Florida Keys & Total Eclipse
Utah to Key West and back, timed to watch the April 2024 total solar eclipse in Texarkana, Texas. Our longest day was 955 miles. Trip spending (lodging, admission, food, tolls) came to $1,617.90.
We love taking our electric cars on road trips! We still drive both of our Teslas. Our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D, bought used in 2019, was our road trip car through 2023 and is now mainly our around-town car. Since 2024 our 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range seven-seater has been our main road trip car, and our backup whenever the Model S is busy. We log every drive in both cars with TeslaFi, so our trips come with real numbers: miles, kWh, charging time and costs.
✍️ A quick note from Anthony: I’m a bit behind on editing! Our Florida Keys trip is fully published on the channel, and I’m still editing and publishing the trips that came after it.
Utah to Key West and back, timed to watch the April 2024 total solar eclipse in Texarkana, Texas. Our longest day was 955 miles. Trip spending (lodging, admission, food, tolls) came to $1,617.90.
Glacier, Banff, Jasper and Mount Robson, then Vancouver and down the Pacific coast through North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Crater Lake, Redwoods and Lassen Volcanic. Three adults and four kids, with a Thule hitch box on the back. Trip spending came to $3,331.03.
From Wind Cave and the Badlands across the northern states and Canadian prairies, then Quebec City, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Acadia, Washington DC, Shenandoah and New River Gorge, home by way of Rocky Mountain National Park. Trip spending came to $3,249.63.
▶The last day takes us from Grand Junction back into Utah as the trip crosses 7,000 miles.
▶After a hotel pool morning in Trinidad, we drive through the Colorado mountains to Great Sand Dunes — our 8th national park — then hike the dunes in cool air and surprisingly hot sand.
▶We leave Texarkana, TX at 6:13 a.m. and drive 760 miles across northern Texas and a quick dip into Oklahoma, finishing in Trinidad, Colorado after 15+ hours on the road.
▶The day after the eclipse, we drive from Texas into central Arkansas to visit Hot Springs National Park — one of the most unusual parks on this trip.
▶The big day has finally arrived! After more than two weeks on the road, our family of 6 watched the total solar eclipse from a park in Texarkana, Texas.
▶We leave our free campsite in Florida’s Blackwater River State Forest and drive 598 miles across the Gulf Coast into Texas.
▶Leaving our relatives near Orlando, we take a long 512-mile scenic coastal drive day in the Tesla Model Y up the Florida Panhandle. The highlight is visiting the beautiful St.
▶Our 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range just hit 50,000 miles — right as we finished a 10,000-mile road trip to Nova Scotia and back to Utah. In this video I break down the real ownership numbers after three years.
▶Leaving the Florida Keys behind, our family of 6 head north in the Tesla Model Y and stop at Caspersen Beach (South Venice) for a full afternoon of shell hunting.
▶Join our family of 6 as we explore Biscayne and Everglades National Parks during our epic 7,168 mile Tesla Model Y road trip!
▶Join our family as we drive our Model Y to the end of the road in Key West — crossing the iconic Seven Mile Bridge, playing on beautiful beaches, and soaking up ocean views at the Southernmost Point!
▶Join us as we take the kids on an unforgettable tram ride to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis!
▶We charge our Tesla Model Y directly from Grandpa’s massive off-grid solar array in Missouri — then explore the Remington Nature Center with the kids, shoot a vintage rifle, and enjoy a surprise tooth-loss moment!
▶In this video we begin our 7,168 mile road trip from Utah to Key West Florida and back. Today we drive our longest day ever driving 955 miles over 16.5 hours in a single day.
Write-upWe went on an epic adventure to Key West Florida and back to Utah. In this video I share all the details of our trip, before we delve into the trip video series!
▶What did our 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range cost to maintain in 2025? Plus battery degradation report and what we used it for this year.
▶We’ve now owned our 2023 Tesla Model Y for a year!
▶Tesla gave us a 30 day free trial of Full Self-Driving and we happened to be in the middle of a 7,168 mile road trip so we took full advantage of FSD for the remainder of our trip and some around town driving.
▶After finally learning that Cybertruck won't seat our family of 6 we began to consider buying a Tesla Model Y instead since Tesla offered to transfer our Free Unlimited Supercharging from our 2015 Model S 85D which Tesla has never offered before.
