The No ETA Tour has essentially come to its end. Our lease on the Palm Desert condo was up at the end of March and we are heading east. There will be stops along the way and adventures to come, but travel from now on is to get someplace, not for its own sake.

Our family sabbatical thus will have spanned the seasons from August to April. Our rough itinerary changed in important respects as we went along; we spent the winter in Palm Desert, CA instead of roaming the Pacific and we have put off until another year our trip to Greece and Rome. But for all that we have had the rare opportunity to see large portions of the U.S. and Canada and to be with each other 24/7 for more than 8 months.

Here are a few lessons learned:

•Serendipitous travel worked well for us. We rarely planned our next destination; we made few advance reservations. By 4 PM most days we knew where we would stop for the night. We tried to stay several nights in each location to cut down on the packing/unpacking, and to go deep rather than wide. We valued recommendations that we heard as we went along, especially from locals. The web site Yelp proved very useful for restaurant and hotel advice.

•Our decision not to tie up capital in an RV proved to be sensible. We tent camped; we stayed in motels, inns, cottages, and a few upscale hotels; we rented a condo for several months. Financially this was probably a wash, but there was a clear gain in flexibility.

•Travel with a pet is limiting. There are increasingly fewer pet friendly hotels/motels, and many charge up to $20 per night for the privilege. The only chains that we know of that welcome dogs and don’t charge are LaQuinta Inns and Drury Inns. The AAA Tour Books are valuable for finding places to stay that take pets. We also found that several western states do not allow dogs in state parks, even in the parking lots. Furthermore, national parks do not allow dogs on trails. So Baxter spent much of his time in the car as we toured museums and gardens, and day hiked.

•Home schooling (or “road schooling’) requires a significant amount of time. Some kids might work well under a regimen that allows them to determine their own pace and time to complete a set of daily assignments. We generally adopted a more rigid system of school in the morning and adventures in the afternoon, starting each weekday at 8 AM. Sometimes it was a challenge to find a quiet spot in which to work.

•Families who travel in the U.S. for an academic year will find that the dark months of December, January, and February pose a challenge. Generally speaking there are few places in which the temperatures are warm enough to be outside each day during these months. And the short days mean that by late afternoon it is dark. Florida on the East Coast and the Southern California desert in the West are about it. Any elevation above 1,000 feet will be too cold for camping, except in an RV with heat.

•There are many places to see and much to do; there is never enough time to do everything. When the trip is over there will still be lots left for the next time.