AEE 2665: Splash Into Summer Part 2: Time for a Road Trip!

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2665, "Splash into Summer, Part 2: Time for a Road Trip". Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host,

Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, and Aubrey Carter , the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA. Do you have any fun summer road trips planned?

Today we're sharing part two of our summer series with phrases for vacations and road trips that will help you connect in English this summer. Hey, Aubrey, how are you?

you? I'm great. How are you, Michelle? I'm doing really well, but I have a question. Do you love a summer road trip? Yes, it's my favorite. I love road trips in the summer. I

always drive up to Idaho and then back to Arizona, and it's a 15-hour road trip up there. So we always visit a national park on the way up. We usually split it into two days,

and we make it really fun. I love a road trip. Oh, that is so fun. Yeah, Summer road trips are the best. So in this part two of our Splash Into Summer series,

we're talking about road trips. So Lindsay and Aubrey, right? You guys bonded over your shared love of summer road trips and you taught four idioms about summer travel.

Exactly. These phrases are perfect for talking about any vacation. So you can use them to connect with friends, family, and coworkers about their summer vacation plans or a trip they recently

took. Oh, I love it. All right, guys, let's hear the episode. Hey there, Aubrey. How's it going today? I'm excellent. How are you? Good. I'm excited to be on the mic with you. I love our

recording days. They're my favorite part of my day. I know, same. And I'm so excited for today's because we are talking about road trips, which are one of my favorite things. And I know you love

road trips too, right, Lindsay? I love road trips. I just took a road trip to New Mexico last weekend. Yeah. So fun. I live so close to New Mexico. We should have met

up. I didn't know. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, we were in Taos, New Mexico. So I've actually never been. I live in the state neighboring New Mexico, you guys,

and I've never been to New Mexico. It's a crying shame. It's just there's so much wild nature. It kind of reminds me of Utah a little bit. Just the wind and the sun, the elements just really get you

. But that's what road trips are about, right, Aubrey? Being out in the world with the elements. Yeah. Right? Being able to see all the landscape between where you live

and where you're going. And it's so fascinating sometimes how quick it will change, right? I know. When you're in Utah and you go from these red cliffs,

and then immediately you'll be so fast in like a desert or, you know, it just changes so quickly. It's fascinating. Yeah. There's nothing more American too, right?

It's really in our cultural values. Nothing more American than the cross-country road trip. It's so true. It's the classic American, especially because we can go on

a two-day road trip and see so many interesting things. And I know this is, you know, really popular in other cultures too. I know in Europe they'll take really cool road trips.

I drove once from Belgium down to Spain, and that's awesome . But you're right, it's so American. Americans love their road trips. I love it. And guys, you know, a little bit later in the episode,

you want to listen up because we're going to show you how you can take a road trip with us, with me, in the car by video lesson, guys. All right. But we want to refer our listeners to another episode about

road trips, right, Aubrey? What was that episode? This is a really fun one that you and Michelle recorded recently, episode 1772, American Road Trip Games.

And this is vital for any road trip that you guys are prepared with some fun games. This was my favorite part of a road trip, to play some really fun games in the car because you're

going to have a lot of hours to drive. So make them fun. Yeah, and I know you're a real game person, Aubrey, So I'm not surprised that you like to play games on a road

trip for sure. For me, I listen to podcasts. Like I'm all about the pod games are okay, but I want to listen to podcasts, maybe music, but more podcasts actually.

Oh, we might have a hard time, you and I on a road trip. No, I would, I'm just like, I'll take a few hours of podcasts and then I'll be like, okay, let's take a break and play a fun game.

I just like to switch it up. That's good. That's good that you switch it up. For sure. But we're diving into some really fun vocab today for idi oms about road trips that you guys are going to need if

The best way to use these, if you're going to chat with a co-worker at work or a friend to ask them about an upcoming road trip, or maybe one they took recently.