We bought our used 2015 Tesla Model S 85D on May 10, 2019, and it was our family road trip car until the Model Y took over road trips in 2024. We still own it and drive it around town. Every one of these trips is published on the channel:
▶In year 7 of owning our 2015 Model S 85D (now 11 years old with 151,303 miles), we spent just $5,601 total across 87,507 miles we’ve put on the car — that’s roughly $0.05 per mile including tires and maintenance.
▶We drove to Monroe Utah in our Tesla Model S to watch the annular solar eclipse from the hot springs there, then we had a fun weekend in Saint George Utah.
▶Over the 6 years we've owned our now 10 year old Tesla Model S 85D I've tracked our maintenance and repair costs and in this video I share all this information and summarize the total cost and price per mile to operate it over 10 years and 146,000 miles!
▶It's hard to believe, but we've now owned our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D for 5 years! It's been a fantastic 5 years and I've loved driving our Model S around, both around town and on road trips.
▶I was able to get a detailed scan of all data from my 2015 Tesla Model S 85D showing specifics about my vehicle that Tesla doesn’t provide, but that is stored in the computer.
▶In this video we embark on a 4,452 mile 16 day 15 night adventure in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D driving from Utah as far north as Omaha Nebraska, as far east as Jackson Tennessee and as far south as Texarkana Texas before heading back home.
▶Time-lapses out the windshield of our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D through all the main drives and Supercharging sessions of a 4,452-mile, 16-day road trip. We separated them into their own video because the main trip video was running long.
▶We had the opportunity to stay at a cabin with 3 other families near the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir in Utah. We also put our Thule rooftop carrier on the car for luggage and Kayak accessories like life jackets.
▶We've now owned our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D for 4 years and in this video I review its current condition and the costs to maintain it for the last year, how much electricity has powered our Model S and its battery condition.
▶I finished my RV build in late 2021 and I charged my Tesla from the RV all year during 2022.
▶I drove down to Saint George Utah from the Salt Lake City area with a friend and we took my Model S so we could drive there for free.
▶We Joined up with two other families to explore the ancient ruins of southwest Colorado. This trip was 4 days and 3 nights long and round trip we drove 865 miles which was 14.5 hours of driving.
▶We went on an epic road trip in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D with our family of 5! For this entire trip there and back to Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower we drove for a total of 1,586 miles which used 846% of our battery or 675 kWh.
▶We drove in our Tesla Model S to the Carter cattle ranch in Nevada completely out of range of all fast charging to experience the ranch life for a couple days.
▶We drove out to Steinaker State Park in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D to campout for 3 days and boat around on the reservoir.
▶My wife and I used to go canyoneering a lot, and we still get together periodically with our canyoneering friends. In this video we drive down to Cedar City Utah to canyoneer Benson Creek one day and the next we spend some time at Aspen-Mirror Lake.
▶For this adventure we explored Yellowstone in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D over 3 days. I documented all the charging and efficiency details of our drives plus the fun adventures we had.
▶I drove 584 miles round trip to help my brother in Idaho pull a large 1,984 lbs water tank out of his house using The Tesla torque to do so.
▶We embarked on this 3,248 mile adventure about a month after purchasing our used 2015 Tesla Model S 85 D with about 65,000 miles on it at the start of the trip. We drove from the Salt Lake City Utah area to Nauvoo Illinois and many places between over 10 days.
▶My wife and I went on an adventure without our children for the first time in a long time! We went on a 3 night 4 day river rafting trip with Mild2Wild which was a ton of fun.
▶On May 10th 2019 we purchased our Used CPO 2015 Tesla Model S and every year since then I've created review videos for the prior year of ownership and what the maintenance has been like. In this video I review our third year of ownership.
▶In 2019 three months after we purchased our used CPO 2015 Tesla Model S 85D we went on a camping trip to Fremont Lake Campground in Wyoming which has zero electrical hookups.
▶Our 2015 Tesla Model S which we purchased as a used CPO vehicle directly from Tesla with a 2 year or 100,000 mile warranty just achieved the 100,000 mile mark on the odometer and 6 days later we arrived at our 2 year anniversary!
▶Today's video is the second episode of our trip to Saint George taking our bicycles with our Tesla Model S exploring Saint George on our bikes and playing at the Saint George bike park then heading home which took forever due to extra power consumption from the bikes on the back of the car plus long lines at the Beaver supercharger.
▶We experience our first road trip with bicycles with our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D using the trailer hitch receiver I installed last year.
▶This was our very first road trip after purchasing our CPO 2015 Model S 85D and we were driving into a remote area far away from any Superchargers.
▶We had some family come into town so we took them out to Deer Creek Reservoir for some fun riding around in our small 14 foot fishing boat.
