, after selling our businesses as well as our home in Roatan. Turns out that wasn’t the case at all; we were still navigating our way from the past, managing stresses that were still present, and drifting a bit without much direction. We weren’t moving forward yet and we hadn’t dealt with everything internally that we’d been holding onto.
The last day driving home, I felt the chapter close. I realized how much I’d changed, how those hours on the road had given us the time to decompress, to think through everything that put us where we were, to just be. There were hours that we talked endlessly. It’s amazing how after 23 years, you can still learn about each other and hear stories you’ve never heard before. Memories from deep in the past can find their way to the top when you have the time and can cut out all the noise of daily life.
There were also hours of silence, each of us in our own worlds, staring at the passing scenery, thinking about any and everything. We love each other’s company, and this trip only accentuated that, bringing us closer than I could have believed was possible.
Our next chapter is right in front of us, following a healing and self-exploratory adventure given to us from the most unexpected set of circumstances.
We know how fortunate we are in every way possible. And we are immensely grateful. From finding each other through winning this show. We don’t have everything mapped out just yet, and we like it that way. We do have a few things planned and a few ideas brewing, but like we’ve said before and like we’ve lived the past few months, it’s all *subject to change.
And we’re watching for that next door to open.
The road trip we (didn't know) needed ~ Joey and Scott Linwell
Comments