These are really fun idioms to sound more native and natural when you do that. Exactly. Because guys, sometimes road trips are not the two -month journey, right,

that I took that you could take with us later when you hear about that. But sometimes they're just a weekend trip, right? And that is also a road trip.

And that means people are coming back to work Monday morning. And what are you going to say to them to ask about that trip? That's the key, right, Aubrey?

Yes, and you should, right? What a great way to build connection. If someone lets you know on Thursday or Friday they're going on a road trip, plan on asking them about it Monday because they're going

to have fun stories to share. This is a great way to connect. It's so fun. Oh, now I wish it was last Friday because about this time last Friday, we were hitting the road for New Mexico. Now I feel like I

want to go back a week. Do you ever get that feeling like you want to go back? Because you were just at the Grand Canyon. Yes. I just took a road trip. It's only a few hours drive for me

, but to the Grand Canyon. And I hiked to the Grand Canyon. And for multiple reasons, I would like to rewind time to the day before I went because I'm now suffering the consequences. It's no joke,

hiking the Grand Canyon. It's like eight miles straight down. I'm losing toenails. I'm still sore. You really, you lost toenail. You actually lost toenails.

Yes, I have one that's like falling off. It's really terrible. I wasn't as prepared as I needed to be. The girls I went with are avid hikers. They go on

lots of long hikes and I hadn't as much, so my body wasn't ready. My knees made me feel like a grandma. They hurt so much after a few miles going down. And I even had

hiking poles. Okay, we're going to have to hear more about this over the next couple of weeks on the podcast. I love this. You know, it's a classic mistake, right? It's good that you

had the poles, but going with a group that's a lot more advanced can be a real mistake, but you only realize it when you're halfway through the hike. Exactly, right.

I'm like, can we slow down? Can we take a break? Oh, so funny. But yes, it was a fun road trip going up there. The Grand Canyon is just beautiful. If you follow us on social media, you probably saw a couple

of my posts just showing it. It's absolutely breathtaking. But I feel like one of the most fun parts of it was the road trip, driving. We played some really fun games.

We got all these great snacks. And I loved you used that phrase, hit the road, right? The best moment is when you're about to hit the road and you have all this anticipation.

It's so exciting. And the sunglasses on. Yeah, it's so good. It is so good. So in, you know, when it comes to connecting with your colleagues or your friends, guys in

English, talking to a native speaker, the journey for them is often just as much, you know, the adventure is the journey too. It's the trip there and it's the actual thing

they did when they got there, right? Or it's just the trip. Sometimes we just take a trip to take a trip. So this is very good stuff you can use with native speakers.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can ask them if someone let you know that they 're going to take a road trip. This is a great phrase. And they come back to say, oh, you said you're going to hit

the road this weekend. How was it? Instead of saying, you know, you told me you were going to go on a road trip. Use this phrase, hit the road. This idiom means the same thing as going for a drive,

taking a road trip. Yes. And but so native and natural. Yeah. And I just a spontaneous example that comes up is, you know , if someone you got the message

that someone was a little delayed, maybe they were trying to get out of the office and they were rushing. You know, you could ask them, oh, what time did you finally hit the road on Friday?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I say that a lot, right? Like, oh, what time did we? Or if you're traveling with other people and you're like trying to coordinate. Yeah.

I'd say this all the time. Like, what time did you guys hit the road? Yeah. Asking what time they began their trip. Right. Because on this show, guys, we like to show you ways that

make things sound more casual and less direct. Right. What's the other option? What time did you leave? It's kind of boring. It's kind of textbook, right, Aubrey?

Yes, yeah, it's almost too formal too. When you're chatting with friends, co-workers about a road trip, you want to keep it very informal. That's the best way to build connections.

So using idioms, slang, phrasal verbs, this is much more informal and natural. That's the best way to build connections. Right. Or another scenario would be if you are meeting another

couple that's joining you on a road trip and they show up late. You don't want to say, what time did you leave? Right. Now you could say, oh, did you hit some traffic?

