Cherry Hill family has written the book on road tripping

The Ovadias have been to 49 of America’s 50 states, visiting 48 by automobile. They’ll visit Hawaii, the elusive No. 50, later this summer

For the Ovadia family of Cherry Hill, their hobby and love of travel has turned into a sort of mini franchise.

The Ovadias -- father Ben, mother Rosa, and siblings Danny and Ella -- have traveled the country by car, covering more than 40,000 miles and 72 travel days over a span of three years. Along the way, they have visited every state in the continental U.S. by car, and have even hit spots in Canada while also visiting Alaska by air. Since then, they have written a book to teach others about the ins and outs of putting together successful and memorable family road trips.

And the family has a new member to join in on the fun. Baby brother Gabriel, born in October 2017, has already been to as many states in his first eight months of life than his father had visited before his 30th birthday, Ben joked. Together, the family of five plans to eventually hit that elusive 50th state by flying to Hawaii after an August cross-country drive to San Francisco. But in the meantime, Gabriel will have to catch up to the rest of his family and hit the other 49 states, too.

Their book, “Family Road Tripping Without Falling, How to Survive and Thrive With Your Kids on the Road”was released last summer and can be found on amazon.comand

barnesandnoble.com. In the 192-page paperback, they cover topics such as planning the journey, budgeting, packing, eating on the journey and much more.

Since the release of the book in July 2017, the family has done presentations at the Cherry Hill and Haddonfield public libraries, Barnes & Noble book store in Cherry Hill, appeared on numerous radio shows and podcasts and even donated a copy of their book to the Library of Congress -- and did so, fittingly, as part of a family road trip to Washington D.C.

“Over the three years of intense travel to get to 49 states, we'd often get the question: how do you do it?”said Ben Ovadia, 38, a fundraiser for the Salvation Army who is originally from Ardmore, Pa. “We'd give the five-minute answer sometimes and the 60-second answer other times. But, we really came to feel it was an art for us, that we should explain our way of doing things and then have people adjust to their tastes. So, we knew we wanted to write a book. But it probably would never have happened. Except that my published cousin said we needed to do it, and ‘sold’our story to a publisher friend of his. And then we got the concept together and outline. We wrote it over three months.”

“In the beginning, we wanted to write about ‘extreme’road tripping only, with that being something unique to us,”added Ben. “But we came to feel that we wanted this to be accessible to all. Maybe not the way we did it, but others can find their own way to bring this to their family in their own style.”

Travel, especially with kids, is a challenge. But for the Ovadias, AAA South Jersey members since 2000, things like finding the best route or simply organizing your trip though aren’t necessarily challenges, more like part of the fun. They’ve also used AAA TripTiks, member discounts and have the peace of mind knowing they can get roadside assistance.