In Suburban Chicago, pilot Rusty lives a quiet life.
He works for a low-budget regional airline, so his flights are only local and not very
exciting.
Trying to impress the passengers always ends up in awkward moments, and Rusty's often paired
up with awful co-pilots that puts them in danger.
To make matters worse, being only a regional flier doesn't earn him much respect, unlike
his rival Ethan, an international pilot that gets all the attention from the air hostesses
and steals Rusty's spot in the shuttle.
At home, things aren't particularly better.
Rusty's wife Debbie isn't happy about how stale and boring their relationship has become,
she's also got trouble handling their two sons: shy fourteen-year-old James and sadistic
twelve-year-old Kevin.
James is constantly being bullied by Kevin through insults and pranks - today, Kevin
has ruined James' guitar with graffiti.
Rusty's way of fixing the situation is by giving them a cheesy speech before sending
Kevin to his room and crossing out the dirty word on the guitar just to write another.
Later in the evening, the Petersons come over for dinner.
James tries to befriend the daughter, but Kevin humiliates him and ruins his chances.
The father Jack tells Rusty about his adventures building and driving a go-kart with his son,
he also shows a close bond with the boy that Rusty tries to imitate with James and fails.
Meanwhile, the mother Nancy teases Debbie because she keeps dropping her wedding ring
- this is because she's been losing weight, so now the ring is loose.
Nancy also tells her about the vacation her family took to France and shows her all the
pictures she took, making Nancy green with envy.
Her own family never has fun vacations like this, instead, Rusty has been taking them
to the same cabin in Michigan for the past ten years and she's sick of it.
However, she can't bring herself to tell Rusty this because he loves that cabin and she doesn't
want to break his heart.
Unfortunately, Rusty overhears this and gets upset anyway.
Later, he takes a look at the pictures of their summers spent in the cabin and he realizes
Nancy looks more miserable each year.
Then, he finds the photos of the vacations he used to spend with his family as a kid
and gets an idea.
The next morning, Rusty makes the big announcement over breakfast: they're driving all the way
to Walley World, a famous amusement park with the craziest rollercoaster in the country.
The boys don't like the idea of spending so much time together in the car with each other,
and Debbie is skeptical as well, but she changes her mind when she realizes it's an improvement
over the cabin.
To get there, Rusty has rented a plugged-in hybrid Albanian SUV.
It is an over complicated car with lots of extra gadgets and buttons that Rusty doesn't
know how to handle, but it's all he could find on such short notice.
The issues don't stop there - once the trip begins, it only takes the car around an hour
to run out of gas.
Shortly after refilling the tanks, Rusty notices a big truck with a teddy bear on its grill
driving behind them and decides to show his family another cool thing about the SUV: it
comes with a CB radio in it.
After Rusty uses it to talk to the trucker and gets a positive response, Kevin tries
next, only to ask the trucker a very inappropriate question.
The truck suddenly goes faster and begins driving next to them instead, so a panicking
Rusty takes the radio from his son and apologizes for the misunderstanding.
A few moments later, they stop at a diner, and Debbie wonders what happened to Rusty's
old plans of vacationing overseas.
Sadly, those were ideas made by a pilot wanting to fly international, but Rusty is stuck in
regional.
He considers it a blessing though, because it means he can spend more time with his family.
When the boys return from the bathroom saying they found a hole in the stall, the family
decides to leave, unaware that the teddy bear truck is still around.
Once they get back to the road, Debbie entertains herself with a novel.
James sees a jeep driving next to them and in it, a beautiful girl called Adena, who
James tries to make contact with.
At first, they wave at each other successfully, but Kevin ruins things yet again by putting
a bag around James' head just to see how long it would take him to black out.
When they pass by Memphis, Rusty decides to
get off the highway to show the kids the university
Debbie went to.
The tour is nice and calm, but then Rusty wants to visit Debbie's old sorority as well,
an idea Debbie hates.
Rusty drags them there anyway, and that's how he discovers his wife had a wild past:
she used to be known as 'Debbie Do Anything', she used to be promiscuous, and she invented
an obstacle course called the "chug run".
The current sorority sister don't believe she's the famous Debbie because she's behaving
responsibly and boring right now, so to show them she's the real deal, Debbie decides to
do the "chug run".
Unfortunately, it goes terribly: the beer she drinks is too much and she ends up puking
through her jumps until she falls off the course, unable to finish it.
After Debbie washes and changes clothes, the family returns to the road.
Rusty turns on the radio and finds his favorite song by Seal, but the others refuse to sing
along with him.
At that moment, the teddy bear truck reaches them again, coming too close as it honks its
horn.