What time did you hit the road? Right. I know that's a little almost accusatory to say, what time did you leave? Yes. Why did you leave late? Exactly.

So guys, this is, you know, write this phrase down. This is probably going to be highlighted in our iOS Android app as well. So make sure you get this in your vocabulary, guys.

Definitely. Yeah. And keep in mind, even if someone hasn't told you they're about to take a road trip, this is just a fun thing to talk about. So you could also say like, when's the last time you hit

the road? Yeah. Or what's the best road trip you've taken, right? Yeah. So just to ask them about road trips at some point. the past or when they're going to take one in the future

doesn't have to be reserved just for when you know someone just got back from one. I love it. I love it. So good, guys. So write that one down. Let's go into the next one, Aubrey. What is the

next one? Yes, is to get off the beaten track, which this is interesting because I grew up saying get off the beaten path, but looking it up online, Google everywhere says get off the beaten

track. What do you say, Lindsay? Yeah, I think for me, get off the beaten. That's a good question. They both sound right. I think I actually grew up saying path, get off the beaten

path. Me too. So I had just written that, get off the beaten path. And then I was kind of looking around and online you'll see get off the beaten track.

So I'm really curious where that's said more often. If that's what Google shares, then that's clearly very common. But yeah, where I grew up in Idaho, we said get off the

beaten path. Okay. So guys, you know, because natives say it differently, you can use either, right? Don't get stuck on little things like that, right?

Say one of them, say both of them. Take your pick. I love it. You'll hear both. You're going to hear both on TV. You're going to hear friends say both.

They clearly both are acceptable. We know what you mean. And this is a really fun one to just talk about going somewhere that not every tourist sees, right?

Yes. The Grand Canyon was not really getting off the beaten path because lots of tourists, which was fun to hear all these languages from all over the

world from the different hikers. I loved that. But there are definitely places that are more like hidden. Right. Not everyone knows about that are more off the beaten path.

Right. But wouldn't you say just the fact that you hiked it, you got off the beaten path a little bit? I mean, most tourists don't hike the Grand Canyon.

That's true. Most tourists were up on the rim just looking down in. So by the time I got to the bottom, then I was definitely off the beaten path, literally.

Sure. And that's always the reward, right? The reward of being like a hiker, through hiker, in and out hiker, backpacking. You get to see the places that your average everyday

tourist will not go to. Yes, it's so true. Not everybody gets down to the Colorado River, right? sat in it. I put my feet in. What was crazy, Lindsay, I don

't know if you had, I had never thought about this. It's so much hotter at the bottom because at the top it's 5,000 feet higher. So it's like being in the mountains where it's cooler.

And then you hike down and it's the same temperature as Phoenix. And it was just, I just sort of had never thought about how that would happen. So it was so hot. It was 102 degrees at the bottom.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. You were not prepared for what I'm hearing here. Okay, I love this. I like laid in the river, the Colorado River, because I was so hot and sweaty.

That's hilarious. I love it. And, you know, yeah, this is a typical, I mean, a very common place to go. Again, the Grand Canyon, right? And guys, in the Connected Communicator course, which you

'll hear about in a few minutes, how do you actually get that? I take you off the beaten path. I take you to southern Utah. I remember being in kind of near, I think, Monument Valley

or Canyonlands, you know, where there's no one. It's sunset. I'm in a remote corner of the park and there's just no one around, but you guys are with me.

Me on the video. It's really, really cool. It's so cool. I went somewhere near there. It's called Gob lin Valley, near kind of near Moab through Monument Valley. There was

nobody around. It was so cool. I love getting off the beaten path like that. Yeah. Seeing places that not everybody sees. So cool. Yeah. And there's something about Utah, about Southern Utah

that just is so raw and so natural and so beautiful. I think it's the rock formations, the red rocks. Guys, you can't miss it. It is fantastic. So let's move on to the next one, Aubrey. What do you think

? Yeah, so this is living out of a suitcase. And that just means you're traveling. You're not somewhere where you're going to be there long enough to unpack and put things in like dresser drawers.

