Roaming the Country in the Nissan Rogue

Everyone tells you time goes fast when you’re a parent. I heard that sentiment countless times when my girls were young. Honestly, there were some days when I thought time couldn’t go fast enough - a strawberry yogurt incident that ruined a couch comes to mind - but everyone is right. The time passes so darn fast. My youngest daughter goes off to college in a matter of days, so the opportunity to take her on a road trip in the 2022 Nissan Rogue was something of a gift.

I’ve driven the Rogue on more than a few road trips. No, I don’t own one, but Nissan has organized an adventure or two for journalists over the years. The last road trip they sent me on had me sleeping in a yurt one night and in a haunted bed and breakfast at Gettysburg the next. I didn’t see any ghosts, but I did get to eat breakfast in a room where they did the amputations during the Civil War, so close enough.

This time around they sent me on a drive from my home in southern New Hampshire to Saranac Lake, New York. It’s a four-ish hour trip north through Vermont that includes some beautiful countryside. Our plan was to set out first thing in the morning, which was around 10 am since my daughter is a teenager. We were to arrive in the afternoon. A quick stop for coffee, because coffee is life, and we were on our way.

This Nissan Rogue is a two-row SUV with a roomy and comfortable interior. It’s also surprisingly upscale, particularly in its top trims. This year, it sports a new 1.5-liter turbocharged 3-cylinder engine with 201 horsepower and 225 lb-ft of torque paired to a continuously variable automatic transmission. It’s a big improvement over last year’s engine and giving it a good test was why Nissan sent me out on this adventure.

The Rogue made short work of the mountain roads that lead us to Saranac Lake. There were plenty of twists and turns that were not only easy to drive, but outright fun. Even the increasing elevation didn’t tax the engine. And there was the added benefit of great fuel economy. If you go with front-wheel drive it gets an EPA-estimated 33 mpg combined with all-wheel drive trims dropping that figure slightly to 31 mpg.

It was also incredibly comfortable. The Rogue has Zero Gravity front seats, which sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo, but they’re truly fantastic. Nissan designed them to mimic the weightlessness of astronauts in space by keeping your spine carefully positioned and reducing pressure points. The road weariness of longer drives is far less of an issue with these seats.

Half the fun of a road trip is the trip itself, so we made a few stops on our way to New York. Our goal was to find at least one small coffee shop, hopefully with good pastries, and a couple of independent bookstores. We’re both big readers so the opportunity to wander a new bookstore is a treat. You never know what you’re going to find in the next aisle.

It was also a treat to simply wander with my daughter. Unlike the unfortunate strawberry yogurt day, I couldn’t make this day last long enough. We found a special edition of a book she couldn’t find anywhere else and there was even a coffee shop right next door. Two coffees and a chocolate croissant joined us for the rest of the drive to New York. Right about here is where things went a little off course.

The Rogue has standard Apple CarPlay, which is fantastic when you’re on a road trip. There’s also a standard 8-inch infotainment touchscreen and a pair of USB ports up front to keep your devices charged. While this makes it easy to stay on track during a road trip, getting the correct address in the onboard GPS is key to the whole road trip process. Let’s just say that Lake Flower and Lake Fletcher are really close to each other alphabetically, and I picked the wrong one when we left the cute bookstore.

This might seem like a road trip disaster, but it wasn’t. It was actually sort of perfect. We drove 45 minutes up into the mountains of Vermont in the wrong direction. We wandered along country roads, came to the conclusion that buying an old barn and turning it into a house would be amazing, and had the chance to go off-road on a rutted dirt lane, which is roughly when I realized we couldn’t possibly be on the right road.

I may never live this down with my daughter and I’m sure that over the years the magnitude of my mistake will only increase. I bet one day my 45-minute detour will grow to endless hours in her memory. But it was some of the most fun we had on the entire trip. Windows and sunroof open with our hair a mess and the music turned up, it didn’t matter that we were going the wrong way.

Sometimes cars do nothing more than get us from point A to point B. The Nissan Rogue can surely do that with an attractive interior, comfortable front seats, and plenty of room for cargo. Whether taking the kids around town to school and endless events or tackling the morning commute, the Rogue is a great choice. It’s also affordable with pricing from $27,150 to $38,430.

But sometimes a car is more than just a way to get to work or school. Sometimes it’s a way to have an adventure. A way to enjoy a trip to someplace you’ve never been along roads you’ve never seen. When you head out on a road trip, the distractions of life take a back seat. You can’t run errands. You can’t clean the house. You can’t mow the lawn.

What you can do is spend time with the ones you love and simply enjoy each other’s company. Whether that’s singing off key at the top of your lungs, getting wonderfully lost on back roads, or exploring new places, a road trip is a chance to connect with the ones you love and create memories to treasure.

In three days, I’ll set out on another road trip to drop my daughter off for her first year of college. I’m excited for her next adventure, but I’m going to miss her. I have to say goodbye and put the days of strawberry yogurt disasters and family adventures in the past. But I’ll hold onto the memories of our road trip in the Nissan Rogue as I make the trek home without her. Kids grow up, but the adventures we have with them stay with us forever.