▶After installing the EcoHitch Stealth trailer hitch from Torklift along with the Tekonsha trailer light wiring, it was now time to test the towing abilities of our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D for energy consumption increase while towing as well as its ability to launch a boat into water.
▶We went to Saint George Utah on a multi-day trip and this video is day one of that trip where we drive to the Meadow, UT hot springs and have lots of fun before going to our hotel to stay the night.
▶We explored Skull Valley, a remote area of Utah none of us had ever been to, in our Tesla Model S. We visited the Iosepa cemetery and Horseshoe Springs, where the kids had fun playing in the water.
▶We wanted to try making ice cream with the power of our Tesla so we could potentially do it while camping, and the test was a great success!
▶On this adventure we drive into the mountains in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D to see the fall colors and explore.
▶For this adventure we drove our Tesla Model S 79 miles south to Maple Canyon for some fun rock climbing! After the girls each have their turn we do a little exploring in the canyon before heading home and I review all the Tesla data.
▶With lots of excess rooftop solar power generation we went out exploring a fun area that looks a lot like southern Utah.
▶I have a fair amount of experience driving our Tesla Model S in the mountains now and in this video I illustrate that although there's massive power consumption going up mountains, if you go down the other side you'll also experience power regeneration that actually averages out to be pretty close to our typical interstate speed driving efficiency at 85%.
▶In this video we explore a new region of Utah we've never been to. We've been doing a lot of extra exploring in our Tesla this spring because our rooftop solar is producing more electricity than we can consume at home.
▶On this Tesla powered adventure we drive a total of 5 hours round trip to drive to the Spiral Jetty which is on the north east shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
▶On this short regional adventure we drive down to the south end of the Nebo Loop to do a short hike. Our intended hike wasn't available due to the road being closed for the winter, so we improvised and just hiked up the road a ways.
▶In this video I review our costs of operating and maintaining our Used (Certified Pre Owned or CPO) 2015 Tesla Model S 85D.
▶We decided to go to Hardware Ranch near Logan Utah to see the Elk that congregate there for the winter feeding available there.
▶My wife and I review our learnings over 12,000 miles of road trips that we've been on in our 2015 Tesla Model S 85D with our family of 5.
▶Today is the day we finally arrive home! It's a long day going from Phoenix Arizona to the Salt Lake City Utah area.
▶We drive from El Paso Texas to Phoenix Arizona and see lots of desert along the way. We spend a day in Phoenix and we go on a kid friendly hike up the Shaw Butte Trail.
▶On our 10th travel day we drive from Temple, TX to El Paso, TX through a lot of wind, up to 25 mph in sections. We end up having to charge far longer than normal due to the wind and a supercharger being unavailable.
▶On the 9th day of our road trip we leave Slidell, LA and end up in Temple, TX.
▶Continuing on our homeward journey we drive from Tallahassee Florida to Slidell, Louisiana driving along the gulf coast for part of the drive and happening upon a beautiful beach.
▶Saying goodbye to family is never fun, but we have many more fun adventures yet to experience on our 5 day journey home to Utah from Florida. We stay overnight in a hotel with a destination charger in Tallahassee Florida.
▶We go to a small local zoo and safari experience to show our girls some local Floridian wildlife then we drive through the safari park in our Tesla Model S on Autopilot!
▶Our girls have never been to any ocean before so we take them for a first to the New Smyrna Beach on the Atlantic Coast of Florida to experience big waves!
▶First thing this morning we drive to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park and spend several hours exploring it and the neighboring submarine. Then we continue on to Orlando Florida arriving at around 11pm.
▶This morning we check out the Texarkana Texas/Arkansas border then we continue on to Mobile Alabama where we stay at a hotel with a FAST 80 amp destination charger.
▶On this our longest driving day of the entire trip we manage 838 miles with our young family. We drive from Albuquerque New Mexico to Texarkana Texas.
▶On our first day we leave the cold Utah area hitting 0 degrees Fahrenheit through mountain passes as we head to sunny Florida! We drive from the Salt Lake City, UT area to Albuquerque, NM.
▶In this video series I go over the details of how well our used/CPO 2015 Tesla Model S 85D performs on this 5,883 mile winter cross country road trip from Salt Lake City, UT to Orlando, FL with my young family of 5 for Christmas.
▶How we plan a road trip in a Tesla or other electric vehicle, using tools like Tesla's trip planner, A Better Route Planner, PlugShare, Windy and Google Maps.