You just leave everything in your suitcase, literally living out of the suitcase. But we'll say this, we're like, oh, I'm going to live out of a suitcase for the next couple of weeks,

meaning I'm going on a fun trip. And then you could ask them, oh, fun, where are you going? Yeah, and is that what you usually do? Because I know during the summers you go up to Idaho with

your family. Do you actually live out of the suitcase? While you're there, do you unpack? Yes, I've done both. There are a couple years where we're there almost a month and I'll

live out of the suitcase and then really regret it because the suitcase ends up like exploding all over the room and it's just a huge mess. It's really hard to stay organized.

So I try to just live out of a suitcase for trips that are like a few days. And if I'm going to be there longer than a week, I'm putting things in dresser drawers

or it's going to be a hot mess. Oh, for sure. I don't like having to dig through and not being able to find anything. I like to kind of settle in and make myself feel like I

have a new home, right? I love that. Yes, exactly. So this is really a fun, like just the thought of living out of a suitcase because you know you're somewhere fun.

You know you're traveling. You're only staying somewhere for a couple of days. So there's sort of a feeling of excitement about living out of a suitcase, right?

There is, absolutely. It brings back memories for me of my days traveling through South America, you know, backpacking. And those backpacks, you know, you've done some of this.

They don't open in any other way. So you have to dig under everything to get anything out. It is so impractical. Practical. It's ridiculous. So true. And it's kind of related to our last one here, traveling

light, which means not overpacking, traveling the bare minimum, like you do when you're backpacking around Europe because you just cannot carry more weight.

If you bring anything extra, you're going to end up ditch ing it. You really need to travel light if you're backpacking. Yeah. What is that saying they have where they say when you

're packing, take all the clothes you've laid out, get rid of half of them. Like, don't take half of them and take double the money, right? Oh, that's funny.

Take money to do laundry if you need to. Right, exactly. Or just to buy socks or something. You know, don't bring all that stuff. Are you an overpacker, Lindsay?

Maybe not when backpacking, but like your Santa Fe trip. Did you use everything you packed or did you have extra things? Oh, God, I'm such a bad packer.

I packed the wrong thing. So I realized for my Santa Fe, for my Taos trip, I didn't pack a t-shirt for Saturday afternoon after our hike. Like I packed all this, oh for the hike and enough like,

you know, jackets in case it's. cold. I didn't pack a t-shirt just to hang out. So I don't pack any of the right things and too much of the wrong things, sadly. Gotcha. I just over

pack. We'll go up to my in-law's cabin and we all usually end up having a fire in the house. So everything ends up smelling smoky. I love that. And the bags when we get home will be

full of things that we didn't wear, but I still have to wash because everything's smoky. I'm like, why? Why did I pack extra anything. A lot of laundry for sure. I love that. I

love that. This is so fun, guys. You know, these are the kind of conversations you're going to have with your native speaking colleagues and friends if you open up this vocabulary with

them, right? It's so good for connection. Yes, exactly. I feel closer to you, Lindsay, just from having this conversation. And anytime I chat with a friend about a road

trip they've taken or travel, we always like bond. I just feel like we're closer friends. We've been able to chat about something really fun and interesting.

They've been able to share about a cool place they went. Everyone loves that. But they want to share. It is so true. I love it. So good. All right, let's do a little role play here.

Okay, let's do a role play, Aubrey. So you and I are friends discussing our summer plans. Yeah, perfect. I'll go ahead and start us. Okay, go for it. Any fun plans this summer?

Yes, we are going to hit the road. We're planning to drive up the coast from Arizona to Washington. That's amazing. I drove that once and it was so cool to get off the beaten

track. Are you going to see the Redwoods? Oh, definitely. I can't wait. We're going to camp a lot, so we'll for sure need to travel light. Oh, yeah. When we went, I lived out of a suitcase for two

weeks. Well, I hope you at least found showers along the way. Nice. I love that. Like, maybe I didn't for two weeks. Yes, I love it. Smelly. I love it. I love it. Did we use any of the vocabulary here

in the role play today or not as much? Yes. The first thing you said was hit the road, right? I've asked if you had fun plans, and you said, yes, we're going to hit the road.