Thinking the trucker wants to kill them for Kevin's inappropriate comment, Rusty begins
driving faster and Debbie tries the different buttons, but the car only pulls off useless
gimmicks.
Rusty decides to try a special move he saw Vin Diesel do in a movie, but it only ends
up with the car rolling over a couple of times before it lands in the middle of the road.
This causes the truck to suddenly come to a stop to avoid crashing into them, so Rusty
takes the chance to get away at high speed.
When night falls, the family stops at a motel.
The boys get their own room, which means the parents finally have some privacy to chat.
Rusty asks Debbie why she never told him about her past and how many guys she was with before
meeting him, to which Debbie answers around thirty.
But she also explains that it doesn't matter because she isn't that girl anymore, she's
matured and chosen to marry Rusty.
This isn't enough for him though, Rusty still feels like a loser because he only was with
three girls before Debbie and they had been hard to find.
Debbie admits their intimate life has become a bit boring and routine, so Rusty decides
to spice things up by following her to the shower, an idea Debbie likes a lot.
Unfortunately, the bathroom is in an absolutely disgusting state and it ruins the mood.
Meanwhile, James is sitting in the communal jacuzzi playing the guitar when he's approached
by Adena, whose family is staying there as well.
She enjoys his music and comments on the graffiti on the guitar, causing James to lie and say
it's an older brother who bullies him.
The teens are actually getting along and bonding, but their little moment is interrupted by
Rusty pretending to be a stranger to wingman James.
He gets the opposite effect though: he throws innuendos about the teens that sound like
he's creeping on them, so Adena goes away.
The next morning, the family should be arriving at their aunt's house, but when he sees a
sign for the local hot springs, Rusty decides they can make a short stop before visiting
his sister.
The line to enter the national park where the springs are located is incredibly long
though, so Rusty asks a local man for a shortcut.
Surprisingly, they do get some directions for a hidden road through the forest, which
the family takes until the car can't advance any longer.
They finish the last stretch on foot and find
a spring they quickly jump into for some relaxation.
However, what seems fun at first quickly proves to be a nightmare: the brown goo isn't mud,
it's excrement, because they've been tricked into jumping in sewer water.
As they rush to get out, they hear the car alarm: the local guy had been a thief that
sent them down this road to rob them.
The only thing left in the car is Debbie's book and naughty graffiti on the doors.
Some hours later, the family arrives in Texas, where Rusty's sister Audrey lives with her
husband Stone and their baby.
Stone is a famous weatherman on tv, which means he's got lots of money and his family
lives very comfortably on a ranch.
James and Kevin admire Stone and Debbie considers him very handsome, which makes Rusty rather
jealous.
Thankfully, Audrey and Stone are nice and sympathetic, so they don't mind giving Rusty's
family some clothes for the rest of the trip.
Conversation goes well between both families, but it also has its awkward moments: Audrey
and Stone often have outbursts of passionate kissing in front of everyone, and Stone won't
stop flirting with Debbie.
Audrey doesn't understand why Rusty wants to return to Walley World after their father
freaked out there when they were kids, thus Rusty explains their dad had wanted them to
be close and that's what he wants for his family as well.
When night falls and everyone retires to bed, Debbie wastes no time and jumps on Rusty to
get busy.
However, Rusty doesn't want to do it like this because he's sure Debbie is only this
worked up because of Stone.
He also notices she's missing her wedding ring and thinks she took it off on purpose,
so Debbie has to explain it was loose and she must've lost it by accident, but she still
loves Rusty, not Stone.
The mood is ruined further when Stone comes by in his underwear with the excuse of asking
them if they need anything, but it's obvious he just wants to show off how well endowed
he is.
The next morning, Stone brings Rusty with him to herd some cows using four-wheelers.
As a pilot, Rusty can easily drive these things, but he gets distracted when he sees his family
and ends up running over a cow.
Not wanting to cause more trouble, the family leaves Audrey's house with a piece of paper
covering the graffiti on the doors of the car.
The following night is spent in a motel in Arizona.
While the boys sleep, Rusty gets an idea: he thinks they should get busy on the Four
Corners Monument, because it would be like doing it in four states at the same time.
Debbie approves of the idea and the pair drives there, only to be disappointed by what they
find: there's a long line of couples waiting for their turn to do it on the monument too.
The fun is suddenly interrupted by a police officer who causes everyone to run away.
Rusty and Debbie get left behind and think they may end up arrested; however, they're
soon blessed with a solution.
Cops from the other three states also arrive and begin arguing over who gets to make the
arrest, so Rusty and Debbie use the opportunity to run away too.
Meanwhile, James wakes up and sees his parents are missing, causing him to leave his room
to look for them.
