Work and sight seeing

It does help to live on a major freight lane.

 

Yes it does. Also, enterprise rent a car is your friend since they'll pick you up. I use them all the time when I'm down for a couple days and want some wheels. Most weekends you can get there weekend deal of $9.99/day rental. Otherwise for a small car I usually am spending $25-30/day. Basically the cost of a one way Uber ride someplace so why not get your own car instead?

A lot of times enterprise will work with you so you can return the car when they are closed or they'll let you park someplace and they'll come pick it up the next day they are open.

 

You can definitely have some great experiences outside of work, even with minimal planning. As others have stated download the prime mobile app to your smartphone, for obvious reasons, and download the Trip Adviser App as well. When using Trip Adviser, you can either search a specific location in advance or you can use the "near me now" feature. I had a great find in Ocala, Fl with that and found out I was half a mile from a really great zip line park over an abandoned mining operation that struck water, lol.

In general, humans went to the moon, so if you want to explore and have a good time, there is no reason you can't make the situation work for you.