Yes. You explained what you're doing, right? It would be kind of weird to say that and then stop. You would definitely share what are you going to do? Where

are you going to go? I love it. And then you said, that's amazing. I drove that once and it was amazing to get off the beaten track. But I like how, by the way,

during the conversation, you switched the word instead of saying amazing twice in the same sentence, which we obviously want to avoid, guys. What did you say instead? It was cool or it was...

I think super cool. Something like that. Yes, when I had written the role play, I had accidentally put amazing twice. Yeah. But I felt it. I'm like, oh, you don't want to repeat an adjective like

that. So I switched it. I'm like, oh, and it was super cool to get off the beaten track. You guys want to do the same thing. If ever you're finding yourself repeating a word like

amazing, say something else. We all know that person who says amazing over and over and over and over. Don't be that person. And I think we were going to do an episode on that someday,

right, Albert? We talked about that last time that we're going to try to do an episode at some point. on that, right? Don't be the person that repeats the same

adjective. or even noun in the same sentence over, especially adject ives, over and over. It's boring. Yeah, it's so easy to do and not even realize you're doing

it, right? That's why we do focus quite a bit on vocabulary because you need such a wide range of vocabulary in order to have the tools to not have to repeat the same words over and

over. Because it can get annoying. It can get really annoying. All right, so let's, and then the last thing we did here was I said, definitely, I can't wait. We're going to camp a

lot, so we'll for sure need to travel light. Right, Aubrey? Yes, and then I said, oh, I lived out of the suitcase for two weeks, right? These are such fun phrases.

You can see how this is totally normal to use all four in this very quick exchange with a friend or a co-worker, and you're using so much native interesting vocabulary.

Yes, I love it. So what's the takeaway for our listeners real quick today, Aubrey? Yes, you guys, summer is the season for road trips. We are hitting it.

It's time. Hopefully you guys have a fun road trip planned. We want you to be able to use today's fun idioms to ask a friend or. a co-worker about their summer plans. Ask if they have a

road trip coming up. Yeah, guys, a big part of connecting with people in a new culture is understanding what they value. And a lot of people in the US do value hitting the road,

right? So ask them about it, go and do it yourself, play those road trip games from the other episode and just get into it. So good. Yes, exactly. And for the ultimate cross-country road trip

in the US with Lindsay and Jessica, guys, sign up for Connected Communicator. It is the most fun. Yeah, we hope to see you guys in that course very soon.

All right, Aubrey, thanks for hanging out today. It's been great. Yep, see you later. Take care. Bye. Bye. I'm so glad we were able to bring you this fun episode.

I especially love the phrase packing light as a fun conversation topic. You can ask a friend, do you pack light for trips or are you a light packer? And they'll share if they're good at packing just what they

need or if they have a tendency to overpack. What about Michelle? Are you a light packer? Michelle. No, are you? I am actually. I pack too light often and then I don't have everything I

need. So I'm like, what was I thinking? I have no sweater. And then the worst is then if he packs for one of the kids and then that kid also like I'll pack for one and he'll pack for

the other. I do that too. I'll like pack too light for the kids. My Cole is like, why don't I pack the kids? So we make sure we have everything we need.

We end up having to go to a store to like buy something I forgot. So funny. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I guess it's good to balance each other out. All right.

So guys, be sure to hit follow for the third installment of this series. So we are going to teach you some of the most popular road trip games in American culture

that you can play on your next summer road trip or really anytime. Yes, you know I love a game, Michelle. I love road trip games. I think this is so fun.

I'm excited to share with you some of those that are most popular in American culture. But you can play on a road trip or anytime. Really fun game. Really fun.

All right, I love it. All right, guys, see you next time. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level?

Take our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, Then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything

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