He finds Adena instead and the teens get to bond again.
They're about to kiss when Kevin decides to be a twat once more and interrupts them.
Adena can't believe it's a younger brother who has been bullying James all this time,
so James tries to explain he was being the better man because he shouldn't hit a little
kid.
However, he changes his mind when Adena points out he should stand up for himself, and an
inspired James jumps on Kevin to return all the insults and hits he's suffered through
the years.
Kevin isn't brave now that James fights back, and from now on he won't be bothering his
brother anymore.
The next day, they drive by the Grand Canyon and decide to stop to go rafting.
Their guide is Chad, an over-enthusiastic man that won't stop cracking jokes.
His mood quickly changes though, when he receives a call from his fiance saying she's breaking
up with him.
Chad pretends to be fine and gets on a raft with the family, but seeing Rusty and Debbie
being sweet with each other irritates him more.
So when a fork appears on the river, Chad chooses the wrong option on purpose, intending
to enter in the fast current to end things for himself.
Rusty notices this and saves him, but he quickly
changes his mind when he notices they're approaching
a waterfall.
The whole family jumps off the raft and swims away while Chad faces the inevitable.
Afterward, Debbie and the boys are in a bad mood, requesting to return home.
Rusty refuses because they're near their destination
and tries to get them to sing Seal's song
again, to no avail.
Suddenly, the car runs out of gas, so now the family is stuck in the middle of the desert
with no signal on their phones.
Unwilling to give up, Rusty tries to find a solution by testing all the buttons on the
car, but it only causes it to drive away on its own and explode.
Rusty still thinks they can get out of this one, so Debbie snaps, explaining she's sick
of his stubborn hope and that neither she nor the kids wanted to come on this trip.
It was Rusty's idea, and it's time to admit it was a mistake.
This hurts Rusty, who finally accepts to give up and thinks it's unfair for them to take
it out on him for wanting to spend a fun time with his family.
He also confesses he was given the offer to fly international, but he's always turned
it down because he doesn't want to stay away from his family for that long.
Their conversation is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the teddy bear truck.
The driver comes out and reveals it's true he's been following them, but not to kill
them - he's actually found Debbie's ring and just wants to return it to her.
He also offers to give them a lift to San Francisco, and the family accepts because
that's where Rusty's parents live.
Clark and Ellen are happy to see them after
so long and listen to the story of their adventures
over dinner.
Feeling bad for James, Clark gifts him his old guitar.
Ellen asks how Audrey's doing and tells Debbie that her marriage is a sham, both she and
Stone have been cheating on each other for years.
Clark wishes his daughter had a more solid marriage like Rusty's, which gives Debbie
a lot to think about.
Meanwhile in the bedroom, Rusty discovers Debbie hasn't been reading a novel, she just
used a different dust jacket to cover the fact she's been reading a non-fiction book
about failed marriages.
Debbie finds him and apologizes, quickly reassuring
him their marriage isn't dying because he
never stopped trying, but she did.
Rusty disagrees, saying she deserves better, but Debbie decides to throw the book in the
trash and point out their marriage is solid, so they just need to communicate a little
more from now on in order to both get their needs taken care of.
The couple kisses and finally gets to spend a night together properly.
The next morning, the family wants to return home by plane, but Clark doesn't let them.
He thinks the phrase "it's the journey, not the destination" is completely wrong.
In fact, Clark points out the journey has
always sucked, and that's what makes you appreciate
the destination.
Clark wants his son to fulfill his dream, so he gives him one of his cars to make it
to the park.
A few hours later, the family arrives at Walley World, and the boys admit it's cooler than
they expected.
The line for the rollercoaster is four-hour long, but the family waits patiently until
their turn.
This is the last ride of the day so they're the last group to be allowed in, but when
they're about to come in, Ethan shows up and takes their spot with his own family because
he's got a pass to skip lines.
Ethan insults Rusty, but this time, Rusty has had enough and punches Ethan to start
a fight.
Both families begin hitting each other, and Rusty's side wins thanks to Kevin's sadistic
techniques.
The family wastes no time and gets on the rollercoaster in such a good mood that Debbie
and the boys sing Seal's song for Rusty.
However, their happiness is short-lived: the
ride gets stuck halfway up the butterfly inversion,
and it isn't until several hours later that they're rescued.
Sometime later, Rusty sends his sons to stay with the Petersons while he and Debbie finally
get to travel to France.
Rusty got these tickets thanks to his connections in the airline, but admittedly they aren't
very good: the couple is seated in jump seats next to a lavatory.
Debbie claims she doesn't care as long as they finally get to Paris, but she definitely
shows annoyance when she realizes the flight will last twelve hours.